A Hero Is Born, Part 3

Alan: The day is bright, brisk, cold. Out to sea, the temperature is lower; the ocean remembers the chill of winter even as the earth begins to forget it.

Alan: There are no barriers to the stiff Fourthmonth wind; the sea is whipped to whitecaps as Godfrey pulls his sheepskin jacket tight around his neck.

Alan: "It is fortunate that rustic fashions have come into vogue, my lady, because conditions at sea admit of little vanity in the matter of clothing."

** Renate huddles into her own jacket, cold but happy. **

Renate: "For this view, it's worth it!"

Alan: The terrain, which was gray and brown but slowly beginning to show buds of green in Ilium, has changed overnight into a breathtaking range of cliffs and mountains.

Alan: The coastline is rocky and inhospitable here, but the crash of waves against the distant broken land is poetic.

Alan: "Indeed, my lady. Although the lands surrounding Eridu produce little of value, they are nonetheless beautiful."

Renate: "That's enough."

Renate: She seems to be shaking off the Dorothy Durai blues.

Alan: "Aye, miss," says Captain Highwind, stomping over from a chat with the helmsman. "And when we round the cape into the Bay of Devils, you'll see one of the grandest sights of the Silver Coast, outside of Atlantis."

Renate: "I'll look forward to it, Captain."

Alan: "It's a peaceful harbor—one of the best for shipping and sailing. A fearsome name, though, coming from the Second Age, when it was a Dark Elf naval base."

Renate: "Funny, isn't it, how names survive?"

Alan: "They say that there are still haunted shipwrecks far down in undersea caverns there, where dark elf ghosts plot a furious vengeance against the elves."

Alan: "They'll be in for a surprise when they finally come up for air, you think?"

** Renate shivers pleasantly. **

Renate: "Things do change under one's feet!"

Alan: "Living on the sea, you see that the whole world is a cycle. Low tide follows high, the moon comes and goes, the earth itself tilts under our feet."

Alan: "And just the same, the light elves kill the dark, the dragons kill the elves, and some day something will kill the dragons as well."

Renate: "Farmers have cycles too -- just different ones."

Alan: "Only humans go on, always the same."

Renate: "Always?"

Alan: "Aye, or so the legends say. We were born of Chaos, but for all the crashing and clashing of the world, we're still around and about."

Alan: "That's something to think on, when life gets rough."

Renate: "It is indeed. It's a bit large, though, for private problems, Captain."

Alan: "I don't know about that. When I'm feeling a little bit down, it's somehow a comfort to know that there are a million people who've felt like me, and there'll be millions more ere the world is done."

Alan: "It makes my troubles seem not so large."

** Renate takes his elbow. **

Alan: The captain takes out his pipe and starts the laborious process of loading and lighting it.

Renate: "A man like you is too good for troubles, Captain."

Renate: "Best stick with your ship, and leave troubles to us who're good for nothing else."

Alan: "Trouble finds every man and woman before they die, Lady von Adler. No use maundering over it."

Alan: "That's the word, right, Godfrey? Maundering?"

Renate: "Please. Renate."

Alan: "Quite, my friend," Godfrey replies.

Alan: "Ah, and here we are... have a look off the port bow, miss, and you'll see the Bay of Devils."

Alan: The captain gestures in the direction of the coastline.

** Renate looks eagerly. **

Alan: A particularly tall cliff, more like a mountain cut away completely into the ocean, reaches out into the sea. This must be the cape of which the captain spoke.

Alan: As the ship passes it and angles to the left into the harbor, you're confronted with Eridu, in all its ragamuffin beauty.

Alan: It's a city built on cliff terraces, sandwiched between two broken mountains.

Renate: (Guanajuato, Mexico!)

Alan: Entire neighborhoods are separated by hundreds of feet, connected by huge commuter elevators, and long series of switchbacks.

Renate: "My word. How does anyone get anywhere?"

Alan: The city's base is near sea level; its highest regions, further back, are about halfway up the two mountains.

Alan: The city looks somewhat smaller than Ilium.

Alan: "Elevators, my lady. Wooden platforms are moved up and down the cliffs by means of a pulley system, and ample unskilled labor."

Renate: "You mean, human labor? Why don't they use horses or mules?"

Alan: "Furthermore," Godfrey continues, "there are extensive caves built into the cliffs, which house entire neighborhoods and commercial districts."

Alan: "These caverns communicate by means of spiral staircases."

Renate: "My. Don't people feel a little shut in?"

Alan: "It takes all sorts of people to make up a world," the captain says. "Some people are willing to bend their backs for cheaper than the cost of housing a mule; and some people are willing to live in a cave."

** Renate thinks about that. **

Alan: "It's a mite strange until you learn how Eridu works. There are hiring halls that provide the cheap labor for things like the elevators, and the factories."

Alan: "And the hiring halls were run by some pretty rich people. And in Eridu, that's power."

Renate: "How much choice do they really have, Captain?" she asks, hoping it is not a stupid question.

Alan: "So someone else tried to bring in animals to do the same work, and all of a sudden there were new licenses and taxes for him to pay."

Renate: "Oh."

Alan: "You see how it works? Whoever has the money writes the rules... and once you can write the rules, it's easy to make money."

Renate: "I see."

Renate: It doesn't sound like a very pleasant system to Renate.

Renate: But perhaps it has advantages that aren't evident at first view.

Alan: A pilot craft comes to meet the ship as it enters the harbor. Captain Highwind invites the pilot aboard, and allows him to take the command.

** Renate observes the ceremony with interest. **

Renate: "Why don't they just leave, Godfrey?" she whispers. "Go to Ilium, or even Andragar?"

Renate: "It sounds about as bad as slavery."

Alan: "There are people for whom options are few; they have little or no education, and little legal standing."

Alan: "Andragar polices immigration carefully, intending to set a certain standard for its citizenry."

Alan: "And in Eridu, there are jobs; whereas in Ilium, there are not."

** Renate listens carefully. **

Alan: "Some go to Ithaca, to live as miners... but mining is work just as difficult, with rewards just as scarce."

Renate: "It's a bleak world, Godfrey. I didn't know."

Renate: She feels ashamed of having been so sorry for herself.

Alan: "There is bleakness and opportunity in equal measure; but it is true that these attributes tend to spread themselves among people, not among the moments of any one person's life."

Alan: "That his life of hardship is balanced by the luxury of another is surely little consolation for one without opportunity for advancement."

Renate: "I wouldn't think."

Renate: If Renate were at home, Sabine would have recognized the set of her small frame immediately, as rather in need of a hug.

Renate: Renate, however, is scrupulously respectful of Godfrey's personal space.

Renate: So she only stands near the rail, drooping a bit as she watches the city they are approaching.

Alan: Eridu is brown, yellow, sedimentary lines tufted with the green of gardens and tree-lined avenues.

Alan: As the ship pulls into the docks, you become aware that it's a major trading area, even more than Ilium was; the entire docklands are a massive confusion of buying, selling, loading, unloading, auctioneering, and random yelling.

** Renate can't find any questions to ask; the noise is a bit much for her. **

Renate: Even after Ilium.

Alan: The captain has a lot of things to oversee; he sets a dinner date with you and Godfrey, then he's shipping back out the next morning.

** Renate knows better than to get in his way. **

Renate: She accepts the dinner date with pleasure, and lets him go.

Alan: And this leaves you at liberty in Eridu.

Renate: "Now. We're looking for a sort of temple, isn't that right?"

Alan: A raggedly-dressed dwarf is selling city maps to anyone who'll buy; Godfrey picks one up.

Alan: A quick bit of research shows that the Grand Temple of Whirlwind Lionheart is in the upper northern part of the city, in its largest level sector, along (quite appropriately) the Avenue of Gold.

Renate: "Shall we go take a look?"

Renate: "Can we drop the luggage somewhere?"

Alan: "Let us check in at a hotel of some sort. The nearest one that looks suitable should suffice; Lord Darenton's gift may have to last us some time."

Renate: "All right."

** Renate shoulders a hefty share of the baggage. **

Alan: Porters—perhaps part of a guild, since they all wear a similar hat—offer to carry your luggage for you for a fee.

** Renate follows Godfrey's lead. **

Alan: Godfrey heads over to one of the elevators. "Captain Highwind alerted me to this particular stratagem," he mentions. "Upon accepting the luggage, they'll take the long road up the switchbacks to increase their total fee."

Renate: "Got it." She follows him.

Alan: Godfrey has to pay two chips to get you both on the elevators; apparently that is a more palatable expenditure.

Renate: "I don't mind doing my own lugging anyway. Or yours, for that matter."

Alan: Godfrey has always seemed durable, but a long trip up a cliffside can't be a pleasant prospect for him.

Alan: The workers turn a capstan, chanting a Lan'yarian work-song.

Renate: Renate is young. She'll take as much as she can load on.

Alan: The elevator rises with a gentle motion, speeding and slowing with each heave on the pulleys.

Alan: A good dozen other passengers are along with you.

Alan: At the top of this cliff, you debarks into an area that only extends a few blocks back before it abuts the cliffside.

Alan: There seem to be a good number of hotels and taverns here; perhaps they'd be competing for business.

** Renate shoulders the packs again. **

Renate: "I can't see when I'm carrying this stuff; stay ahead of me, won't you?"

Alan: Godfrey has a decent share of the luggage himself, despite your best efforts. "Of course, my lady."

Renate: "Now, give me that back!"

Alan: Each establishment here seems to have a pitchman out front, trying to gather custom from incoming travellers. Godfrey listens to their spiels with half an ear.

Renate: "I'm not the one with the game leg."

Alan: Before long, one of the pitches seems to satisfy him, and he forces you to break off looting his luggage supply with a wave of his hand.

Renate: "Whatever you say."

Alan: "We'll stay here. Between the price and the architecture, I imagine our accomodations will be pleasant enough."

** Renate squints up at the architecture. **

Alan: The establishment is a boarding house of the traditional sort, run by a pleasant middle-aged widow. The building seems both old and ornate; the kind of place that inspires one to maintain its reputation.

Alan: At least, that seems to be Godfrey's assumption.

Renate: "You do know how to pick 'em. C'mon, my shoulder's cramping."

Alan: You offload your luggage in your rooms, and accept a light lunch in the main dining room: included in the board.

Alan: Most of the other diners are business travellers; from their talk among each other, you get the impression that Eridu is either a merchant's dream or a merchant's nightmare, depending on one's niche.

Renate: What sorts of things are they talking about selling?

Alan: One man acts as a middleman between cities, and reaps a rich harvest each season; another is attemping to open a series of general stores in Eridu itself, and is encountering great difficulty.

Alan: It seems that those who try to occupy existing sectors of the economy encounter serious resistance both from local associations and from the complex legal code.

Alan: Guild fees and city fees are both hot topics of discussion.

** Renate finds it all bewildering, but does her best to make sense out of it. **

Renate: "I don't think I'm cut out for a merchant, Godfrey."

Renate: "I'm sure that isn't news."

Alan: Is there anything special you'd like to do after lunch? Or will you be proceeding straight to the temple to ask about passage to Forfeit Isle?

Renate: Let's hit the temple.

Renate: Renate doesn't especially like this place.

Renate: She'd like to do her business and get out.

Alan: The Avenue of Gold is like the market district of Ilium, laid out in a solid strip and double-decked.

Alan: The street is wide, lined densely with shops on either side, and a solid strip of stalls and peddlers' carts turns the street into a de facto boulevard.

Renate: Normally Renate would be window-shopping, but she seems quite determined to get past the crush to the temple.

Alan: This density of commerce isn't enough, though: there are second-story shops, accessible by boardwalks that travel along above the lower level.

Renate: Maybe she took Godfrey's warning about money to heart.

Renate: Or perhaps there's simply too much to look at.

Alan: Some shops even do business without such a convenience: you see one bakery that catches thrown payments in a giant bucket and throws bread down piping-hot.

** Renate tucks that away to tell Sabine, who will be horrified. **

Alan: The Grand Temple of Whirlwind Lionheart enforces a small area of quiet amid the confusion.

Alan: It occupies a space as wide as three storefronts, but is integrated into the street cleanly; there is a recessed courtyard, with great wooden double doors.

Renate: Are the doors open?

Alan: The building is made entirely of wood, in fact; polished timbers with gold inlay. Even from the outside, it looks like a rich banker's office.

Renate: Renate doesn't think much of "rich" right now, for some reason.

Alan: The doors are not open; instead, there is a brass plaque on the door, with a sliding panel which can reveal one message while blocking another.

** Renate goes up to read the panel. **

Alan: Right now, the word "open" is revealed.

Alan: :)

Renate: All right, then; she tries the door.

Alan: It swings open smoothly, hinging on an unseen mechanism.

** Renate goes in. **

Alan: Inside is a lobby, not a sanctum; there are leather chairs, potted plants, indirect lighting, and a receptionist's desk at the far end.

** Renate heads for the desk. **

Alan: A young man in dark green robes looks up from a great ledger as you enter.

Alan: "Peace and profit be yours, citizen. How may we deal?"

Renate: "I seek passage to Forfeit Isle, and was told it could be had here."

Alan: The man is visibly taken aback. "Well." He stands. "I am Klaus. For such a dire request, I fear I must refer you to my superior."

Renate: "Thank you. I will wait."

Alan: The Occultist departs, and returns after several minutes.

** Renate wonders uncomfortably what makes the request "dire." **

Alan: "Forgive the delay," he says. "Such a request is rare. I have summoned Father Salesh. He will work with you to meet your goals."

Renate: "Thank you again, Klaus. I appreciate it."

Alan: A moment later, a well-groomed dwarf appears from the back doorway. His robes are the same dark green as Klaus', but he wears a golden chasuble of office.

Alan: "Peace and profit, of course. Perhaps you will follow me to my office?"

** Renate curtsies to him. **

Renate: "Yes, certainly, Father. Thank you."

Alan: You and Godfrey follow the dwarf down red-carpeted hallways paneled with intricately-worked wood and hung with paintings in gold-encrusted frames.

Alan: The theme isn't even wealth, it's ostentation.

** Renate disapproves blackly, but keeps it to herself. **

Alan: But then, you've heard that Whirlwind Lionheart represents Greed, not just Wealth; and so this decor may well be pleasing to him.

Renate: It isn't what you have; it's who you are. Or she thinks so.

Renate: Greed, eh? This could get expensive.

Alan: The dwarven occultist's office is small but opulent; a heatstone embedded in the ceiling keeps it at a constant warmth, and a small collection of golden figurines adorns a shelf.

Alan: "Well, my lady. I am Cardach Salesh, a junior priest of Whirlwind Lionheart."

** Renate thinks about the ragged dwarf with the maps. **

Renate: "My name is Renate von Adler, and this is my manservant Godfrey Cuyler."

Alan: He makes the holy sign of Whirlwind Lionheart; or at least, he makes an obscure gesture.

** Renate readily assumes it is a holy sign. **

Alan: "We are well met, then. Shall we do business?"

Alan: He sits, and gestures for you to do the same.

** Renate sits in the indicated chair. **

Alan: The chairs are comfortable and deep-cushioned.

Alan: "I can see from your bearing and your attire that you are a lady of no little substance. Do I correctly assume that you are of noble blood?"

Renate: "I am the second child of the Baron of Karlbotel."

Alan: Perhaps in keeping with Captain Highwind's implication that human affairs outlast those of human masters, the noble lines that ruled under the elves and the dragons are often more historically respected than transient overlords.

Renate: :)

Alan: "It can only be some great crisis that inspires you to travel physically to Forfeit Isle. Are you certain that we, Lord Lionheart's closest servants, cannot assist you?"

Renate: "Well, I don't rightly know. Let me explain my situation."

Renate: "An heirloom from my father's house was stolen from us, and came -- honestly, I believe -- into the hands of Lord Lionheart. I seek its return."

Renate: "Can you get it back without the journey? If so, I would certainly forego it."

Alan: "If Whirlwind Lionheart mantains a personal interest in this item, I shall assume that it is magical, or of some great antiquity?"

Renate: "Both, sir."

Alan: "Then I can understand why our patron would wish to hold it in his personal collection."

** Renate nods. **

Alan: "Usually, when he encounters an item of value, he appoints us as his earthly brokers."

Renate: "I see. Then perhaps you can obtain the item?"

Alan: "If you describe it to me, I can inquire as to whether it is for sale through our mortal agency."

Renate: "It is the Bow of Iskhur, with which the dragon Endrath was defeated."

Alan: "I see. Please allow me a brief ritual."

Renate: "Certainly, sir."

Alan: Salesh takes a small censer from his desk, and burns a smidge of incense while reciting a prayer in a strange tongue.

Alan: Inhaling the smoke of the incense, he assumes an expression of concentration.

Alan: "No," he says after a moment. "Whirlwind Lionheart requires a personal audience with all those who seek the bow."

Alan: "This is troubling. The journey to Forfeit Isle is not without risk."

** Renate sighs. "Very well, then. I must crave passage of you." **

Alan: "Most portions of the Faerie Realm are built out of the Mists, safely solidified."

Alan: "But we can only put you at the far shore from Forfeit Isle; the journey there must take you down into a lake of Mists."

Renate: "And what may I expect there?"

Alan: "The Mists are the raw fabric of time and space from which the six planes were spun. In them, all of the past and future, and all lands, are one."

Alan: "You may well encounter... anything at all."

Alan: "Anything that has ever happened, or ever will."

Alan: "Thus, I can give no useful advice, save this: what you will experience is real, disbelief will not help you, but the Mists will open up again before you at least once."

Renate: "I suppose I must take comfort in most of life being extraordinarily -- ordinary, Father."

Alan: "When you see them, you must remember your true goal and press on."

Renate: "If disbelief is no help, what is?"

Alan: "The same tools with which you approach anything in life, Lady von Adler."

Renate: "I must not delay when I see the mists, then."

** Renate smiles. **

Renate: "They have done me little good heretofore, Father."

Alan: "To deal with Whirlwind Lionheart, you will need an item of great value."

Renate: "What sort of item?"

Alan: "Mere gold will not satisfy him; only a unique work of art will catch his eye."

Renate: "Eridu being Eridu, I am sure such can be procured here. Can you advise me as to where?"

Alan: "The Street of Locksmiths joins the Avenue of Gold just north of the temple. There are many clever metalworkers there, but none more clever than Johann Shaleberg."

** Renate nods. **

Renate: "I will seek him out, then. Thank you."

Alan: "I do not believe that Lord Lionheart has ever seen the man's work."

Renate: "Ah, indeed? Then how can I know it will find favor?"

Alan: "Simply because of that fact, of course. Having all else, Lord Lionheart does not need wealth; instead, he hungers for novelty."

Renate: "Hm. Perhaps that is the reason he demands audience."

Renate: "If nothing else, I have honestly acquired a certain reputation for novelty."

Renate: "When should I return to take passage, Father?"

Alan: "The ritual which will propel you into the Faerie Realm will require precious materials, and the time of our more senior priests. It will not be ready until tomorrow morning, and will carry a price of two gold pieces."

Renate: "Very well."

Renate: "Shall we close the bargain with one gold piece now?"

Alan: "That will be pleasing in my master's eyes," the dwarf replies.

** Renate looks at Godfrey, who as usual is carrying the cash. **

Alan: Godfrey counts out ten silver and lays it on the desk.

Alan: Father Salesh writes you a receipt and stamps it with the holy symbol of Whirlwind Lionheart: a staff topped with a stylized berry sprig.

** Renate takes the receipt and stands. **

Renate: "You have been very helpful, Father Salesh. I am grateful for your aid."

Alan: Father Salesh sees you back to the lobby and bids you farewell.

Alan: "Did you find profit?" Klaus asks.

Renate: "That remains to be seen. I hope so."

** Renate sighs once she is out the door. **

Renate: "Johann Shaleburg, then?"

Renate: (oops, typo, sorry)

Renate: (thinko, actually)

Alan: "I suspect a certain collusion between the two men; but I am certain the priest would not recommend a poor candidate."

Alan: "Whirlwind Lionheart has never been called outwardly malicious."

Renate: "Of course they're talking with each other. I daresay Shaleberg bribed the temple."

Renate: "Let's go find him, get this over with."

Renate: "Sorry to put you on the spot about the money, but I thought it would get us out of there fastest."

Alan: The Street of Locksmiths is much less frantic than the Avenue of Gold; and much smaller, to the point where you wouldn't have found it if you didn't know you were looking for it.

Alan: "If preparations are involved, certainly the church would have required a payment in advance. By proffering one, you have most likely endeared yourself."

Renate: "Lucky me."

Renate: "Somehow Eridu doesn't seem to operate on endearments."

Renate: "Is this it?"

Alan: The shops along this street are smaller, specializing in careful metalwork of all kinds. No two side-by-side businesses cover the same thing, but between clockmakers, jewelers, weaponsmiths, and the eponymous locksmiths, a theme emerges.

Alan: One neatly-kept shop bears the sign "The Dancing Fairy: Johann Shaleberg, proprietor."

Renate: "All right, then; in we go."

Renate: "Odd name."

Alan: The window display shows jewelry and sculptures of all types, done in various precious metals.

Alan: The interior of the shop is close, almost cramped, but immaculate and perfectly organized.

** Renate keeps her elbows in and watches her step. **

Alan: Display cases take up most of the room, with a cash counter at the far end and a raised workbench just to your right as you enter.

Alan: An old man with a handlebar mustache and dark suspenders sits at the workbench, peering through a magnifying glass held in place by an armature.

Alan: As you enter, he says "Come in, welcome, have a look around, I'll be with you in just a moment."

Renate: "Thank you."

Alan: Behind the counter, you see a large figurine of a slender woman, dressed in a flowing gown and crowned with flowers, performing what looks like the first step of a ballet.

Alan: "The shop's namesake, to be sure," Godfrey says.

Alan: "That's right," says the proprietor, dismounting from his workbench. "My masterwork."

Renate: "Ah, yes. I hope Lord Lionheart's tastes do not run to such; it looks heavy."

Alan: "Looking for a gift for Whirlwind Lionheart, are you? Really now?"

** Renate is in no mood to beat around the bush. **

Renate: "Yes, I am; Father Salesh recommended you to me."

Renate: It seems only right he should know the results of his contact with the temple.

Alan: "Did he now? He has some confidence in me, then."

** Renate looks around. **

Renate: "Not unearned, I am sure."

Alan: Shaleberg hobbles over behind the counter. "You realize, of course, that impressing Whirlwind Lionheart requires quite a princely piece of work. I have a few things I wouldn't be ashamed to present to Noble Jade himself, but the expense, well."

Renate: "Show me what you think would be appropriate, and then we can discuss the expense."

** Renate is a little too canny to bracket his expectations right away. **

Alan: "Well, let me start by getting my special collection," he says, and heads off into the back room for a minute.

Alan: "Here we go," he says, setting a black iron lockbox on the counter. He presses his thumb against its flat metal lockplate, and it springs open.

Alan: "All these pieces are done entirely in cleria. I think they call it mythril in Andragar."

** Renate steps close to investigate. **

Alan: "That makes them far more expensive than gold or platinum, but they're of special value to fairies."

Alan: "In the Faerie Realm, cleria shines like a rainbow, and it has a special fascination for them."

Renate: "I see," Renate says, peering at the work.

Alan: "This first one, this is based a little bit on my first wife. Faeries like pieces with human figures; they like seeing faces and emotions."

Alan: "So I tried to put a little bit of my own love into this artwork."

Alan: He makes the holy sign of Uriel.

Renate: "I am sorry," Renate says gently.

Alan: "I don't know how Whirlwind Lionheart thinks; but I'd value this one at perhaps thirty gold pieces, based on the material and work."

** Renate nods. **

Alan: "Now this second one, I don't see him going for it. Not human, even though it's got emotion." This figurine is of a horse, rearing defiantly, tossing its head.

Alan: "So we'll skip over it."

Renate: "I assume Lord Lionheart is a shrewd appraiser."

Renate: "What value would you guess earns his goodwill?"

Alan: "Ha! Whatever you have to give, as long as it's enough to be worth his time, my lady."

Alan: "If you have something to offer, that faerie king wants it all."

Alan: "That's why it's so dangerous to deal with him. You have to bring only what you plan to pay with, because he won't accept anything less than everything you have on you."

Renate: "I see. I wonder whether I should perhaps have brought less with me."

Alan: "But if you don't bring enough, he won't deal at all."

Alan: "You can leave things behind in the mortal world, and hope he won't know."

Alan: "He's not omniscient. They don't know all your secrets."

Renate: "A slim hope, I suspect, in this case."

Alan: "Unless you think he's been spying on you."

Renate: "It seems possible, yes."

Alan: "Hmm, well..."

Alan: He returns to the lockbox, and takes out another figure.

Alan: "This one, now, this one is one of my most recent pieces. There was a state dinner, and a representative of Heaven was invited. Don't ask me why, I don't understand a thing about politics."

Alan: "He just happened to go to a gallery showing, and I just happened to meet him."

Renate: "I wouldn't think of it."

Alan: "So this is my sculpture of Dian Dan Shi."

Alan: The man is tall, very handsome, chiseled, muscular; the absolute image of the noble warrior. But on his face, along with confidence and command, is a sadness and frustration.

** Renate is immediately caught by it, transfixed. **

Alan: "The man's a great thinker and a great fighter, but he was born mute. He's a man who has risen as high as he can."

Renate: She stares without speaking.

Renate: "But he dreams of something different."

Alan: "Yes, I think his life is one where he tried so hard to get over his handicap that he put himself in a place he can't get out of."

Alan: "I'd put this one at maybe seventy gold. It's a bit larger, a bit more of a topical subject. And, if I say so, better work."

Renate: "You -- you have done very well, to capture so much."

Alan: "But you want to see the real gem, here..." He flips over a divider, revealing the piece which takes up the other half of the lockbox.

Alan: "This one is probably the best thing I've ever done."

** Renate reluctantly tears her eyes away from the statue of the warrior. **

Alan: It's smaller than the sculpture of the Lune Knight, but its detail is very fine.

Alan: Rocks rise up out of a placid sea, bent and broken, rising up to a precipice.

Alan: At the edge of the rock, a young man stands, fist upraised, the other hand cast back toward the land, as if to embrace or challenge both land and sea.

Alan: On his face is an expression of exultation; the expression of a person facing the spray of the ocean with defiance, or winning a battle that's been fated his entire life; or facing one with confidence.

Alan: Shaleberg sets the sculpture on the table, and then presses on one edge.

** Renate examines it impassively. It does not seize her imagination as the other did. **

Alan: What seemed like a placid sea of silver suddenly sets into motion; the metal itself is liquid there, and its density and heaviness cause it to ripple and roll like the sea, despite the difference in scale.

Renate: "My! That *is* clever."

Renate: "And your price for this, Master Shaleberg?"

Alan: "It's mercury, contained in a magical field. Produced with an Alchemist friend of mine."

Alan: "The rest of the figure is cleria, of course."

Renate: "It cannot escape, I hope!"

Alan: "I would value this one at a hundred gold pieces."

Renate: "I see. A pity. I can offer only ninety-eight."

Alan: "Well," says Shaleberg, "for a young woman who is braving the Mists in order to make a deal with a Faerie King, I could certainly offer a discount. How about ninety, plus your story once you return?"

** Renate smiles. **

Renate: "Agreed, Master Shaleberg. May I come by early tomorrow morning to complete the bargain?"

Alan: "Of course. I rise early, these days."

Renate: "Very well, then. Renate von Adler thanks you, and bids you good day."

Alan: "And a good day to you as well. And good luck."

Renate: "Thank you, sir."

---

Alan: The temple tongue of the Faerie Realm bears no relationship to the Angelic temple tongue of the churches of Law.

Renate: Not that Renate has any knowledge of either.

Alan: The fluid and musical syllables ring oddly in your ears, and the smell of the faerie incense, itself summoned from the far plane for this ritual, synaesthetically becomes its backbeat and counterpoint.

Alan: You stand within an octagram poured from gold-laced sand; symbols entreating wealth, gain, loss, and craving adorn its edges like animals dancing along the course of a zodiac.

Alan: As the ritual progresses, the grains of sand slowly shiver one by one, and then, like an atom changing state, snap into the color of gold.

** Renate stands quietly, waiting. **

Alan: The elder priest has long bushy eyebrows, an elaborately embroidered green robe that is nearly solid gold with decoration, and a long golden staff, which he raps against different signs of the octogram according to the chant.

Alan: You don't have to wait long; with no special crescendo or climax to the ceremony itself, the room slowly fills with Mist, until you are no longer able to see.

Alan: Godfrey was forbidden to speak for fear of disrupting the ritual, but his eyes wish you good luck as the Mist rises to cover them.

** Renate remembers what Father Salesh said, and wonders how real "real" will prove to be. **

** Renate musters a faint smile for him. **

Alan: And then you feel a faint breeze, just enough to make the mists swirl around you, and start to clear.

Alan: You hear the lonely plaint of some far-off lake bird, echoing across water.

Alan: You are on the shores of a lake; or at least, you think it is a lake, although you cannot see its surface for the dense mist that hangs over it.

Alan: Far out in the middle is an island.

Alan: A dark green-gray grass bends slickly beneath your feet.

** Renate reaches down to touch the ground with one hand. **

Attempting to assign the role of GM to (1) Alan...

Attempting to assign the role of PLAYER to (2) Renate...

Alan: The grass feels real, springy, wet, alive.

Renate: She hopes it is not a genuine lake; she is not a good swimmer.

Alan: Beneath it, the spongy earth feels just like the pond-side grounds of Karlbotel.

Renate: Well. If that is Forfeit Isle, that's where she has to go.

Renate: She stands up straight, squares hips and shoulders over her feet as if she were about to start a tumbling run, and walks toward the island.

Alan: There is no water; simply mist, seemingly solid but completely insubstantial to the touch, rising to your knees, your hips, your neck.

Alan: The ground rolls downward; but remains flat, grassy, easy to tread.

** Renate tries to hold her course straight. **

Alan: The mist closes over the top of your head; and all sound disappears with the dim light of the shrouded sun.

** Renate is tempted to close her eyes. **

Alan: Before you and behind and above is only gray, barely textured, and the steady tread of your own footsteps.

Renate: It is better to choose not to see than not to be able to.

Renate: Still, she keeps them open.

Alan: You've fought blind; you know how to keep your bearings over at least a short distance.

Alan: This skill comes into play as you put one foot in front of the other, again and again.

Renate: Fighting blind is as much fighting blindness as fighting one's opponent.

Alan: And then, after what seems like at least a half hour, your bootheel clicks lightly on stone.

Alan: A gust of wind tears the mists away; a flurry of spring rain comes with the blustering zephyr.

** Renate expects an ascent, and puts her hand out in case of rocks. **

Alan: You are standing on a flagstone; on the front steps of a building; in a city.

Alan: A city, you immediately sense, greater than Ilium; greater, then, that anything you've seen before.

Alan: The mists clear, and you can look more closely; buildings, their wood and stone dark with rain, rise four and five stories high here, and the broad streets are paved in flawless street-weave.

Alan: There are no horses here, only rickshaws, pedestrians, such a flood!

** Renate tries to find an out-of-the-way corner where she can get her bearins. **

Renate: (bearings, that is)

Alan: And even people riding bicycles—not the huge-wheels toys of the idle, but low, sleek vehicles designed for speed and convenience.

Alan: You step further back into the entryway of the building as the rain picks up.

Renate: Are there signs anywhere? Anything to indicate what city this is?

Alan: "Going to be quite a downpour when it really hits," says an elderly custodian who has just come out to sweep the steps.

Renate: "Seems so."

Renate: "I should have dressed for it."

Alan: "It'll be blowing in under this awning. But of course I'd better sweep anyway, or it'll all be mud."

** Renate turns up her collar. **

Alan: "Well, my nephew sells umbrellas at a stand just down the street. You won't miss him—his stand's under a great umbrella itself."

Alan: "You're new in town, then?"

Renate: "Sensible. Thanks."

Renate: "Yes, I am."

Alan: Your clothing is of a slightly different fashion than that which you see on the pedestrians.

Renate: Hm. Any clues in the clothing to where she might be?

Alan: Their clothing is both elegant and practical, almost austere, compared to the more buoyant fashions of Ilium.

Alan: You've read fashion magazines that come in with the month's mail—the new techniques of photography are just beginning to make their mark on the printing world.

Alan: These are the fashions of Andragar.

Renate: Oh.

Renate: Well. She needed to come here anyway.

Alan: "Perhaps I could give you some directions?" the custodian asks, leaning on his broom.

Renate: "Can you tell me where I might find soldiers' quarters?"

Alan: "Ah, the only soldiers you'll find in this part of the city wear the black and gold. And the lot of them will be at the Bernstein Memorial Arena."

Alan: "Tryouts today, don't you know."

Renate: "No, I didn't know. Are the tryouts public?"

Renate: (black and gold are Heaven's colors, I assume?)

Alan: "Certainly. Standing practice. Of course, there are some as don't like to see it. It can get quite fatal."

Alan: (Yes, and the colors of Andragar.)

Renate: "So I'm told. Thanks. You've been a great help."

Alan: (When there are Andragar regulars, they wear all black; and the Dragoons wear white with black and gold bands.)

Renate: "I assume this crowd is mostly heading in that direction too?"

Renate: "I'll get there if I just follow them?"

Alan: "You won't get anywhere here if you follow the crowd, miss."

** Renate laughs. **

Alan: "Just head down this street and take the third left that's not an alley."

Renate: "I'm not used to crowds being this big, I guess."

Alan: "The arena will be on your right after a block."

Renate: "Third left, one block, turn right. Thanks again!"

Alan: "Aye, they don't get bigger than they do in Gereval. Rivalon, Ys, Xanadu, they're all close."

** Renate resolutely heads off. **

Alan: The city blocks are long; the caution about alleys was apt, since there are many of them, some almost streets.

Renate: If she has to backtrack once or twice, she'll be all right.

Alan: But only the main streets have signs, large blue-painted signs with white lettering, which hang on long poles over each large intersection.

Alan: Watch officers in little turrets direct traffic; otherwise, each one would be a tangle of collisions.

** Renate shakes her head. How can Emil like this place? **

Alan: The arena is easy to find; in fact, there is a sign at the intersection saying "Arena," with a helpful arrow.

Renate: Crowded, regimented, anonymous.

Renate: Well, let's go in, then.

Renate: Her being here on tryout day can hardly be coincidence.

Alan: There are ticket gates, but they stand open at the moment; the attendants just nod amiably at those passing by.

Renate: If the ninety gold for the statue gains her her brother, it is worth every chip.

Alan: The arena itself is long and square, apparently used for some field game as well as fighting.

Alan: Burly guards direct the incoming crowd, which is now just a group of stragglers; most of those interested are already in the stands.

Renate: How full are the stands?

Renate: Can she get down front?

Alan: There's quite a large crowd, suggesting that this event isn't just a boot camp yelling fest.

Alan: There is standing room only down front, but it wouldn't be hard to get to a place near there, where you could still see.

Renate: Fair enough. She doesn't mind standing; she'll go.

Alan: On the field itself, only a fairly small ring is laid out, looking lonely amid the abstract markings used for the arena's main game.

Alan: Along one side of the ring, behind some sort of glass shield, are five wooden chairs, each occupied by a person in casual dress....

Alan: ...or what would be casual dress if it were not black and gold.

Alan: The combination is not rare, especially in Andragar, but here it cannot be worn lightly.

Renate: She wouldn't think.

Alan: And since there are three men and two women, it's clear who these five are.

Renate: Does any of them look like Shaleberg's statue?

Alan: You're certain that if you could go down and see them face to face, one of them would.

Renate: Is there a hierarchy to their seating arrangement?

Renate: She wonders which one is Vinn.

Alan: Dían Dan Shi, the Mute Lord.

Alan: If there are five, then Vinn is not present.

Alan: Or one of the Lune Knights is, of course.

Renate: Oh.

Renate: Oh, well.

Renate: She turns toward the arena. Staring at Lune Knights can't be healthy.

Alan: You're just in time. A man in full Heaven armor stands next to a gong made of brass, with one black stripe around its outside edge.

Alan: He strikes the gong, and its reverberations quiet the crowd.

Alan: "Dragoner Lachlan Vinn!"

Alan: There is no fanfare; a middle-aged man, slightly balding but slim, walks casually out of the contestants' entrance.

Alan: He, too, is dressed in no special finery, not even armor, but he carries a sword in each hand.

** Renate is impressed. No fuss. She approves of that. **

Renate: The good ones don't need it.

Alan: The rain has stopped, but the wind still blows in gusts, and sends his wavy dark hair into disarray.

Alan: He acknowledges his Lune Knights with a brief salute, which they return; one of them with a slightly lazier gesture than the others.

Renate: It's only greenhorns like herself who need facades like Emilia Eaglebourne.

Alan: That one must be Dekar Raviede, whose front of insouciance and waggish cheer is legendary.

Alan: The percussionist strikes the gong again, and in the wake of its last echoes yells "Atama o Naguru, of Skyrail Valley!"

Alan: "Come forth to be tested!"

Alan: With equal confidence and equal lack of pomp, a burly young hobgoblin enters from the opposite-side contestant entrance.

Alan: You can tell his tender age because his warrior's topknot is not fully grown; but his courage is clear.

Alan: His armor is light and leathern; he carries a heft bastard sword in a scabbard at his side, and a long iron hammer across his back.

Renate: He'll have to be strong. Vinn has decades more experience.

Alan: He enters the ring, bows respectfully, and shrugs off the hammer and sets it down.

Alan: As Vinn nods in return, the hobgoblin raises his sword for battle.

Alan: After a moment of contemplation, the hobgoblin realizes that Vinn will not attack first, and immediately goes on the offensive.

Alan: He rears back to his full height, raising his sword high above him, then drops into a deep ground-covering shuffle and attacks with seven swings. This is the "Remorhaz Rush" of the Polar Worm style.

Alan: Vinn sidesteps, and then avoids the entire sequence by picking and rolling around the hobgoblin, so close that the backs of their shoulders actually touch.

** Renate nods. Nice footwork. **

Alan: The fight continues, and as the hobgoblin presses his attack, heat-haze ripples above him, and his armor itself begins to smoke lightly. Like the mighty remorhaz itself, the hobgoblin is generating intense inner heat, which powers his physical attacks.

Alan: It begins to rain lightly, and the rain explodes into steam where it touches the hobgoblin.

Alan: At length, Vinn says something nobody can hear; and the hobgoblin makes a fierce leaping strike, and is blocked.

Alan: At length, the hobgoblin assumes a special stance, and an explosion of mist and steam rise off him.

Alan: Vinn chooses this very moment to attack, both swords flashing, and at the same time the unmistakeable green shards of magic missiles fly at the hobgoblin from either side.

** Renate winces. **

Renate: That's going to hurt.

Alan: Naguru twists and ducks to avoid the attacks, but is cut badly. He backs away favoring one arm and one leg.

Alan: He renews his attack, having vented the heat that was building up within him; but now Vinn is fighting back, applying a cut here, and nick there, wearing his opponent out, and, you realize, giving him the adrenaline he needs to show his greatest powers.

Alan: At last, he is rewarded; the young hobgoblin yells a battlecry and ripples towards Vinn for some sort of grab, but Vinn snakes away from the lock.

Alan: The arm Vinn used to deflect the grasping hands is on fire; Vinn bats it out and swigs a potion from the gauntlet on his other hand.

Alan: And at the same time, the hobgoblin turns around and his armor bursts into flame. His risky maneuver failed, and now his inner heat has overcome him.

Alan: He collapses, consumed from within, and the Heaven knight at the gong strides over to him and quickly extinguishes the flames with a word and a gesture.

Alan: The contestant is dragged off the field by attendants dressed in the white and gold of Raphael.

** Renate sighs relief. **

Alan: The knight strikes the gong, again: "James Cathryn, of Windhamshire!"

Renate: He was too good to take ship just yet.

Renate: (ah, yes, him. *grin*)

Alan: A human walks into the ring, dressed cockily in the black and gold himself.

** Renate mightily disapproves of his arrogance. **

Renate: Earn it before wearing it.

Alan: He holds a sheathed longsword across his shoulders, and strides briskly up.

Alan: He unsheathes the sword, letting the scabbard drop off in the other direction, and makes the symbol of Uriel in the air before assuming a fighting stance.

Renate: Hm. Perhaps not so arrogant after all.

Alan: The significance of the symbol is unclear; but if he has half a brain in his head, it's not meant for Vinn.

Alan: Vinn takes the offensive this time, and immediately displays the upper hand.

Alan: He disarms the young man with a rapid stroke, then knocks the blade into the air with his other sword, then forces James to scramble away from a series of blows timed, you realize, to give him just that chance.

Alan: James recovers his sword, and waits more cautiously; but Vinn then attacks him with a double downward blow, a double upward blow, and an in-sweeping dashing attack that carries him past James to stop with his arms crossed over his chest, swords pointed in opposite directions like a pair of scissors that had cut right through their own axis.

** Renate would have been tempted to try to kick Vinn's legs out from under him. **

Alan: James blocked the first, took the second through force, and now stares in disbelief as blood begins to well up from the wound across his chest.

Alan: He falls to his knees, and then his upper body falls to the ground.

Renate: Those two-handed attacks are simply murderous.

Renate: Renate wonders what Aaron would suggest to block them.

Alan: The priests rush out into the ring and grab the body parts for resurrection.

** Renate has to fight a rising gorge. **

Renate: Is it really necessary to be so brutal?

Renate: Where do the priests go?

Renate: Is the hobgoblin up and about yet?

Alan: They carry the remains back into the contestant area. You haven't seen the hobgoblin yet.

Renate: ah, down the side entrance.

Renate: So she can't see what goes on.

Alan: The gong is struck a third time. "Emil Ulrich von Adler, of Karlbotel County, Ilium!"

Renate: Renate's heart pounds like the hobgoblin's hammer.

Alan: Emil comes forth; and if he were apt to be cocky, he is chastened now.

Renate: She realizes she does not want to watch this.

Renate: But it is disrespectful to her brother not to.

Alan: He wears simple browns, and the same type of leather armor you always used when training.

Renate: She breathes a prayer to Michael.

Alan: He carries a bundle over his back.

Alan: And no visible weapon.

Renate: She does not call out to him; nothing must distract him.

Renate: She would give him Crescent Light if she had it; but she left it with Godfrey.

Alan: He stops before the ring, and asks something you can dimly understand as "I request permission to enter your ring."

Renate: In case she lost herself, and never emerged from the mists.

Alan: Vinn nods approvingly, and Emil steps over the boundary, bowing before he does so.

Alan: He comes up to stand just outside Vinn's threatening range, and bows again, then presents the bundle to Vinn.

Renate: Emil always did understand respect.

Alan: Vinn opens it, and reveals five or six wooden training swords of various sizes.

Renate: Renate has tried to emulate him, on this point as many others.

Alan: Even from here, you can see Vinn smile, and say something snatched away by the wind.

Alan: He stands, and with a gesture and a winking of light, his swords are gone.

Alan: Two wooden swords of equivalent size fly from the unrolled burlap into his hands.

Renate: Brilliant. Simply brilliant.

Renate: That's her brother.

Renate: She is so proud -- and so afraid.

Alan: The other contestants knew that Vinn was armed, and brought their most deadly skills; but Emil knows Aaron's lessons: "Violence, my lad, is what you bring with you."

Renate: That's what worries her.

Renate: Can Vinn *not* bring violence?

Renate: When he just cut a man in two, for show?

Alan: Emil chooses a sword of his own; three and a half feet long and curved, like Crescent Light.

Alan: He steps into the middle of the ring with Vinn, and they begin.

** Renate takes a deep breath, and watches steadily. **

Alan: Emil does not use Wrenfall; instead, he uses the simple military style he learned with the Karlbotel militia.

Alan: The audience is abuzz—why would anyone who fights like a farmer or a foot soldier challenge Heaven?

** Renate smiles to herself. **

Alan: Vinn fights him on even terms; sword clacks on sword, the sound thin and cold in what is now a steady drizzle.

Renate: She wishes he weren't doing this; but since he is, let him do it well.

Alan: His two-sword style—something that is, in fact, very rare in Northrock—is confusing to Emil; but Vinn is fighting like a teacher, giving the younger man every chance to see the attacks and learn from them.

Renate: A distant face in the crowd, framed by draggled short blonde hair, is watching and learning too...

Alan: When he does the same series of attacks that killed the previous contestant, Emil is ready for them; he holds his swords upward like a V and knocks them to either side, then swings down quickly to take advantage.

Alan: Ahem, I meant Emil holds his sword at an angle as Vinn's come down like a V.

Alan: He waits for the moment of convergence.

Renate: (understood)

Alan: Vinn is too quick for him, and as his swords fly wild he immediately brings them upwards in a double slash at Emil's ribs—

Renate: "Jump!"

Alan: But Emil has already turned his feinted downward slash into the first motion of a front flip, and sails over Vinn's head, slashing downward as he goes.

** Renate pumps a fist silently. Good for Emil! **

Alan: Vinn's swords continue their upward motion, curling around to block the slash, and Vinn pivots smoothly with Emil's jump to bring them face to face again.

Alan: Emil does not hesitate; as Vinn begins the third motion, the cross-slash, Emil falls to his back, letting the swords cross over his head.

Alan: Vinn's attack is Special; without moving his legs, Vinn cuts forward along the ground to seemingly slash all the way through his opponent.

Alan: But Emil catches one of Vinn's feet and uses Vinn's own momentum to bring him down.

** Renate exults in a tense whisper. **

Alan: They scramble to their feet together, but Emil is just a little bit faster; and before Vinn can get either sword to the ready, Emil slashes at Vinn's head with all his might.

Alan: An adrenaline-fueled blow, even from a training sword, can kill in the right spot.

Renate: (yup -- Renate knows why to be afraid!)

Alan: But Lachlan Vinn explodes in a wink of light, reappears behind Emil, and strikes him on the top of the head with a single motion, felling your brother like a sapling.

** Renate gasps. **

Alan: Magic is very clearly fair; but it was still surprising.

Renate: For a moment she forgets to breathe.

Renate: How badly is he hurt?

Alan: He isn't moving, at least; but he seems to be breathing.

Alan: Although that could just be the wind moving his clothes.

Alan: The priests of Raphael grab him and carry him off the grounds.

Renate: Can she get down into the contestants' entrance in time to meet him on the way out?

Alan: The knight at the gong rings his instrument again, and as you scramble through the crowd he yells "Three have come to face the master of Eternal Capital. All have failed. Heaven remains at five hundred forty three."

Renate: What? Failed!

Alan: The rain picks up again, and with the rain comes Mist.

Renate: What did they *want*?

Alan: Some parts of the arena are clear of it; the path leading down to the contestant's area, for instance.

Renate: Where is Emil?

Renate: Oh, no.

Alan: And elsewhere, the Mist begins to curl around you, as if gathering you in.

Renate: Damn it!

Renate: Her brother, hurt and a failure -- and she has to leave him.

Renate: How can she?

Renate: But how can she not? Her goal -- her goal is Whirlwind Lionheart, and the bow.

Renate: But then... Emil will not want to see her. Not her, her father's pet and pride. Not now.

Renate: Better she should go. She lets the mist take her; the rain hides tear-tracks on her cheeks.

Alan: The roar of the ground, the susurrus of the rain, the last hissing echoes of the gong: they are all swallowed up into silence.

Alan: You now have no bearings in the Mist; you can but choose a direction and go.

Renate: It does not seem to matter much. Wherever she is facing, there she goes.

Renate: Still weeping silently.

Alan: It seems only a moment—but in the Mist, a single moment is timeless—before you set foot, again, on stone.

Renate: Oh, no.

Alan: This is rough cobble, not fine granite or street-weave.

Renate: Ah. Better.

Renate: She could not endure that fight a second time.

Alan: You're in an alley; it's night-time. But bicycles chained to fire escapes suggest that you are still in Andragar, where even the poor, especially the poor, ride everywhere on two wheels and a frame.

** Renate reflexively looks around for danger. **

Alan: The alley is long and winding, and adjoins only other alleys; you cannot see a main street, or a streetlight.

Renate: (and up!)

** Renate puts hand on sword. **

Alan: Above you, paper lanterns shed a dim light; but the balconies and fire escapes are clear.

** Renate moves out, quickly and silently, staying in the shadows. **

Renate: Hide Skill Check: [1d20+8] -> [11,8] = (19)

Renate: Move Silently Skill Check: [1d20+8] -> [4,8] = (12)

Renate: (hm, both of those should have been +9)

Alan: The night is not quiet; to the contrary, the sound of wagon wheels, creaking machinery, distant voices, snatches of music, all combine to create the sound of the city by night.

Renate: (will fix)

Alan: You come to an intersection of alleys, where someone has created an impromptu streetlight by standing a shattered telegraph pole on end and adorned it with pitch torches.

Renate: This is clearly not a good part of town.

Renate: How fast can she get out of it?

Alan: And as you creep out along the edge of the light, a very very soft footstep comes from behind you, and a voice.

** Renate whirls, drawing her sword. **

Alan: "I wouldn't be turning around, miss. I wouldn't be doing anything." The voice is bitter, brittle, cracked, tense, filled with some unspoken need.

Renate: (Quick draw!)

Renate: "I wouldn't be trying it."

Alan: "Oh..." says the person who arrives out of the shadows, "I would."

Renate: (uh-oh -- initiative?)

Alan: Large, almost hulking, a hobgoblin with a dagger as long as a shortsword.

Alan: And from all around, in other dark corners, the rest of his gang.

Alan: At least twelve; maybe more.

** Renate looks up for an escape route. **

Renate: Any building tops she can Jump to? Can she get over them and run?

Alan: Some have weighted chains; some have knifes; some have clubs; one just has a cleaver.

Alan: You hear a quiet noise above you, like a fishing line unspooling, and you see a blurring shadow crisscrossing the intersection, Leaping from balcony to balcony, stringing some sort of line behind him.

Renate: Saints and angels.

Renate: She knows if she jumps she'll be cut.

Alan: "We've got all the cards, miss. All except yours. Hand it over."

Renate: Well -- the hobgoblin is taller -- if she flips at his head-level, she might be safe --

Alan: "Hey," says another voice from behind you.

** Renate does not turn toward it. **

Renate: The leader is the most dangerous.

Alan: Another one of the gang members, a tall human, a bit more poised than the rest of the cretins, steps into your peripheral vision.

** Renate gathers herself -- she will have one chance, and one only. **

Alan: His long straight sword is held in trembling hands.

Renate: "Back off, you!" she snarls.

Alan: "This one's too dangerous. I can feel it. Let's skip and find another drunk."

Alan: The voice, though cold, hard, and just as broken-spirited as the hobgoblin's...

Alan: ...is that of Emil von Adler.

** Renate almost drops her sword. **

Renate: "Emil! Oh, God, Emil!"

Renate: "What are you doing here?"

Alan: He doesn't meet your eyes, doesn't look at you at all. "And she's crazy," he tells the hobgoblin.

** Renate catches on. **

Renate: "Why the hell aren't you dead?" she whips out at him, very much in the same snarl as before.

Renate: Is there a hole behind him?

Renate: (please, let there be!)

Alan: Emil dances back. "She damn near did for me the last time, and that was with the Green Knives."

Alan: There is almost an opening; but the hobgoblin moves to block it.

Alan: "So you've fought her before and you don't even want revenge? You're dumb, Stone."

** Renate menaces him with the sword -- but not too close; she wants to tumble past him when opportunity presents. **

Alan: "Something hurts you, you hurt it back," the hobgoblin says with finality.

Alan: Emil fakes panic, and falls against a crate, giving you the opening you need.

Renate: (using a Luck point)

Renate: [1d20 + 14] -> [12,14] = (26)

Renate: (btw, I didn't realize she got a synergy bonus to Tumble from Jump, so she's +11 normally)

Renate: (not +9 as on her sheet)

Alan: The hobgoblin tries to swipe at your with the hooked dagger, but you are far too fast; in an eyeblink, you're out of the intersection and up into the balconies, railings, drainpipes, and fire escapes... as homey to you as a jungle gym.

Alan: A flap of clothing and an occasional glimpse from the corner of your eye implies that the thief who laid the wire is trying to give chase; but you're more skilled in the air than he is, and manage to lose him before long.

Alan: Although of course you never know whether you've lost a thief, or whether he's still stalking you just outside your perceptions...

Renate: She keeps moving.

Alan: Your course of action? There's the sound of an argument from back at the intersection.

Renate: Can she double back? Emil may need help.

Renate: Strike that. He *does* need help.

Renate: It's just a question of what kind.

Alan: It's possible, but the city layout is terribly confusing here. You've heard enough stories of Gereval to guess that this is the Fifth Ward, the "Dirty Fifth."

Renate: Damn.

Renate: Well, she'll make her way back toward the argument, then, as best she can.

Alan: By the time you find the intersection again, the gang has moved on... leaving only Emil, disarmed and bleeding from a dozen wounds.

Renate: Move Silently Skill Check: [1d20+9] -> [12,9] = (21)

** Renate drops to the street immediately and runs to him. **

Renate: Her potion gauntlet is charged; she finds the right opening by touch, and pours a dose into his mouth.

Alan: "It would seem," he mutters, "that I am formally dis-initiated."

Renate: "Get up. We have to get you out of here."

Alan: He sputters on the potion, but staggers to his feet a moment later with your help, wiping blood from a forehead where a deep cut used to be.

Alan: "I can't get out of here, Renate," he says, and now you hear the same nameless hunger in his voice that the hobgoblin had.

** Renate is bewildered, shocked, hurt. **

Alan: "There are things I need."

Renate: "Yes you can. You're coming home. With me."

Renate: "From here?"

Renate: "You don't need anything from here. Anything at all."

Alan: "That are only found here and a few other places."

Alan: "I need..." his voice trails off and his face contorts into a tortured scowl.

Alan: "...Glitter."

** Renate guides him away from the light. **

Alan: He goes with you quietly. You realize that he is trembling again.

Renate: "What? Emil, this is *so* not the time for jokes."

Renate: "What's wrong with you?"

Alan: "I saw you in the stands. The day I was killed."

Alan: "I tried to make you proud."

Alan: "I couldn't."

Renate: "You did! You were amazing!"

Renate: "You didn't see my *face*?"

Alan: He continues, words dropping from his lips like blood.

Alan: "I had no other plan. I was going to go home."

Alan: "I met a man at the inn. He saw the fight."

Alan: "He said he could use me. He was a crook. I refused."

Renate: "Of course you did."

Alan: "He said it was honest work. He invited me... to a party."

Renate: "Oh, Emil! You didn't go?"

Alan: "He had women with him, he had fine fellows, it all seemed harmless."

Alan: "I didn't know he was evil, I just ... saw it."

Alan: "There was wine; that was nothing. There was... Glitter."

Renate: Renate's steps slow, become heavy.

Alan: "There are potions, you know, preparations, which do things to your body. I tried... maybe a few. When I was offered. Nothing... nothing serious."

Alan: "At this party, they had Glitter. I thought it was the same as the others. A new way of looking at the world."

Alan: "Harmless. Wears off."

Alan: "Glitter is a new way of looking at the world," he says with dull irony.

** Renate remembers nights waiting up for him to come back to the manor. **

Alan: "They only have it in Gereval, and the police hate it like they hate nothing else. I know that... now."

Renate: It always was useless to scold him.

Alan: "They hate it because of what it does."

Renate: "What?" she asks, her voice as dull as his.

Alan: "When you take Glitter, the world ... is perfect."

Alan: "Everything is right. Everything is beautiful."

Alan: "Imagine a world where everything is right."

** Renate smiles shakily. **

Alan: "Or... imagine a world where it's right to do everything."

Renate: "What would we do with ourselves?"

Renate: Emil, Emil. No one can do everything. Renate knows that now, as she never had in Karlbotel.

Alan: "When you've taken Glitter, there is no right. Only... what you want."

Alan: "And when it wears off, there is no right. Only... whatever gets you more Glitter."

Renate: "Oh, Emil. What have you done?"

Alan: "I've seen people die because they couldn't have it. They waste to the bone. They ride."

Renate: "Have you -- have you shipped anyone?"

Alan: "No. No. Never yet."

** Renate shudders, even under Emil's weight. **

Alan: "I want to get out. I want to get cured."

Renate: "How?"

Alan: "The Raphaelites, they can cure you. They have the power. But it takes them... materials, they say."

Alan: "It costs. It costs a lot."

Renate: "Oh. And those cost."

Renate: "How much?"

Renate: She has eight gold, a few silver, some odd change.

Alan: "The poorer you are, with them, the more things cost. And if you're poor and a Glitterer and no friends..."

** Renate hugs him, tight. **

Renate: "You have me."

Alan: You've always seen the Raphaelites curing all those who are wounded. You've never wondered what they charge.

Alan: "They told me a hundred gold."

Renate: "A -- *hundred gold*!"

Alan: "Sacred metal, they said. A hundred years in the forging. They're criminals too."

Alan: Emil spits, and the sputum is the wrong color in the dim light of the crude torches.

Renate: "Look. Emil. Take hold of my hand, and don't let go. Trust me, all right?"

Renate: "I love you, big brother. I'll help you."

Alan: "They said that if I could bring them a pound of cleria, they'd do it for five. A pound!"

Alan: "Their idiot temple measures. I had to look it up."

Renate: "A pound, eh?"

Alan: "I damn near cried. A gram is more than my life is worth."

Alan: "Even more than it was worth... before."

Renate: "Not to me."

Renate: "Where's the temple?"

Renate: Damn the bow. This is real. This is Emil's life!

Alan: "There's the big one under Shadow Square. The light in the darkness, they call it."

Alan: "The rails go there."

Renate: "Fine. Take me there. Don't let go of my hand."

Alan: Emil leads you through twisting lengths of alley; even he loses his bearings from time to time.

Alan: On the way, you gather that he's only been lost in the city for a few months.

** Renate is patient, encouraging. **

Renate: She feels a pain in her chest that no potion could cure.

Alan: You reach a small rail station; instead of a mighty locomotive, carved from a single mighty tree bole and carved and polished with arcane symbols, this train is only two cars, and its motive force is built in somewhere.

Alan: The driver accepts an iron Andragar chip that falls loosely from Emil's hand.

Renate: She hopes the mists will come, take them both.

Alan: A few others board; drunks, prostitutes, roustabouts.

Renate: That is why she insists so fiercely that he hold onto her.

Alan: The dregs of four in the morning in the Dirty Fifth.

Alan: The train travels; and the glowbulbs hanging from its ceiling sway with its passage.

** Renate cannot look much better herself, now. **

Renate: All the color has drained from her face.

Alan: The dark city cruises along beside you, buildings chuffing past like ancient dragons.

Alan: When the train comes to a slow halt, Emil seems much worse... he is shaking, and his steps are uneven. He leans on you heavily. "The need... comes and goes."

Renate: She holds him up. "Keep breathing, big brother. That's what Aaron says."

Alan: "We needed to score tonight. We weren't friends... just... people who needed the same thing."

Renate: "Then -- money was all you wanted, right?"

Alan: "That's the trick, isn't it? When the wasting finally takes you, you breathe out and... can't breathe in."

Alan: "Money... to buy Glitter."

Renate: "You wouldn't -- wouldn't have -- " She can't say it.

Alan: "I wouldn't have. Some of the others... I don't ask. I leave. Or run."

Renate: But she has been thinking about it since the almost-fight.

Alan: "They'd just kill me and... continue."

** Renate nerves herself to put her arm around him. **

Renate: "Still my brother."

Alan: "But I don't think they do. Glitter is better than that."

** Renate closes her eyes a moment, to banish the evil images gathering behind them. **

Renate: Then she takes a fresh hold on Emil and moves him along.

Alan: Shadow Square has its name because as Sunset Park performs its daily floating circuit across the city, its shadow always falls on the same place.

Alan: Shadow Square, the long plaza that surrounds the palace of Dark Eternal, which is itself at the center of the darkness.

Alan: Dark Eternal himself would describe the constant darkness of his domain as "expected."

Renate: One step after another.

Alan: "Am I some sorcerer, to sit in halls of dread and drink blood from a skull while brooding? No. But there is much in a name... much that must be respected, even by its bearer."

Renate: Renate keeps moving.

Alan: The Temple of Raphael does not sit in darkness; it sits at the center of its own deafening light.

Alan: The very walls glow, through holiness or magic.

Alan: Where the Temple of Whirlwind Lionheart was an honest tribute to greed, this temple is full of saints, angels, holy symbols...

Renate: Cruelty.

Alan: ...if each one is done in gold and gems, then perhaps that simply makes it all the more holy.

Renate: Withdrawal of desperately needed aid.

Renate: Extortion.

Renate: Now she knows who paid for those decorations.

Renate: She wonders coldly if the Church deals Glitter?

Alan: A priest at the front is sleeping, a newspaper over his head.

Renate: "Excuse me."

Renate: Said politely enough, but without warmth.

Alan: The priest shakes himself awake, and sets down the newspaper. "Ayuh? Huh? Yes?"

Alan: "Are you in need, pilgrim?"

Renate: "My brother is. Can you not see it?"

Alan: The priest stares at him for a moment, then shivers. "Indeed. Of course, for such an affliction as his, there are great... complications."

** Renate sniffs. **

Renate: "So I am told. Let us in, and let's talk."

Renate: Her hand on Emil's arm caresses him, all the comfort she can give him.

Alan: The priest ushers you into the great sanctum, where a huge marble statue of Raphael watches benevolently over empty pews, his gold lacework wings stretching out over the rafters.

** Renate wants to spit, but does not. **

Renate: All the beauty -- a mockery.

Alan: "Now, tell me what type of service you desire. A remission of the... immediate symptoms, perhaps? A repressal of the... desires?"

Renate: "I want him cured."

Alan: "Completely, huh?" the priest says with an expression of easy disbelief.

Renate: "Completely," she agrees firmly.

Alan: "You know that the materials involved in the ritual are very rare...?"

Alan: "And the cost might be... prohibitive."

** Renate rolls her eyes. **

Renate: "Spare me the spiel, please."

Alan: "We could put you on a waiting list for the charity foundation..."

Renate: "Eight gold."

Alan: The priest laughs patronizingly. "In fact, the fee is five gold; assuming the materials are provided."

Renate: "And the materials are?"

Alan: "Aside from negligible amounts of routine materials, a full pound of mythril is required."

Renate: "I see."

Alan: "Mystic silver," he adds in case you didn't know.

** Renate rummages in her small pack. **

Renate: "This will do," she says, bringing out the statue.

Alan: He's not quite talking down to you, but he's talking in a generally downward direction.

Renate: She does not ask; she informs him that it will do.

Renate: And her eyes *dare* him to talk down to her again.

Alan: The priest raises an eyebrow. "Oh indeed?" He casts a small spell, presumably a detection, then does a double take.

Renate: "Yes. Quite."

Alan: "I believe ... from the appearance... may I?" He holds out a hand.

Renate: "You may."

Renate: It is a queenly permission.

Renate: She puts the statue in his hand.

Alan: The priest weighs it in his hand, then says "I... rather imagine this will, in fact, do."

Alan: "Then, the rest of the, ah, fee, miss... my lady?"

** Renate says nothing, does not even blink. **

Renate: Right then, Renate von Adler is as regal as Emilia Eaglebourne ever dreamed of being.

Alan: There's an old saying in the Dirty Fifth, very abbreviated with time: "Hymns or clinking silver."

Renate: "One moment."

Alan: The rest of the sentence can easily be inferred.

Renate: She produces the five gold, drops it into his hand without touching him, as if he were some sort of pollution.

Alan: The priest returns the statue to you, and hurries off, saying "I shall rouse the elders."

Renate: She takes Emil's hand again.

Renate: "Hold tight, Emil. Here we go."

Alan: As you wait, Emil's condition grows worse. Sweat breaks out on his brow.

Alan: And yet, his skin is cold and clammy.

Alan: The priest returns at length, along with some older priests still struggling into their gowns of office.

** Renate snuggles close, hoping to warm him, even a little. **

Alan: They try to take Emil from you; they insist that only he should be present in the holy circle, because the ritual can kill those without Glitter in their bones.

Renate: "I *will* stay in the room with him."

Alan: Sleepy acolytes hurriedly prepare the holy circle, sanctifying the inlaid enamels with sacred oils.

Renate: "I will not move; I will not speak; I will not breathe. But I will stay."

Alan: Emil is placed at the center of the circle, surrounded by capital text of the Angelic temple tongue; its lettering, so like the Northrock Trade Tongue or Lan'yarian, but its words bearing only a passing resemblance to either.

Alan: The priests begin their spell; the statue rests, alone, within a smaller circle whose edge is tangential to the greater one.

Alan: Although it begins to glow with holy fire, and vibrates slightly (its mercury rippling) as though channeling some force, you see that it is not consumed.

Alan: Do the priests mean to simply keep it? And why could they not then use it for future rituals?

Renate: They are greedy.

Renate: That is all the reason they need.

Renate: It doesn't matter.

Renate: Emil is the greatest treasure of Karlbotel.

Alan: As the ritual continues, the hymns of Raphael rise in beautiful song, more beautiful and pure than any bardic voice.

Alan: Raphael is called The Song of Healing; and its reason is here.

Renate: And if she brings him and nothing else home, she has succeeded.

Renate: She does as she promised, but she cannot keep from crying.

Alan: Emil begins to have some sort of attack; he thrashes, but is held in place by an unseen force, and tears of blood run from his eyes... the blood, like his spittle, is not quite the right color.

Renate: She has had a cruel night, the cruelest of her short life.

Alan: The very temple vibrates in harmony with the song, providing a deep bass counterpoint.

Alan: And the Mists creep in through its windows, out from among votive candles, up between floorboards.

Renate: No. Not now! Not without knowing!

Renate: She should not have let him go!

Alan: Behind you are the Mists, slowly advancing; before you, with Emil, the air is clear.

Renate: But she cannot break the circle! It might destroy her brother!

Alan: He is moaning weakly, his bones twisting strangely, as a fine golden sparkle begins to appear in the air around him... the residue, perhaps, of Glitter.

Renate: She wills the Mists away, clenches her fists.

Renate: She will stay. She *will* stay!

Alan: The Mists billow in closer, merciless, but do not sweep over you completely.

Alan: You can stay, they seem to say...

Alan: ...even after we have gone.

Renate: Oh no.

Renate: Trapped.

Renate: Perhaps forever.

Renate: With Emil -- but Sabine, and her parents, and Karlbotel...

Renate: With a sob, she drops her resistance.

Renate: But how will she get home, now?

Renate: It doesn't matter. This is real. Emil has been cured, and will go home.

Renate: That is all that matters.

Alan: The Mists fill the chamber; behind, and to either side, they beckon.

Renate: She will not move toward them. They can take her, but they must come for her.

Alan: To your amazement, you see a human form moving in the Mists.

Alan: Godfrey Cuyler fights his way out of them, casting them away as if they were solid.

Renate: "Godfrey! What are you doing here?"

Renate: "Oh, no. What have you seen?"

Alan: "My lady, may I inform you that Father Salesh was perhaps inaccurate in his description of the Sea of Possibility?"

Renate: "Not now, Godfrey!"

Alan: "I have endeavored to discern more clearly your true status here; and I have learned one vital point."

Alan: "This is real... but it is only a reality."

Alan: "My lady, you exist here."

Alan: "Another you."

Renate: Renate's head hurts.

Renate: She wants to curl up in a little ball and close her eyes and forget the whole mad world.

Renate: "Don't tell me."

Renate: "Just tell me what I have to do."

Alan: "Here, you have not pursued your brother, nor gone questing for the three artifacts; that fell to another me, along with Aaron Wrenfall, and regretfully we have both died."

Renate: "No. No!"

Renate: "I don't -- I don't understand."

Alan: "I believe that the wisest course would be to continue on your journey to Forfeit Isle, and accept what good you have done here."

Alan: "But this is not your true future, my lady, nor is it mine."

Renate: "I -- all right."

Renate: "Nor his?"

Alan: "Nor his, I may pray," Godfrey says, casting a glance at the writhing Emil.

Renate: "All right. Please, let's go."

Alan: "Please, my lady, it's Time."

Renate: "I don't -- don't think I can hold myself together for much more of this."

Alan: As Godfrey takes your arm and guides you into the Mists, you hear a ringing crystalline tone, and Emil screams... the sound is cut off by the Mists.

** Renate sobs again. **

Alan: And Godfrey's comforting solidity disappears along with it. Wherever he went, he is somewhere else.

Alan: Perhaps confronting his own agonizing visions.

Renate: The Mists swallow a scream of pure anguish.

Alan: The Mists are colder here... and when you walk, you realize that the ground is nearly level. In fact, it tilts up...

Alan: ...you can only pray you are headed towards the proper shore.

Renate: What does it matter?

Renate: She no longer has the statue.

Renate: It is lost, with that shadow-Emil.

Renate: And she suspects that Lionheart will not listen to her explanation.

Alan: You walk along, placing one foot still in front of the other, for there is nothing else to do.

Alan: Despair is an action just like any other, Aaron always said; and action itself is the best remedy for despair.

Renate: She will walk until she cannot walk any further, if that is all she can do.

Alan: And after a time that is long enough for your heart to become dull and glassy in your chest, and for your eyes to close to tunnel vision in the endless Mist, your feet crunch on snow.

Alan: You break through the crust to feel new grass underneath; and a brisk spring wind blows the Mists away completely, revealing the blue sky and greening trees of Karlbotel in Thirdmonth.

** Renate looks around her greedily. **

Alan: You're in the training field of the manor, standing in the shade of the old spreading tree, where the snow lasts.

Renate: Home!

Alan: You remember when Aaron drove Emil towards the patch of snow you stand in right now.

Renate: Better than a potion gauntlet.

Renate: Her sore heart yearns for Sabine.

Alan: "Rennie!" Sabine's voice is glad, but weary, sharper, stronger. "By the fates, at last I found you! Where have you been?"

Renate: "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

Alan: "Well move along, Brigadier, the meeting is happening now!"

Renate: Oh no.

Renate: Another future. A false one?

Renate: Well. Sabine needs a brigadier, she'll have one.

Alan: As you start to move, you realize that you're dressed in full combat armor; breastplate, helmet clipped to one side, a beautiful scabbard at the other.

Renate: Renate turns to follow her.

Alan: The hilt...

Alan: It's Crescent Light.

Renate: Oh. Damn.

Renate: Where is Emil?

Renate: She does not dare ask.

Alan: Sabine hears the thought in your mind and says "He's on schedule, he'll be there soon. Come on, Father needs you!"

** Renate quickens her steps, suddenly much gladder. **

Renate: But why does she have Crescent Light?

Alan: As you round the corner of the manor to its front, you see an entire army laid out, at least a small one; the Karlbotel militia, along with several divisions of Ilium regulars.

Alan: A large tent holds a buzz of activity; Sabine waves a kerchief at you. "Here!"

Renate: "I'm coming, I'm coming."

Alan: She is at least twenty.

Renate: Oh.

Renate: She must be very beautiful, at that age.

Alan: As you move, you feel that your body has changed as well; you're stronger, more coordinated, tougher.

Renate: No taller, alas.

Alan: Not by much.

** Renate does the math. **

Renate: Oh. Damn. The truce with Andragar is up.

Alan: Sabine hurries you into the tent without a word. Baron Rainer is there, behind an oak table, staring at maps with strange lines drawn on them.

Renate: Her chest starts to hurt again.

Alan: "Dithering at Wrenfall's grave, eh? I hope you said a prayer for all of us."

Renate: "Of course, Father."

** Renate takes that news quietly. **

Alan: "It's too bad the way he went... if they hadn't taken his manuscript, we might have a chance of winning today."

Alan: "But by damn, we're going to show them a fight!" His face is red; his hair has never looked whiter.

Renate: "Well, there are a few of us left, yet."

Renate: "Who knew him."

** Renate feels death settling into her bones like an ague. **

Alan: "It's a horror at the front. The rangers were cut to pieces. The regulars aren't holding. And Heaven is moving through the countryside, our countryside, like wasps!"

Renate: "This they shall buy dearly," Renate says.

Alan: "Nobody even sees them until it's too late. Well their trickery won't avail them here!"

Alan: "You've seen to the barricades?"

Renate: "No. Not here."

Renate: "Yes, sir," she says, hoping she has.

Alan: "And the women and children, they've all been evacuated to Ilium?"

Renate: "Yes, sir."

Renate: Oh, no. Why hadn't Sabine gone?

Alan: "Then there's nothing to do now but wait."

Alan: A soldier comes into the tent, visibly pale.

Alan: "My lord... he is here."

Renate: "Yes?"

Alan: Your father stands up, he face suddenly pale, but a spot above his eyebrow is twitching.

Alan: That always happens before his trouble.

Renate: "Father. It's all right. Let me see to this."

Renate: "Please."

Alan: "By damn, I won't! On your mother's grave, I'll stand to the last!"

Renate: That hurt. It is a moment before Renate can speak.

Renate: "I know it. But this -- let me."

Alan: But Sabine has already taken him by the arm and said "Father, Renate can do this. She knows all our plans, all our agreements."

Alan: "Let her stand alone, this once."

Renate: "Thank you, Sabine," Renate thinks to her.

Alan: Baron Rainer totters over his chair, and relents. "Then... make me proud."

Renate: "Get him out of here. Quickly."

Alan: Sabine ushers him out through the back of the tent.

Renate: "I'll try, Father."

Alan: The soldier who came is is waiting for some response.

Renate: "Bring him in."

Renate: Lachlan Vinn, no doubt.

Renate: She will take pleasure in lacing him down.

Alan: The soldier starts to reach for the curtain, but it opens by itself, without the intervention of any human hand.

Alan: A black ceramic boot crushes the grass, and the heroic yet smoothly-articulated shape of Heaven armor glides into the room; a long ink-black cape follows the flaring shoulder-plates like a serpent.

Alan: Emil Ulrich von Adler wears the insignia of a Lune Knight. A high official for a simple parlay.

** Renate raises her gray-green eyes slowly. **

Alan: "Rennie. ...hi."

Renate: Her heart stops, as abruptly as they have feared their father's will.

Renate: "How -- dare you call me that?"

Alan: "I want to do this right. I haven't killed a single person from the Silver Coast, and neither has my entire division."

Alan: "I want peace. I want us to be a family again."

Renate: "What does it matter? Your hands are as dirty as theirs."

Renate: "Then turn around and get out."

Alan: "So... I call you that. I'll stop."

Renate: She is hard as stone.

Renate: "You will address me as Brigadier von Adler."

Renate: Hardening herself is the only way to make the pain stop.

Alan: "Brigadier, then. Shall we, as military officials, recognize that the art of war is the art of peace?"

Renate: "And if we do?"

Alan: "We must recognize that peace has a price. And in this case, the price is nearly nothing."

Renate: "We have not paid it yet. What makes you think we will now?"

Alan: "You listened to Purgatory every night, very quietly, while you were supposed to be asleep. You know the opportunities our... your people will have as citizens of Andragar."

Renate: "As you had in the Dirty Fifth."

Alan: "You know that Dark Eternal brings a better way of life, not the slavery and hardship that they dish out in the Patchwork Kingdoms."

Renate: "Yes, I know."

Renate: "We were content with our own lives, until you came."

Alan: "You should know that when I was cured... because of you... I joined Heaven, and when they were dispatched to the drug dens in the Fifth Ward and even in the mansions of the Seventeenth, I was there."

Alan: "I killed the dealers with my own hands, and threw boxes of Glitter on the bonfires."

Renate: "How many addicts did you cut down with your own cured hands, Lune Knight?"

Alan: "In 1998, the last trace of the drug was gone from the city, and the addicts had all been cured... from government funds."

Renate: "Hypocrite. Criminal."

** Renate takes hold of herself. **

Alan: "Justice is not a seesaw, to be balanced, but a web, to be unraveled. Sometimes strands stick together; and must be burned."

Renate: "None of this matters, Lune Knight."

Renate: "Make your offer."

Alan: Emil has learned a great deal of self-possession in his time with Heaven. He could never have stood up to that look before.

Alan: "My offer is simple. Join us freely."

Renate: Well, Renate could never have delivered it. So they are even, after a fashion.

Renate: "What?"

Renate: "Become slaves to Andragar?"

Alan: "Your children, who would have been farmers or thatchers, can now be philosophers, or scientists, or guildsmen, all according to their true aptitude."

Renate: "They can now!"

Renate: "We do not hold them here! If they want Andragar, they need only go there!"

Renate: "They do not want you, Lune Knight! Nor your master!"

Alan: "Your lands, which would have been exhausted by overfarming and soil erosion, can now return to the beautiful wildlands you love so much."

Alan: "The entire country can be the woods we used to play in."

Renate: "We tend our lands well!"

Renate: "In hundreds of generations they have never been exhausted!"

Renate: "Nor will they now."

Alan: "Your profits, which turned sour one year, fair another, can become stable; and you will never have to see the widow's face as the taxman takes what he needs to keep your manor stocked with food."

Renate: "You liar. This very spring I rode out to give of our stores to those in need of them."

Renate: "Did you learn to lie in Andragar, Lune Knight?"

Renate: "You did not learn it in Karlbotel."

Alan: "And your people, who lived hundreds of years in fear—yes, sometimes of us—can finally know true peace. Can know that they are part of a nation no force can topple."

Renate: "All forces are toppled. Where are the elves?"

Renate: "Where they are, Dark Eternal someday goes."

Renate: "Believe me, that is my comfort now."

Alan: "Not even Time itself can slay Dark Eternal."

Renate: "So say you, little Andragarian slave."

Alan: "Then... perhaps our parlay is complete."

Renate: "I suspect that it is."

Renate: "Go now. One of us dies today, perhaps both."

Alan: "At least accept this token of my esteem," Emil says, and takes a silver statuette from his hip pouch. It's the same cleria sculpture you used to pay the Church of Raphael, only fifteen minutes (?) ago...

** Renate points at the table, and Emil gently sets the figurine in the indicated spot. **

Renate: "Go now, or it will be you and it *will* be now."

Alan: Emil turns, and walks away, and stops at the tent to say, "I'll always love you, Rennie."

Renate: "I love you too, Emil. You idiot."

Alan: Your words fall into silence, as Emil is gone.

Alan: It is silent, all around; too silent, for an army musters outside.

** Renate leaves the tent to find her father and Sabine. But first, after a half-second's hesitation, she picks up the cleria figurine. **

Alan: When you pull aside the tent flap, you see only the Mists.

Alan: And when you turn around, the tent is no longer there.

** Renate commences walking again. **

Renate: No matter how fast she goes, or how long her steps, she cannot leave that tent behind her, somehow.

Alan: It seems like an eternity; but perhaps an eternity is just a moment here.

Alan: After a momentary eternity, the Mists clear, and you are on the shores of what Godfrey called the Sea of Possibility... and a sign says "Forfeit Isle: 0 Miles."

---

Alan: The stamped metal sign is marked with an arrow bent into a perfect circle.

Renate: Dorothy Durai would feel a certain predatory glee at seeing Renate now.

Renate: Chilly, damp, and shocked right to the soul.

Renate: But Godfrey is missing, so she has to press on.

Renate: She climbs the bank.

Alan: The Mists whirl away as if torn by a hurricane, and the wild and wooly marketplace of Forfeit Isle stretches out before you, above you, and to either side along the lakefront.

Renate: Oh, no.

Renate: How big is it?

Renate: And what looks like it might have a Whirlwind Lionheart in it?

Alan: As Eridu was to the marketplace in Ilium, Forfeit Isle is to Eridu: buildings are stacked on top of buildings, streets cross streets, walkways, rope nets full of climbing pedestrians.

Renate: Ugh.

Alan: Perspective is strange here, and distance; your eyes are drawn to focus in odd directions, pulled from curiosity to curiosity.

** Renate draws upon her experience in the Mists and simply starts walking. **

Alan: The shell of a great amphitheater curves up into a bell, and upside-down market stalls do business with ceiling-crawling spiders;

Alan: A ten-foot-tall flaming tree capped with an incongruous turban sells what look like glass ropes to a crowd of two-foot-tall cats;

** Renate has had a surfeit of bizarrerie -- so much so that she cannot react as a mere mortal should. **

Alan: A huge hole in the ground has a coinbox marked "bottomless pit, 1 silver per jump, no refunds."

Renate: She keeps walking, though what passes her eyes now will figure in her dreams for a long time to come.

Renate: The pit is all too tempting. She passes it by.

Alan: As you enter the marketplace itself, the babble of a thousand imaginary languages fills your ears. You recognize snatches of the Northrock Trade Tongue, Lan'yarian, something that might be Angelic... but most is simply alien.

Renate: What about signs?

Alan: From far away, you even hear the deep harmonic rumbling of dragon speech, carried on a chance wind that smells of exotic pastries.

Alan: There are signs, and there are signs on top of signs; written in a confusion of languages, some glowing, some embossed, some actually adorned with living creatures yelling pitches.

Renate: Even dragons can't fetch much of a reaction from Renate just now.

Renate: She has to find Lionheart, the only individual she can trust in this mob to help her find Godfrey.

Alan: A hundred shops and a hundred services are advertised; but none give any hint of Whirlwind Lionheart.

Renate: What sorts of services?

Alan: Once inside the market, it feels infinite; at each street crossing, there are exits in all eight directions and some straight up (knotted ropes hang from higher halls) and some straight down (a closed car descends an iron track straight down a tunnel.)

Alan: There might be a "center," but you're not equipped to find it.

Renate: I suppose there's no such thing as an information kiosk, or a You Are Here sign?

Alan: The signs don't just advertise mundane goods; in addition to food, drink, clothing, luxuries, they offer such tantalizing wares as "memories forged," "dreams recovered," "cloth of diamond," "swords of truth."

Renate: No, no, no, and no.

Renate: She stops to ask someone.

Alan: As you reach a T-junction, you meet the eye of a merchant... or what must be a merchant, as he sits behind the counter of a stall.

Renate: He'll do.

Alan: Though he sits erect like a human, his body is that of a mighty stag.

Alan: His large liquid eyes meet yours with obvious intelligence.

Renate: "Excuse me -- " she checks quickly -- "sir."

Alan: "Welcome to Forfeit Isle. The stars tell me that you have traveled far."

Renate: "I have, yes. Can you tell me where I might find Lord Whirlwind Lionheart?"

Alan: "Whirlwind Lionheart keeps his secrets close; it would not do to send just any traveller his way."

Renate: "Well, I hope I am not just any traveller, then."

Alan: The merchant holds out his hands; instead of hooves, he has tough articulated fingers.

Renate: She doesn't mean to be sharp; she's exhausted and confused and terribly afraid for Godfrey.

Alan: "Let me see your palm."

Renate: She takes off a wrist-brace and gives him her hand, palm-up.

Alan: The merchant turns his head to focus one eye entirely on your palm; then snuffles gently at it with his nose, warm breath tickling.

** Renate holds still. **

Alan: "Your karma is bright."

Renate: "I fear I do not understand."

Alan: "Whirlwind Lionheart would be glad to see you; and for a small share in your strength, I could send you to him."

Renate: "I need all my strength, sir. There is little enough of it as is."

Renate: "Is there no other bargain we can come to?"

Alan: "Perhaps with another, you might. But I am a servant of the starry heaven, and only the celestial essence is of use to me."

Renate: "Then I am left with little choice but to find another guide."

Renate: She turns away.

Alan: The stag tosses his head regretfully. "There are magpies here who might take some interest in your clinking silver."

Renate: "Thank you, sir. I shall endeavour to find them."

Alan: Down a transparent hall of blue ribbed crystal; through a forest of spreading trees whose fruits are singing birds; under a huge outcropping of roseate marble; you pass through the mysteries of Forfeit Isle as in a trance.

Alan: Dozens of merchants recoil as you mention the Lord of Greed; or demand a piece of your soul or your memories or your determination.

Renate: Perhaps taking the stag too literally, Renate has her eyes on the heavens, looking for magpies.

Alan: Here, it seems, the only prices are ones too steep to pay.

Renate: She refuses all of these.

Renate: If this is like Eridu, somewhere there will be someone mean and low enough to take the silver she can offer.

Alan: But you realize, after a while, that you are being followed; and no sooner do you make that realization than the culprit steps out of the teeming crowd and bows drolly before you.

Alan: A little fox, dressed in a waistcoat and top hat, standing on his hind feet, taps his cane gently on the ground.

Renate: "May I help you, sir?"

Alan: "So... looking for the master, I see."

Renate: "As it happens, yes. And I should like not to lose much more time."

Alan: "Might I suggest that there are better things to buy in Forfeit Isle? For example, every time you've had something on the tip of your tongue and forgotten it... I could sell it all back to you."

Renate: "I only need to see Lord Lionheart."

** Renate has said that until her tongue hurts at repeating it. **

Alan: "Ah well then. A woman who knows just what she wants. Very rare here, very rare."

Alan: "I shall shilly-shally no longer; perhaps a small gift might loosen my pointing finger?"

Alan: "I gather that you have no urge to pay in the elevated currency we so treasure here."

** Renate hands him a silver piece, careful not to let him see how much money she is carrying. **

** Renate shakes her head silently. **

Alan: The fox glances casually at the coin, then tosses it behind him, where it is caught by his pet (?), a bullfrog on a leash made of yellow yarn.

Alan: "As you grow lower and lower on coin, that coin takes on greater and greater value."

Renate: "I have noticed," she says wryly.

Alan: "I'm soft-hearted, what else can I say? The more you struggle, the more I'm inclined to give way."

** Renate bows to him, not very low. **

Alan: "We'll make it easy, and perhaps I can gain from this in the future... because in fact, the master sent me to look for you."

Alan: "If you'd like to find Whirlwind Lionheart, just turn around."

Renate: "Did he, now?"

Renate: She does. Quickly.

Alan: Behind you is a huge billboard, easily five stories tall and three blocks wide, which says Whirlwind Lionheart, Inc in huge Northrock lettering, lit up in golden fire.

Alan: As you crane your head to read the massive letters, fireworks and spinner shoot out from it, going off like spellfire.

Renate: Saints and angels.

Renate: How did she miss this?

Renate: Was it even there?

Alan: And directly before you, a human-sized door is built into the face of the billboard, at ground level.

** Renate shrugs and walks toward the door. **

Alan: The fox-like spirit is already gone.

Alan: As you approach the door, you see that it has two signs on it.

Alan: One, in copper plate, says "Whirlwind Lionheart is IN."

Alan: The other, in brass plate, says, "Whirlwind Lionheart is OUT."

Alan: Below them, someone has written in crayon "Whirlwind Lionheart is OUT TO LUNCH."

Renate: (*LOL*)

Renate: "We'll see," she says, and turns the doorknob.

Alan: (It's an old joke, but I keep re-using it.)

Alan: You step through the doorway into a long shop... very long, so long that aisles and aisles of shelves recede into grayness, and the very curvature of the earth comes into play to push the far end of the room over the horizon.

Renate: Oh. Oh, well.

Renate: She starts walking again.

Alan: Each shelf holds treasures of simply astonishing value; art so beautiful it's all you can do to walk past it without a second glance, jewelry made of giant gemstones, magical weapons glowing with arcane light.

Renate: None of it matters, save for a loyal friend, and -- secondarily -- an heirloom bow.

Alan: If every shelf holds treasures as valuable as those you glimpse as you pass by, then Whirlwind Lionheart's collection could be used to buy the entire world a million times over.

Renate: But not, perhaps, some of the people in it.

Alan: But it's only a few steps before you're at the other end of the shop, standing before a long sanded wooden counter, face to face with a kindly old shopkeep.

Alan: He's balding, round, dressed in shirtsleeves and a green apron... the same shade of green as the churchmen wore back at the temple.

** Renate almost stumbles, disoriented. **

Alan: A name tag says "Whirlwind Lionheart."

** Renate looks back toward the door. **

Alan: The shopkeeper laughs. "Distance distortion. A shoplifter defense."

Alan: "Someone tries to snatch and grab, they starve to death before they reach the exit."

** Renate sees the nametag and bows very low. **

Alan: "But of course, that doesn't happen much. We're all good people around here. Nice neighborhood."

Renate: "Lord Lionheart."

Alan: "Oh, stand up straight. The customer is always right, you know!"

Renate: "As you wish, my lord."

Alan: "So, you're here for the Bow of Ishkur. At least, that's what the memo said." He gestures at a pair of trays next to his cash register, marked "IN" and "OUT."

Alan: Like every desk in the world, the IN tray is stacked far higher than its counterpart.

Renate: "That is why I came, yes -- but another matter has arisen; may I have Your Lordship's indulgence?"

Alan: "Why, certainly. Call it 'added value.'"

Alan: The demigod seems amused by his own use of buzzwords.

Renate: "Godfrey Cuyler, my manser -- my *friend* -- saved my life in the Mists. He was separated from me. How can I find him?"

Alan: "Ah, the ineluctable Master Cuyler. Quite the determined one, he is. I've been quite amused by his progress in the Sea of Possibility."

Renate: "Oh, no. He is still there?"

Alan: "I can assure you that he is already safe and sound. He came to these shores, and I immediately dispatched a servant to see him safely back across."

** Renate sighs, relieved. **

Renate: "Thank you, my lord. I am grateful."

Alan: "Master Cuyler has a wonderful approach to the visions. Knowing them to be false, he simply ignored them, running when need be, until the Mists opened again."

Alan: "I imagine they distressed him; but he made the most pragmatic choice."

Alan: "That is his style, isn't it?"

Renate: "Did he know, Lord Lionheart? Or does he only believe?"

Renate: "Oh, yes. Yes, it is."

Alan: "Well, of course the visions are not false—they are simply false for you. Another you, in another time? That's a different matter."

Renate: "Mm. Is *that* how it works."

Renate: "Well, I have enough to do keeping the one self I know of on a decent path."

Renate: "I can't worry about the other ones."

Renate: Lionheart quite understands that she is telling herself this, not him.

Renate: "So. To my other business, my lord: the bow."

Alan: Whirlwind Lionheart holds out a hand, and the bow flies off a distant shelf and into his hand.

Alan: It's made of some wood stained a deep lustrous red-purple; it's inlaid with gold, in curved patterns.

Renate: What an -- odd shade.

Alan: "This bow has seen quite a lot in the years since it came into my keeping."

Alan: "I sold it to Yves for a song—but a very good song. He used it to arm one of his devotees..."

Renate: "Only two years, my lord -- unless time moves differently here."

Alan: "The sorcerer was killed at Ktarr's Field. Daine of Michael won his spurs that day; he'll be one to watch, trust me on that one."

Alan: "The tortured angel who held the bow took it with him to the Sacred World when he was freed... and I bought the bow back from Gabriel in exchange for some special considerations."

Alan: "It's funny that way... once something comes through this shop, it seems to take a liking to these shelves, and comes back here whenever it can."

Renate: "A wondrous story, my lord. I shall share it with my father."

Alan: "If you think he'd like to hear of his family treasure killing paladins of Michael, then tell away."

** Renate lifts her shoulders slightly, then lets them fall. **

Renate: "A tool cannot control by whom it is wielded, my lord."

Alan: Whirlwind Lionheart balances the unstrung bow in one palm. It's a shortbow, perhaps 1.3 meters.

Alan: "Now, this is a wondrous magical artifact. You can fire in any curve between forty-five and ninety degrees."

Renate: "All the better that we should put it to better use."

Alan: "It takes a bit of practice, but before long, you can fire around corners, or shoot opponents in the back."

Renate: "I didn't know that. Father never said."

Alan: "Or, for a good laugh, hand it to an unsuspecting rival at an archery contest."

Alan: "The bow can't fire in a straight line; a bit of weakness, wouldn't you say?"

Renate: Whirlwind Lionheart must be getting very tired by now of Renate utterly failing to laugh at his jokes.

Renate: "Most bows cannot fire around corners. An equivalent weakness, I should think."

Alan: "Ah, well, I could make you a very good deal on some arrows enchanted to bounce off hard surfaces... but maybe for later."

Renate: "We have not bargained for the bow itself yet, my lord."

Alan: "Too true. I'm afraid that, despite this picturesque device—" he pats the cash register—"I deal only in barter when it comes to such rare devices."

Renate: "So your mortal agents were kind enough to inform me, my lord."

Renate: "I therefore sought a piece you might find intriguing, and I found -- not art, but an artist."

Renate: "Johann Shaleberg. You have not, I believe, been acquainted with his work?"

** Renate knows she has to sell this, and she's heard enough first in Eridu and now here to take a stab at it. **

Alan: "I have only heard idle stories. A silversmith, or so they say."

Renate: "Ah, yes, but an exceptional one indeed. I regret I could only choose one piece for you, my lord."

Renate: "I left behind one that caught my heart. You would do well to ask your mortal agents to make his acquaintance, if I may be so bold."

** Renate is delaying, intentionally; when his appetite is whetted sufficiently, Lionheart will ask to see the sculpture. **

Alan: "Where there is precious metal in plenty, my spirit is there; I'm certain I could just peek in if I'm ever bored."

Renate: "I recommend it."

Renate: She turns a little away from him to take her pack off her shoulders.

Alan: "But of course, there's a great deal that demands my attention; putting on this show for you is simply a diversion."

Renate: "I hope you have enjoyed it, my lord."

Renate: She hears that he is tiring; she finds the sculpture and lays it on the desk in front of him.

Renate: "I shall be sorry to part with it; but an heirloom is an heirloom."

Alan: As you expose the cleria to the mystical light of Faerie, the sculpture's every movement explodes into rainbows.

Alan: A halo of multicolored light reflects from every surface, carving light and shadow in an unearthly fashion; some spots grow brighter as light converges, some spots fall into shadow as light is pulled away.

Alan: The faerie lord pulls a loupe out of his apron pocket and squints through it.

Alan: "The detail is fine; the workmanship impeccable; the cleria is not of the highest water, but humans have no senses that could detect that difference."

Renate: "There is more, my lord," Renate says softly.

Renate: "If my lord will be so good as to press the little catch on the side there...?"

Alan: As the sculpture rocks and tiny waves lap against the rock, Lionheart says, "A most original technique. A certain childlike portion of my psyche delights."

Renate: "I shall so inform Master Shaleberg. He will be most pleased."

Alan: "The composition itself is very traditionally human: striving, against the elements and against human limitation."

Alan: "Very nearly hackneyed, I fear, but resonant for all of that."

Alan: "And after all, human weakness is a portion of my business."

Renate: "I did notice, my lord."

Alan: "I fear that you personally hold little to intrigue me," he adds. "Take that as a compliment."

** Renate bows her head, accepting that. **

Renate: She is much too tired to argue it right now.

Alan: "Well then. Let us conclude our bargain. Quite honestly, this trinket here is not of sufficient worth to purchase the Bow of Ishkur."

Alan: "But I know that if I were to refuse you, I'd never see the last of you."

** Renate smiles faintly. **

Alan: "So I suggest this: in payment for the bow, I will accept this statuette, plus a favor, to be requested later..."

Renate: "What is the nature of this favor, Lord Lionheart?"

Alan: "...accompanied by my promise that the favor will be something you want to do in the first place."

** Renate thinks about it, then nods. **

Renate: "I agree."

Renate: "You are gracious, my lord."

Alan: "Gracious? Don't talk in a crooked line, you'll destroy your posture."

Alan: The faerie lord holds out the bow in both hands.

Renate: "I assure you I am not. You cared for my servant, sent a guide for me, and now I have this." She takes the bow from him.

Renate: "But if the word is distasteful to you, I will not use it. Farewell, my Lord Lionheart."

Renate: Her heart sinks as she thinks of the long walk through the Sea of Possibility to return to Eridu.

Alan: "By the way... if you'd like an easy way out, just take the side exit."

Alan: He points to a door marked with a glowing red EXIT sign.

** Renate looks toward it. **

Alan: "The Sea of Possibility is just for first-time customers."

Renate: "I cannot refuse, my lord. Thank you again."

Alan: "Consider it a business application."

Renate: "We will meet again, then, Lord Lionheart, if only when you claim your favor. Until then."

** Renate picks up her pack and takes the side door, bow clutched tightly in hand. **

Alan: The door resists at first; then opens outward with a giant burst of wind that sucks you through the portal.

Alan: You fly sideways through blurring Mists, and then despite a huge sense of movement, you come to rest gently on the floor of the grand temple in Eridu.

Renate: Who is there?

Alan: As you regain your feet, the gold-dust symbols on the floor all quiver at once and snap back into normal sand.

Alan: Godfrey rests in a comfortable armchair, but stands as soon as you appear.

Alan: "My lady, your return is welcome."

Alan: He's alone in the room.

** Renate lays down pack and bow, walks straight to him, and kneels, taking his hand in hers. **

Renate: She kisses it and lays her forehead against it, the act of homage a vassal gives her lord, or an apprentice her master.

Renate: "I am so sorry."

Alan: "You were true to yourself," Godfrey says, making no move to disengage.

Renate: "That means nothing. I hurt you, and I had no right."

Alan: "Quite to the contrary, my lady. I knew what to expect."

** Renate stands up, still holding his hand. **

Renate: Her face is chalk-white, pinched, tired beyond tiredness.

Renate: "That doesn't matter either. I can't ever requite what you did. Thank you."

Alan: "Let us retire for the night, my lady. It is well past ten."

Renate: "Will Shaleberg still be awake?"

Renate: "I owe him a story, and I do not know if I will have courage to tell it tomorrow."

Alan: "Let us go and wake him."

Renate: "Very well."

Renate: She returns to the circle to shrug on her pack and pick up the bow.

Alan: "Despite the cost, I am glad that you have recovered the bow."

Renate: "Let us go, then. Unless you would rather go back alone?"

** Renate shrugs. **

Renate: "One for two. Not great odds."

Alan: "Let us hope for better success in Gereval."

Renate: "From your mouth to the Four's ears, Godfrey."

---

Alan: The coach ride from Eridu to Sachade is fairly smooth; a clever system of springs, and the smooth Silver Coast roads, allow for quick speed in good comfort.

Alan: You share the coach with a lawyer and a vacationing couple, and the time goes quickly in light conversation, forced as it might be for you.

** Renate is too polite not to participate, but doing so is clearly a strain. **

Alan: The coach shops in Sachade, then goes on to the shores of Lake Teien.

Alan: A ferry takes you to across the lake to Eldorado itself, a beautiful university town where nearly everything seems made of marble.

Renate: Sabine would like it there.

Alan: Much of the architecture consists of repurposed or recarved fragments of ancient elven castles; the combination of ancient grandeur and ground-breaking academia is appealing.

Renate: Maybe she'll go, even. She's smart enough.

Alan: At the train station in Eldorado, you board a vehicle much like the ones in Gereval, but much larger and more powerful. The sleek engine is carved from a single huge redwood bole, heavily enchanted over a period of a hundred years.

Alan: The railroad goes from the edge of the city out over the lake, on an elegant suspension bridge.

Alan: Although you've seen drawings of such architecture, the reality is still amazing—the bridge seems to ride on air.

Alan: The moment you pass over the border into Andragar, the countryside changes.

Alan: In sharp constrast to the checkerboard tilled farmlands of the Silver Coast, where everything has an exact place, the desmesnes of Andragar are wild and untouched.

Alan: You know intellectually that much of this land was farmed and civilized only fifty to a hundred years ago, but now it's as though man had never set foot there.

Alan: Once, you see a hunter on horseback tracking a deer, but there's no organized farming.

Renate: They surely can't import all their grain.

Alan: Godfrey points out a large glass-like dome in the distance, at one point—he says that all of Andragar's food is grown in "fields" suspended in the air there and stacked twenty high.

Renate: "Do people have to live up there?"

Alan: Fresh river fish and shellfish are raised in the streams and water beds that are sandwiched between the growing fields.

Renate: Never to walk on snow, or grass, or good bare earth...

Alan: "The farmers live in small villages around the edges of the domes. In the summer, they hunt and gather in the wilderness when the mood takes them; in winter, they have gardens within the domes."

Renate: "Oh."

Alan: "The poet Jimlan makes much of the lifestyle, although his metrical innovations are questionable."

Renate: "Maybe I'm just a country girl, but it doesn't seem right, somehow."

Renate: "Nothing in-between Gereval and -- wilderness."

Renate: "No farms, no gardens, no pastures."

Alan: "Yes, the rural lifestyle as you know it does not exist in Andragar. Herd animals such as cattle and pigs are not widely used, as they are considered an inefficient use of grain."

Alan: "Of course, the Patchwork Kingdoms and the Silver Coast do a brisk trade in meat animals as luxury goods."

Renate: "I see."

Renate: "So, when the truce runs out..."

Renate: She does not finish the sentence.

Alan: The belief in wilderness as an absolute does not run to Rivalon, apparently—you pass through a good half-hour of scattered suburbs before reaching the city center.

Alan: Godfrey explains that Rivalon was already a sprawling and prosperous city when it was conquered a hundred years ago, and so it has kept its original shape.

Alan: The train continues through the night, and you retire to a sleeper car. Godfrey used some of the last of your travel fund to make this accomodation.

Renate: "Not entirely. Look there." She points to a group of buildings, being overgrown by ivy.

Renate: She needs it, unfortunately.

Alan: (Heh, sorry.)

Alan: He says he's going to present Lord Darenton's letter of credit at a bank in Gereval when you arrive.

Renate: What the Mists took from her, she seems not to have quite regained.

Renate: But there is a new dignity, a maturity, about her. Perhaps that is enough.

Alan: In the morning, the train pulls into a station in the Ninth Ward, near the city center.

Renate: (I hope we don't have to go through the Dirty Fifth!)

Alan: "I am given to understand that Heaven's headquarters is in this district, my lady. It should be easy to find."

Renate: "Good. Let's be off, then, Godfrey my friend."

Alan: Gereval is just as you remember it from your vision: bafflingly large, full of people and noise. The latest Purgatory thumps from a soundcube merchant's shop.

** Renate winces at it, and resolves to get rid of all her Purgatory 'cubes at home. **

Alan: Godfrey purchases a map from a vendor near the train platform, and locates the headquarters.

Alan: "Ah, yes, it's not far from here at all."

Renate: "We'd better find lodgings first."

Renate: "I can't besiege the Dragoner's office looking like this."

Alan: Godfrey asks the map vendor for a suggestion.

Alan: "Well, mister, your best bet if you want a nice place is the Lilac Arms, just two blocks north. I know the guy who runs the place, great guy, name's Amurio. Just tell 'im Jackard sent ya."

Alan: "He'll tell you a silver a night, but if you ask special, he'll make it nine copper."

** Renate sighs for the nice shopkeeper she met in her vision. **

** Renate looks at Godfrey to see if we can manage that amount. **

Alan: "Thank you, good sir," Godfrey says. "We will only be here a night, my lady; we must prize convenience over luxury when we are this close to our goal."

Renate: "All right. Mm, Godfrey, I was thinking of asking if Emil would come to dinner with us. Can we afford it?"

Alan: "No doubt, my lady, once I redeem this letter of credit. Lord Darenton was most generous once I told him of the import of our mission."

Renate: "Good. Some things I need to say to him won't go well in the middle of Heaven."

Alan: The Lilac Arms is small and dingy, but has a homelike atmosphere all the same. Amurio himself works the counter, and greets you like old friends.

Alan: "Heyyy! Welcome, welcome, will you be staying? One room or two?"

Alan: Godfrey handles the details, directing the man's energy away from effusive greetings and towards getting your luggage upstairs and your rooms set up.

Renate: Renate's mind is elsewhere, unsurprisingly.

Alan: Your room has big beautiful bay windows which give a glorious view of the back of the building across the alley.

Renate: But she does try to help.

Renate: She has genuinely taken to treating Godfrey as a friend and not a servant.

Renate: She slips sometimes -- but not often.

Alan: "Yeah, yeah, it's no good, eh? We were here first, they get new zoning, they build up a building right in our way, property values go ka-chunk!"

Renate: (Welcome to Gereval! I've had that hotel room, more than once.)

Renate: "Too bad."

Alan: "But then I talk to the warden, he gets me a subsidy, eh? He says it's just a mixup, so I get preferred next time around. It's a carousel, this city business, you know?"

Renate: (In NYC, Houston, Denver, few other places...)

** Renate smiles thinly. **

Alan: "But you know, around here, we get things done, eh? They call it 'the city that works,' and that's truth. It doesn't always make sense, but hey, it works."

Renate: "So they say," Renate answers, unconvinced.

Alan: "My father came here the the empires, you know? Poor enough to die on a bad winter, maybe," Amurio says as he escorts you back down to street level.

Renate: It reminds her of pointless sword-swooshing, all this bustle with no clear aim.

Alan: (Should be from the empires. Which refers to the parts of Lan'yaria that aren't in the Republic.)

Renate: (got it)

Alan: (Think of the worst parts of Appalachia.)

Alan: "Now here, we got immigration, I'm naturalized, I'm not doing great but I'm alive and I've got something to give my kids."

Alan: "So my windows look out on bricks. So I'm eating every day!"

Renate: "Good for you."

Alan: "You enjoy the city, miss, mister, you need anything, come to me."

** Renate really doesn't need the sales pitch right now. **

Renate: "Mm -- a restaurant recommendation?"

Renate: "Someplace quiet."

Alan: "Well, I eat every day at Missy Qualin's. You know she comes all the way from Valin? She has recipes from her homeland, good, cheap, you never ate anything like it."

Renate: "Thanks."

Renate: It doesn't sound quite the thing, somehow.

Alan: "She's just up around the corner on Smithcraft Lane, look on the left under the rail track. A little noisy."

Renate: But perhaps Emil will know someplace.

Alan: "Or if you look for something high-class, you can go to Evanesce. New restaurant, top of the Gabbiani Building, tallest building to the north, near Shadow Square."

** Renate represses a shudder. **

Renate: She doesn't want to be anywhere near Shadow Square.

Alan: "Food's too good for me, I can't even appreciate it for the price, but it's where the top hounds all eat."

Renate: But she nods anyway.

Alan: "Well, I don't know, there's places all along here. Just go towards Shadow Square, see the signs."

Renate: "I'll do that. Thanks again!"

Renate: "All right, Godfrey -- you'll be managing that letter of credit, I suppose?"

Renate: "I'll meet you back here, I think, whenever I finish what I'm doing."

Alan: Godfrey gives you directions to the Heaven headquarters.

Renate: She listens carefully, and follows them with commendable precision.

Alan: It's around ten in the morning, and Sunset Park is in the air, beginning its daily transit of the city.

Renate: She keeps an eye out for likely places to eat.

Alan: According to the map, eight stepping disks allow transport to the park; commuters use them to travel to distant corners of the city in an eyeblink.

Alan: Just step a half-mile up to the park, take a pleasant walk along its rim, then step back down into a different neighborhood.

Renate: Ah, well, better than human-powered winches.

Renate: If only Andragar were inclined to let other places learn from it peacefully.

Alan: That and the much larger Lan'yarian network are the only permanent teleportation devices in the known world.

Renate: She does not hate the place; she simply does not want to be conquered by it.

Alan: The Heaven headquarters occupies an open field in the middle of the Ninth Ward. You can see the ruler's shadow-shrouded palace from here—although it's in eternal darkness, it doesn't have the hunched and twisted look you might expect. Instead, it's an elegant fusion of Elven and modernist architecture.

Alan: It graces, rather than dominates, its surroundings.

** Renate squares her shoulders, under the pretty vest and clean blouse, and marches toward the headquarters. **

Alan: The Heaven headquarters is actually a campus of buildings that would be at home in any college. Red brick, covered with ivy; fountains and gardens and walkways between them.

Renate: Is there an obvious main office?

Alan: One large building with two broad wings faces the street. A long walkway runs to it from the road.

Renate: Sounds promising. She'll give it a try.

Alan: At the junction of the walkway and the road, a sign points to different facilities: "Reception; Training; Experimental" and so forth.

Alan: "Reception" and "Administration" are both in the building before you.

Renate: Let's start with Reception, I think.

** Renate tries and fails to imagine such an elaborate setup for the Karlbotel militia. **

Alan: The double doors open into a spacious lobby two stories high; workers in business dress walk through the lobby and mezzanine with papers or folders.

Renate: Which most of the time starts and ends with Aaron Wrenfall anyway.

** Renate sighs, shrugs, and starts exploring the place. **

Alan: A huge circular desk houses three workers; one is a very bored-looking teenage girl in a business dress that suits her poorly; the other two look like soldiers.

Renate: Let's try the bored-looking girl.

Alan: They wear the plain black of the regular army (which generally consists of a few security personnel and border garrisons).

Alan: "Hello welcome to Heaven how may I help you?" she asks, managing to turn it all into one word.

Renate: "I need to speak with two people. One is the Dragoner Lachlan Vinn; the other is my brother, Baronet Emil von Adler. I am Lady Renate von Adler."

Alan: "Do you have an appointment?" she inevitably asks.

Renate: "I only arrived today."

Alan: "Okay, I don't know if we have an Emil von Adler here... let me check the roster."

** Renate closes her eyes. **

Renate: Surely she will not have to go looking for him in the Dirty Fifth?

Alan: "And the Dragoner is usually very busy, but I can leave him a message and maybe he could get back to you if he sees fit?"

Renate: "I expect to be leaving very shortly. My business will take very little time."

Alan: The girl flips through a large leatherbound ring-binder.

Alan: "Adler, Adler, Adler... maybe it's under V?"

** Renate does not care to explain the vagaries of the alphabet to this girl. **

Alan: She flips around to the end. "Hmm... no... let me try the E's."

Renate: Oh, no.

Renate: He really isn't here.

Renate: Behind her impassive face, Renate is swiftly putting together rescue plans.

Alan: After exhausting all the possibilities, the girl looks up. "I'm sorry, Mr. von Adler definitely isn't listed here."

Alan: "Would you like to leave a message for the Dragoner?"

Renate: "I see."

Renate: "Yes, I would."

Alan: "Or... well, here he is. You're lucky."

** Renate turns to follow the girl's glance. **

Alan: You follow the receptionist's eyes to one side of the lobby, where Lachlan Vinn himself is walking into the room.

Alan: He's talking to an assistant about something, while the assistant rapidly takes notes.

Alan: "Okay, so we're going to move on that next week. Make sure to send them a telegram asking for surrender, okay? And make sure they have time to think about it."

** Renate lets the girl attract his attention. **

Renate: Poor Renate suppresses another shudder.

Alan: "I know that dragon, I bet we can maneuver him into an honor duel. No mortal deaths, understood?"

Renate: It might as well be Karlbotel he is talking about.

Alan: "Yes sir," the servant says, and leaves.

Alan: Lachlan sees the hesitant gesture of the receptionist, and follows her body language to you.

** Renate bows, with appropriate gravity. **

Alan: "Ah, so you would be... I'm sorry, I can't quite remember your name."

Alan: "The Lady von Adler, I take it, though."

Renate: "Yes. Renate. May I ask how you knew to expect me?"

Alan: "Quite a strong family resemblance. It's the eyes."

Renate: Resemblance?

Alan: "Your brother told me about you. He said that either you or your swordmaster would be coming to see him."

Renate: Then Emil *was* here, if he is not now -- and if Vinn has lost track of him she'll have the Dragoner's heart spitted on her sword.

Renate: "Did he, indeed. Yet I am told he is not here. How is that?"

Alan: "He's not here? Well, he's right out in the training field—I just finished giving him a lesson in Eternal Capital."

Alan: "Ah, wait, I know. You were looking for him under the wrong name."

** Renate gives the girl a look, decides not to pursue it. **

Renate: "Wrong name?" she asks wearily.

Alan: "Your brother has chosen to cut some of his ties. A lot of people do that when they join."

Alan: "He chose the name 'Will' because of the obvious play on words; and 'Gerevannin' because of his new home."

** Renate nods. **

Alan: "Will Gerevannin."

Renate: "Thank you, my lord Dragoner, for telling me."

Renate: "I should not like to have come upon him unprepared."

Renate: "May I beg the favor of a private word with you, sir?"

Renate: "It will only take a moment."

Alan: "Certainly." The Dragoner walks over to a comfortable leather couch and sits, gesturing for you to sit across from him.

Renate: A knot of -- well, anger -- is beginning to tie up Renate's throat.

Renate: But it will have to wait.

Alan: He concentrates for a moment, and the sounds of the lobby around you are suddenly cut off.

Alan: "A spell of privacy."

Renate: "Thank you, sir."

Renate: "I will come right to the point."

Alan: "I must say, I was very impressed with your brother's conduct during his trial."

Renate: "Please use his name, my lord Dragoner."

Alan: "He's told me that his skills are only a pale reflection of your own."

Alan: "Which would you prefer that I use?"

Renate: "As this appears to be one of the ties he has cut."

Renate: "The name he has chosen, if you will."

Alan: "I'd hoped to avoid awkwardness by compromising on 'your brother.'" Vinn smiles ruefully.

Renate: "And he was having a jest at my expense, sir."

Alan: "Will, then."

Renate: "As he can kick me around a practice field three times before breakfast without even trying."

Renate: "Anyway."

Renate: "An heirloom that was stolen from my family has, we believe, made its way through various hands into your own."

Renate: "It is a small statuette called the Alekian Figurine."

Alan: "The name isn't familiar, but does it animate and tell stories?"

Renate: "That is it, yes."

Renate: "I have been sent to reclaim it, if I can."

Alan: "Well, coming from Dameron Clay I should have known it was stolen goods."

Alan: "I'd be glad to return it. I've simply been using it as a sort of executive stress reliever."

Renate: "That is very generous of you, my Lord Dragoner. You have my thanks, on behalf of my father."

Alan: "You're welcome," he says politely.

Renate: "Shall we go and retrieve it, then?"

Alan: "I can sense your deep underlying tension, by the way, and I'd like to reassure you that under nearly any circumstance I can imagine, you have nothing to fear from any member of Heaven."

Renate: She does not like being in debt to this man, but she sees little choice.

Alan: With that, he rises and beckons for you to follow him.

Renate: "For now, my lord. For now."

Renate: She follows.

Renate: Her tension is not hard to sense, as it happens.

Renate: The heel of one hand has four bloody marks on it, from her own fingernails.

Alan: "Well," he says as he walks through the halls and up a few flights of stairs, "that includes the future. Heaven's aim is to bring not violence, but peace."

Renate: "I do not dispute it, my lord."

Alan: "Despite all the swords and spells, open violence is our last resort."

Alan: Vinn's office is the same size as the other ones on the floor; it's not even on a corner.

Renate: "I would not think to question your means and methods, my lord."

Alan: "I gave the corner office to the building administrator. He has to shuffle papers all day, but I get out into the open air sometimes."

Renate: What she questions, of course, are Heaven's ends.

Alan: "Here you go," he says, waving at his desk. The figurine, a small ivory carving of a robed woman, stands there next to some sort of chromed kinetic sculpture of a dolphin.

Renate: She picks it up carefully and opens a belt-pouch for it.

Alan: "If you ever get bored, just ask it to tell you a story," he says.

Renate: "I have since I was a child, my lord. It has only been missing two years."

Alan: "Ah, I didn't know."

Renate: "Well, you are busy, sir. I will go seek Master Gerevannin."

Alan: "Here, let me write you a hall pass. Oh, there are formal ones, but this'll do..."

Alan: He writes you a safe passage on a piece of notepad paper and rips it off its spiral binding.

Renate: "Thank you, my Lord Dragoner."

Alan: "This will get you into any rating below Secret. You should be able to track Will down wherever he goes."

** Renate nods, and moves toward the door. **

Alan: Vinn's handwriting is clear and blocky; the note expires at the end of the day.

Alan: "I was just on my way out, so I'll show you to the training field."

Renate: Unsurprising.

Renate: "Thank you, sir; I accept."

Renate: She takes his arm with the unbloodied hand.

Alan: Vinn guides you to a different exit, around the back of the building. "Would you like a light heal?" he asks. "I've got a spare."

Renate: "No, thank you. It is nothing you need concern yourself with."

Alan: "I was a werewolf for a few weeks back in '89... I can still smell blood."

Alan: The training field is just an area of packed earth amid a pleasant garden mapped out in flowerbeds.

Alan: A heap of scrap metal lies incongruously at one end.

** Renate lets go Vinn's arm, and drops him a stately curtsy. **

Renate: "You have been most accommodating, my lord. Once again I thank you."

Alan: At the other end, a young man in black and gold training clothes is striking a pell post with a curved metal sword.

Alan: "Well, I hope any future meetings we might have are as amicable."

Renate: "As do I, my lord."

Alan: Vinn strolls over to the scrap heap, whistling a specific tune as he goes.

Renate: Her tone, level and steady, is not hopeful.

Alan: A deep ticking noise comes from the scrap heap, and it shifts and rises and expands into a cunningly-built metal dragon.

Alan: It whirs, hums, and ticks, as Vinn hops onto its withers and urges it into the sky.

Renate: She walks down to the edge of the field, to see if the man training is Emil -- that is, Will.

Alan: As you get closer, you can tell that it is definitely him. And the pell post is made of solid metal, deeply scarred and blackened by years of impact from supercharged martial arts attacks.

Renate: She stands at the edge and waits quietly.

Renate: There is no hurry to introduce herself to this stranger.

Alan: Will is using the forthright yet deceptive motions of Eternal Capital, where every attack is crisp and perfect and not predicted until the last second.

Renate: The pain that she remembers from the Mists is rising again, worsening.

Alan: He's trying a certain sequence of motions, which seems to be a seven-hit combo, but he keeps muffing the last attack.

Renate: But this is necessary; therefore, she will do it.

Alan: Finally, he gets the sequence right, and this time as he performs the moves his sword begins to glow with a sharp blue light, finally exploding in a flash on the final hit.

Alan: You realize that the sword isn't actually metal, but some whitish material like ivory.

Renate: In Karlbotel, she would have applauded.

Alan: And although it has two edges, it is slightly curved, and Will is using only the forward edge.

Renate: Here, she stands silent, rather resembling the Alekian Figurine in some ways.

Alan: Will turns around, spinning his sword in lazy circles, just like he always used to do in Karlbotel.

Alan: When he sees you, he almost drops it.

Alan: "Rennie! I knew you'd probably come, but it's still a surprise to see you here."

Renate: "Master Gerevannin."

Renate: Cool, distant voice.

Alan: "Heh, you heard, huh? Sorry about that. I should have got them to cross-reference me."

Renate: And no running to him, no vigorous hug.

Renate: "I was told, yes."

Alan: "So, um, no hug? I mean, well, sure."

Renate: "I have only just met you, Master Gerevannin. It would be improper."

Alan: He shifts his head to one side, as though shrugging off something regretabble.

Alan: (Gah, spelling.)

Renate: (an offering to the Goddess Typoe)

Alan: "Okay, okay... I see the shape of things. You can ice me out as much as you'd like, but you're still my sister, I still love you, I'm never attacking my homeland—that was a condition of joining—blah blah blah."

** Renate shrugs. **

Alan: "I'm going to be on your side, from the inside, no matter how much you hate it."

Renate: "It is as the note in Emil's journal said. Emil von Adler died by his own hand."

Renate: "I have business with you, Master Gerevannin. May we discuss it over dinner?"

Alan: "Funny, I don't see myself having much appetite once you really get started, but I'd be glad to sit across a table from you and squirm for a while."

Renate: She doesn't smile. She hasn't smiled once since he saw her.

Renate: He is entitled to wonder if it is genuinely her!

Alan: "How about Comechio's? Lots of deep booths, everyone minds their own secrets."

Renate: "As you please. The address?"

Alan: "Well, we could just go."

** Renate checks the sun. **

Alan: "It's lunch time, anyway."

Alan: Sunset Park is directly over the palace.

Renate: "I need to drop by my lodgings first, I am afraid."

Renate: "I will meet you there shortly, if it is not too far."

Alan: "Well, okay, it's on Piata Way and Crescent Isle Lane."

** Renate nods. "I will be there. If I am delayed, please do me the courtesy to wait." **

Alan: "Sure... and bring Renate, would you? I bet she'd like to see me."

Renate: She leaves without acknowledging that remark.

Renate: Is Godfrey at the Lilac Arms when she gets back?

Renate: (*Lilac* Arms? Ewww.)

Alan: (What's wrong with lilacs?)

Renate: (Well, nothing... but I hope the place isn't painted that color.)

Alan: (Oh, nope. Just the sign.)

Renate: (Good.)

Alan: Godfrey is in his room reading. "My lady."

Renate: "Hello, Godfrey. Two for four."

Renate: She brings out the figurine and lays it on a table.

Renate: "And I blew the biggest one -- not that anybody could have done any better."

Alan: "A triumph, perhaps, but the young master?"

Renate: "Who's that?"

** Renate slumps into a chair opposite. **

Renate: "There's no such person. There's only Will Gerevannin, Michael preserve us."

Alan: "Indeed. But perhaps he has taken a new name in order to protect his family."

Renate: "I've chased all over Northrock for a chimera. I've lost my brother, Godfrey!"

Renate: "Lachlan Vinn knows."

Renate: "Nice guy, for a party-line-spouting tyrant."

Renate: "I'm sorry. I don't mean to throw this at you."

Renate: "Not your fault, is it?"

Alan: "I remain devout in my insistence that the young master would never do anything he did not consider right."

Alan: "Whether you are to accept his judgment is not for me to decide."

Renate: "Great. And what if his right isn't ours?"

Alan: "It would be a sorry world, would it not, in which everyone thought the same?"

Renate: "I have to accept it. What else can I do?"

Renate: "I can't change it."

Renate: "I even meant to. I wasn't going to drag him home."

Renate: "But he threw away our name, Godfrey!"

Renate: "As if it meant nothing!"

Renate: "What am I supposed to think of that?"

Alan: "I suspect that he wished to avoid overt conflict between his origins and his current loyalty. This does not presuppose that he has forsaken his ties to Karlbotel."

Renate: "He's here and he's not there, and he's working under people with a real talent for smooth talk."

Renate: "I -- I didn't tell you about my last vision."

Renate: "Believe me, I didn't want to and I don't."

Alan: "It is entirely appropriate to keep such things to oneself. After all, they are simply one possibility; one that may well be far-fetched."

Renate: "I don't think so."

Renate: "I don't think so at all."

Renate: "You're the one who warned me about the truce running out."

Renate: "How would you like to see Heaven invading Karlbotel, with Will Gerevannin at their head, ready to murder Emil von Adler's father and his sisters?"

Alan: "That would assuredly be a gruesome image indeed."

Renate: "It was. Oh, God, it was."

** Renate buries her head in her hands. **

Renate: She is trembling.

Renate: "Well," she says finally. "I have a lunch date with Master Gerevannin. Would you like to come pay your respects?"

Alan: "Do you believe that my presence would be welcomed?" He doesn't say by whom.

Renate: "You can keep me from killing him, how about that?"

Renate: It is a grim joke at best.

Renate: "Yes, he'll be happy to see you."

Renate: "I didn't make a good impression at all, I'm afraid."

---

Alan: Comechio's is a dingy red brick building on an out-of-the-way corner a few blocks from Heaven HQ.

Alan: On the other side of its heavy wooden door, the place is dim, lit with blue-paned hanging lamps, full of deep high-backed booths and tapestries that just happen to act as baffles.

Renate: A couple of rather odd events -- to Will Gerevannin's mind, at least -- happen as Renate comes in.

Alan: It seems almost designed for secrecy, whether that of the romantic rendezvous (perchance illicit) or that of the underworld convocation.

Renate: One is that some heads do indeed turn as she passes.

Renate: The other is that she doesn't acknowledge or even notice it.

Renate: Godfrey, behind her, is carrying a long, slim bundle wrapped in burlap.

Alan: A willowy half-elven maitre'd, his features a baked-bread Lan'yarian bronze, greets you as you enter. "Will my lady and my lord wish a window booth today?" he asks, showing deference first to you, although only by the merest second.

Alan: Noticing Godfrey a moment later, he says "ah, for three then?"

Alan: "Something in the corner, rather, Jean," Emil says.

Alan: "Of course, my lord," the host agrees, and ushers you to a place in the back, where even the soft violin music from the overhead soundstones fades almost to nothing.

** Renate seats herself sedately. **

Alan: "Your menus," he says, handing out single-sheet bills of fare.

Renate: "Thank you."

Alan: "Our special this Treeday is fire-blackened Southpoint roughy, served with a light clam sauce on a bed of pasta."

Alan: "Your waiter shall arrive shortly to meet your needs."

Alan: The host bows himself away.

** Renate studies the menu, to avoid having to look at Will. **

Renate: Fish doesn't seem quite the thing, not after Ilium and Eridu.

Renate: The stuffed grape leaves look worth trying, however.

Renate: And there is fresh lemonade.

Alan: Godfrey studies his menu with a practiced detachment. He seems quite prepared to analyze it as though it were an ancient Elven text if it will grant the proper degree of semi-privacy.

** Renate isn't worried about it; she doubts she has any secrets at all left from Godfrey. **

Renate: And if he makes Will uncomfortable, it only serves Will right.

Alan: Will (may as well get into that habit now, since you have) says, "They have four chefs who take over the menu by shifts. That's why they print a new one each day."

Renate: (well, she's in a very specific frame of mind with respect to him...)

** Renate makes a noncommittal noise. **

Alan: "I think I'll be trying the pasta and baked clams with lemon sauce. I've been developing a taste for this light southern fare."

Alan: "You can't get good old beef around here very easily."

** Renate indicates her choice quietly to Godfrey, so that he can order for her, as is proper. **

Alan: "But they ship all types of seafood from the coast by rail."

Alan: Godfrey nods. "Very good, my lady."

Alan: The table falls into silence for a minute, broken by the arrival of the waiter.

Renate: "All family here, Godfrey. You know my name."

Alan: "Hello, I am Gustave, I shall attend you this even. Drinks?"

Alan: Godfrey says "Indeed, my lady," eyes still on his menu.

Renate: Poor Godfrey.

Alan: "Only water," Will says.

Renate: Perhaps she ought to have left him behind.

Renate: Even though she's glad to have him there.

Alan: Godfrey had already glanced at the wine and liquor list, and says "Greenhill and water" with something approaching gusto.

Renate: "Lemonade, please."

Alan: "All right, and are you ready to order? Perhaps an appetizer?"

** Renate lets Godfrey take care of the ordering. **

Alan: "Well, I'm ready," says Will.

Renate: She is cool as a spring evening in Karlbotel.

Alan: "The special for me, then," says Godfrey, "and the grape leaves with lamb and rice for my lady."

Alan: Will places his order as well, and the waiter moves to the next waiting table.

Alan: "So," Will finally says, "I hope you didn't have to go through any trouble to get here."

Alan: "The route from Ilium to Gereval is pretty tame."

Renate: "You haven't any idea, and you should be earnestly glad I'm not going to tell you. I took the long way 'round."

Alan: "Don't tell me you circumnavigated? Because you could be held for cartographical crimes," he jokes.

Alan: ("Cartographical crimes" is not in itself a joke—dragon control of knowledge again.)

Renate: That earns him a level, unforgiving stare.

Renate: "Item of business, the first," she says.

Renate: "You have not mentioned who trained you, I hope?"

Alan: "No, by Jodin," he says, invoking the archdemon as patron of all secrets.

Renate: "Good. Don't. Whatever trouble you've got *me* into, he shouldn't have to suffer for you."

Renate: "And he could, if he's found."

Alan: "They never asked, in fact. And I've never used a specific move."

Renate: "Keep it that way."

Alan: "I think the Dragoner might know something, actually. They've been too empty of questions."

Alan: "But I can't do anything about that."

Renate: "I shouldn't wonder. How long have you been here, and you didn't know the Alekian Figurine was sitting on his desk?"

Alan: "I've never been into his office. It's only been a few months, and I'm still very junior, despite the Arcblade."

Renate: "I see."

Renate: "Well, I have it back now, so never mind."

Alan: You've heard stories about the ivory-cast Arcblades, which slowly change to match their bearer's skills and spirit... what will Will's become?

Renate: That is up to him. Right now, it doesn't seem to matter.

Renate: "Item the second. The truce runs out in less than a decade. Keep it in mind. I will be."

Renate: Will can't remember Renate ever remaining this serious for this long.

** Renate waits for Will to answer that. **

Alan: "Everyone who joins Heaven from outside Andragar receives a counter-oath when he joins. Vinn swears for the whole army that no nation will be conquered by open war."

Renate: If he's got the balls to.

** Renate rolls her eyes. **

Renate: "But nothing else is off-limits."

Alan: "Heaven's entire job is to serve Andragar—and killing armies doesn't serve Andragar."

Renate: "Grow up."

Renate: "Fat lot of comfort that'll be to me, come truce-end."

Alan: "I've been studying the history of Heaven's campaigns. At least ninety percent of the 'wars' have resulted in no irreversible deaths at all."

Renate: There is a note in her voice that is a little bit -- off.

Alan: "And most have only involved two dozen deaths of any kind at all."

Renate: "And that justifies conquest, does it?"

Renate: "I ask merely for information."

Alan: "Our teacher might not agree with the ends. I don't want to try to speak for him. But I think that he'd approve of the means."

Alan: "The least suffering for the least number of people."

** Renate sighs. **

Renate: "I suppose we'll find out what he thinks."

Renate: "But consider that he's -- where he is, and not here."

Renate: "Ask yourself why."

** Renate breaks off as the waiter arrives with steaming plates. **

** Renate accepts hers and smiles briefly at Gustave. **

Alan: Will takes his, ignoring the warning of "hot plate" to his immediate dismay.

Alan: Godfrey takes the example as instruction and allows Gustave to deposit the plate at his place.

Renate: A lady does not take a plate from a waiter, so Renate is fine.

Alan: As Gustave leaves, Will says, "I thought our teacher was in Karlbotel because he has too many enemies elsewhere. You know, he's run to ground."

** Renate glances at Godfrey, and then says "I doubt that is the only reason." **

Alan: "Otherwise, he could have a school in Southtown right next to Gunner's Heaven. He's good enough."

Renate: "Yes, he is."

Renate: "Can you think of some reason he might not want to teach what he knows to just anyone?"

** Renate is trying Godfrey's methods, however ineptly. **

Alan: "Sure I can. Give his art to an army and watch it leap. But you'd think he'd just pick an army he liked, and give that army a temporary advantage until the field of tactics balances out again."

Renate: "And if there is no army he likes?"

Alan: "That's happened over and over in history. The dark elves invented the trebuchet and breached fortresses thought invincible; then the light elves returned the favor."

Alan: "Well then, if he doesn't like any army, but maybe there's an army he hates... I could see that he might keep things quiet."

Renate: "Yes."

Alan: "That's why I'm respecting his wishes, even though I bet I know which army he hates."

** Renate meets his eyes straight on for the first time. **

Renate: "I think you do know."

Renate: "Though I do not think it hate so much as fear, Will Gerevannin."

Alan: "And everyone except my father has always taught me to think for myself. So I don't have to like, hate, or fear any of the same things."

** Renate emphasizes the spurious surname. **

** Renate nods. **

Renate: "You're not in trouble, as it happens," she says quietly.

Renate: "Thank Godfrey."

Alan: The food is very good, I might mention—the grape leaves, which grow best in southern Andragar (hence the region's famous wines) give a delightful savor to the imported lamb and short-grain rice.

Renate: She is eating slowly; she is dimly aware that the food is good, but more on an intellectual level than anything else.

Alan: "Well, I am grateful for your intercession, Godfrey. What form did it take?" he asks.

Alan: "I undertook to provide his lordship with a letter, convincingly—I may hope—drawn in your hand."

Alan: "Its content, although much occupied in circumlocution, connoted that you have embarked upon a journey of adventure, to prove your manhood and wisdom. 'As experience unveil'd, a thousand seas of man and nature sail'd,' as the poet says."

Alan: "I believe his lordship chose to allow the letter to assuage the sharpest of his concerns, young master."

Renate: "Though that wasn't all," Renate picks up the thread.

Renate: "He worried that Glenworth would be after you. So I missed out on a party in favor of a horse-ride into the Patchworks."

Renate: "But I made a bargain with him first, for the little it's worth now."

Renate: "The Alekian Figurine, the Golden Harp, the Bow -- I said I'd find them, if Papa let you be your own man."

Alan: "So... that kind of quest is practically mythical. Like something from a bard's song."

Renate: "Might have been. Except I made a mess of things."

Renate: "Difference between you and me, I guess."

Renate: "Papa leans on you all the time, but as soon as you leave you earn everything you want."

Alan: Will isn't Andragarian yet—a citizen of Gereval, with its plentiful bookstores, would have said "Like an adventure novel."

Renate: "Me, I'm the golden child, all right -- but turn me loose and I can't do anything right."

Alan: (I guess even in Ilium you'd find that usage.)

Alan: "Kind of like iron, isn't it?" he says, using your old shared joke for "irony."

Renate: "So you've got your own back from me. Just so you know."

Renate: "And just so you know I did try."

Renate: "For you."

Renate: "Because I was sorry that I'd never understood."

Alan: "So did you get any? Of the treasures. I mean, I know you, you don't give up easily."

Renate: "I just told you where the Figurine was. Don't you listen?"

Renate: "Look, it doesn't matter."

Alan: "I know that, I meant the other two."

Renate: "I could have brought them all home, and Papa would still tear me limb from limb because you're not coming with me."

Renate: "That's how it is."

Alan: "I thought the treasures were the price for me being my own man."

Alan: "And that's a price you shouldn't have had to offer or pay."

Renate: "Sure I should. I could have told him long ago to quit putting me over you."

Renate: "But I didn't. Because I never thought of it that way."

Renate: "I only ever picked up a sword because I wanted to be like you."

Alan: "Huh. So you never even noticed, huh?"

Renate: "I never meant to stand in your light."

Renate: "No. I didn't. Because I'm an idiot."

Alan: Will laughs. "Weird, I always thought I was just forgiving you."

Renate: "Well, I mean, I *did*, but I didn't realize how much it hurt you."

Alan: "Well, I forgive you anyway," he says.

Alan: "In a lot of ways, you're honestly better anyway."

Alan: "Like in the not-joining-Heaven way. That's a pretty big one in Father's eyes, I bet."

Renate: "Not in any way that matters."

Renate: "I don't think."

Renate: "Maybe in the not-abandoning-family way."

Renate: "Saints and angels, Emil -- Will -- whoever the hell you are -- do you have any idea how much that hurt?"

Alan: "Hmm, okay, how much do you want to hate yourself?" he asks.

Renate: "Lay it on me."

Alan: "It was Purgatory that got me thinking Andragar would be good for the continent in the first place."

Renate: "Ouch."

Renate: "That hurt."

Alan: "After hearing the lyrics and reading the liner notes, I did a little studying, and I couldn't see the downside, philosophically speaking."

** Renate glances at Godfrey, to see how he is taking this. **

Alan: "It's not a utopia, but it comes a bit closer than most other places."

Alan: "When you're looking at entire kingdoms, you can't just look at specific people, because there's always a sad guy and there's always a happy guy. I started looking at numbers, like my history teacher told me to."

Renate: "But we'll never find out what might be better than Andragar, will we?"

Alan: "The numbers say Andragar is a better place."

Renate: "Because Andragar will conquer it before anyone finds out."

Alan: Godfrey is following the conversation with polite interest. His face betrays nothing, and he shows no inclination to speak.

Renate: "Numbers."

Renate: "I'm just a number, I guess. So are Papa and Mama and Sabine."

Alan: "And so am I," Will says.

Renate: "And Godfrey. And our teacher."

Renate: "Not to me. Not ever."

Renate: "But you don't know that, do you?"

Renate: "And I won't tell you, because it isn't right you should hate yourself the way I hate myself right now."

Renate: "Fine."

Alan: "I just want to bring the greatest good to the greatest number of people."

Renate: "In ten years it won't matter, because I'll be dead and you'll be a Lune Knight."

Alan: "I'm not going to sacrifice my family to do it, though. Trust me on that one."

Renate: "Grow *up*," she says again.

Renate: "You won't, but the Dragoner doesn't give a damn."

Renate: "We're just numbers to him."

Renate: "He'll just send you to nail somebody who's only numbers for you."

Renate: "Somebody else. Who probably isn't numbers to some other people, but what do you care?"

Alan: "Deaths aren't the point. Deaths can be reversed. All Heaven fighting moves are designed to leave bodies recoverable."

Alan: "The real point is about a conflict between ways of life."

Renate: "Fair enough."

Renate: "I don't want this one."

Alan: "If you want to get to me, talk to me about harvest festivals disappearing, or Karlbotel's main street being covered in streetweave."

Renate: "I don't mind you having it."

Renate: "I don't want it forced on me."

Alan: "But wait—that sounds okay to me, compared to the benefits."

Renate: "I believe you," Renate says bleakly.

Alan: "But all of that is just ideology and culture. We can't have a rational discussion about that."

Alan: "Nobody can."

Renate: "But you can impose it."

Renate: "And you will."

Alan: "Now I'm going to come out with one of those crazy aphorisms that used to leave Master Vanion scratching his head."

Alan: "'The proof is in the pudding—and the only way to find out whose pudding is stronger is to eat them both.'"

Renate: "But here's the thing. You'll have to ship me before it happens. BHR. I'm serious."

Renate: "You just add that to your numbers."

Alan: "You have no idea what kind of training we go through, Renate. You'll have to kill yourself long before we get there if you don't want your life to be saved."

Renate: "Fine. Think I can't do it?"

Renate: From the look in her eyes, she can.

Alan: "Then I'll have to kidnap you or something a few years ahead of time."

Renate: "Well, I'll give you an excuse, then."

Alan: "And you can bump up the schedule to match, and we can go back and forth until you're stabbing yourself with that breadknife right this instant."

Renate: She picks up the bundle at her side, unwraps it, and holds out a scabbarded Crescent Light.

Alan: "Hello, old friend," Will says.

Renate: "This is yours."

Alan: Will pulls the blade out of its sheath just far enough to see the dim lamplight reflect off its fine metal.

Alan: "It needs a buff. I can teach you how to do that if I win the upcoming argument."

Renate: "And it would work better than the breadknife, incidentally."

Alan: "Would you like to fire the first salvo?"

Renate: "You're not going to."

Renate: "Gladly."

Renate: "The one thing you did wrong was sneaking out."

Renate: "And the only reason that didn't catch up with you was Godfrey."

Renate: "You left a mess, but you can fix it, and I'm willing to tell you how."

Renate: "You take this, and when you're ready, you bring it back to Karlbotel."

Renate: "And either you take it for yourself there, for good, or you stand in front of Papa and tell him you're giving it to me."

Renate: "Which is up to you."

Renate: "But I don't see how you can trust yourself until you settle things man-to-man with Papa."

Renate: "So take it."

Alan: "You know, that's actually pretty reasonable."

Alan: "But I have a counter-argument that you aren't going to be able to refuse."

Renate: "Amazing, isn't it?"

Renate: "The Incredibly Rational Younger Sister."

Alan: "Show the sword to a dragon and ask him to tell you what he sees."

Alan: "He'll categorically refuse."

** Renate almost turns to stone on the spot. **

Renate: "Why is that?" she forces out of a very dry throat.

Alan: "I have no idea."

Renate: "Oh. Damn."

Renate: "It kind of matters."

Alan: "I once visited Shrapnel Dragon in southern Maal—you remember, when Master Vanion took me to see the mountains?"

Renate: "But why is it a counterargument?"

Renate: "Right, so?"

Alan: "Shrapnel Dragon 'scanned' the sword with that dragon sense."

Renate: "And?"

Alan: "Then he said, and I still have no idea why, that I should leave immediately before he simply took it."

Alan: "Most inoffensive and genial dragon I've ever met."

Renate: "Oh."

Renate: Said very blankly indeed.

Alan: "I asked him if there was a risk, and he said 'not from most. Not from almost all.'"

Renate: For a moment, her eyes are as featureless as Lord Hyuri's.

Alan: "But you can bet your last chip that 'almost all' doesn't include Dark Eternal."

** Renate takes a rather shaky breath. **

Alan: "That's why I left the sword behind in the first place."

Renate: "I think I may have messed up worse than I knew."

Alan: "Otherwise, I would never have parted with it."

** Renate nods. **

Renate: "I believe you," she says, and Emil feels her resistance to him fading.

Renate: "Well, I guess I can hope xenophobia extends to other dragons."

Renate: "Feel like hearing a confession?"

Alan: "Damn, left my cassock at home."

Renate: "All right, forget it, then."

Renate: "Not your problem any more."

Renate: "Hardly anything is."

Renate: "Boy. Just when I think my life cannot *possibly* get any worse."

Alan: "Hey, I can handle it if you need some advice."

Alan: "Just call me Gabriel."

** Renate shakes her head. **

Renate: "Not your problem any more."

Renate: "But you can do me a favor."

** Renate resheathes the sword, conceals it in the anonymous burlap, and replaces it by her feet. **

Renate: "If you feel like it, I mean. You're not obligated, and I obviously can't make you."

Alan: "Well, cough it up."

Renate: "Write a letter home, so they know I saw you."

Renate: "I wouldn't put it past Papa not to believe me."

Alan: "I've already been working on one, it's just that each day something new happens that I have to add to it."

Alan: "Life in this city really is one big adventure, Renate."

Alan: "There's so much to find and explore even in a five-block area."

** Renate puts her elbows on the table and her head in her hands. **

Renate: "Watch what you do, will you?" she pleads heavily.

Renate: "You don't know what you could do to yourself."

Alan: "Um, okay?"

Renate: "I know that sounds weird. I know it does. I can't help it."

Alan: "So far my biggest risk is dying from that raw blowfish fillet they serve at Citan's. And they promise a free rez with any mishap."

Renate: That odd off-note is back in her voice.

Renate: "That's what you think."

Alan: "C'mon, they even serve an immunity potion in the pre-dinner wine."

Renate: "Damn it, Emil, I am for once being serious!"

Alan: "Well, okay, I'll be careful."

Renate: "There's nobody here who loves you."

Renate: "Nobody to look out for you but you."

Renate: "So watch it."

Renate: "Please."

Alan: "They're giving me the Blood of the Dragon Spirit next week, and Golden Armor training starting next month, and Dark Eternal will be unlocking my talents once my training reaches a certain point."

Alan: "It'll get harder and harder for me to even find trouble I can't handle."

Alan: "That's part of what brought me here, aside from all the philosophy."

Renate: "I've been around the block a couple of times since I left home," she says softly.

Alan: "It's childish, but I want to be strong enough to do what I feel the need to do."

Renate: "And one thing I learned is that it isn't the outside stuff that gets you -- it's the inside stuff."

Alan: "Yeah, that's the first thing they told me. Darm especially. He should know."

Renate: "Just don't find out the hard way."

Alan: Darm Sobredaño holds a demon trapped within his own body. Handy side note.

Renate: "Because I'm not going to be waiting all night by an open window any more to let you in the manor."

Alan: "I always did appreciate that, you know."

Alan: "And it'll sound stupid, but I learned a little bit more about my limits each night that happened."

Renate: "And I have enough to worry about now, without worrying about -- things I'm not going to tell you about," she reminds herse.f

Renate: "I did notice the water glass," she admits.

Alan: "Well, once I get the Blood of the Dragon spirit the stuff won't affect me anyway. I figured I might get used to it now."

** Renate sighs. "I guess that'll be one worry off my shoulders, then." **

Alan: "And if there's something I can do on my side about whatever's hanging over your head, just tell me."

Alan: "After a year, I'll be free to go my own way, and do as I see fit within my remarkably loose oaths."

Renate: "You've already explained to me you can't."

Alan: "I swear to 'serve Andragar,' but that can just mean going off and doing good in Dark Eternal's name. That's how the Serpent Angel does it."

Renate: "I suppose there's no getting out of the oath at this point."

Alan: "He hasn't changed a thing, he just goes around righting wrongs and explaining to people that he's not a chaos entity."

Alan: (Reference Sk'sn Skvarce in the Mortals list if you're curious. K'siri Arc Knight.)

Renate: ('k)

Alan: "So if I can help you without opposing Andragar, I will."

Alan: "Of course, if I had to know something that would change what opposes Andragar and what doesn't..."

Renate: "Well." She shakes her head. "Wish I thought that was possible. I've pretty good reason to think it isn't."

Alan: "Like right now, I can refuse Crescent Light because I don't actually know if it's at all relevant."

Renate: "Oh, God. I can't talk about it now. Let me get home and try to reassemble the tiny tiny pieces I'm in right now, and I'll write you about it, all right?"

Alan: "It's sort of a mind game. Vinn even explained it to me, he said he does the same thing."

Renate: "I noticed."

Renate: "Acutely."

Renate: "You might say."

Alan: "We all learn to balance things mentally in order to do the 'right' thing even against pure logic or pure loyalty."

Alan: "Vinn says Dark Eternal prefers it that way. It keeps Heaven flexible."

Renate: "But, look, this is -- you're not going to like it. Are you sure you want to know?"

Alan: "If you don't think it will change this mental balance I'm talking about, then tell me."

Renate: "And if I think it might?"

Alan: "Then don't."

** Renate sighs. **

Renate: "I hope they don't expect to turn tables quickly around here."

Renate: "This could take a while."

Alan: "This is the place to go for lengthy conversations. I'll just leave a bigger tip."

Alan: "They know I'm Heaven anyway."

Renate: "This is on me, big brother."

Alan: Gustave comes by to clear your plates. "A demitasse?"

Alan: "Black tea, cream and sugar," Will says. Clearly he hasn't tried to acquire the Andragarian taste for coffee.

Renate: "Just a refill on the lemonade, please. And another couple of napkins, if you don't mind."

Alan: Godfrey asks for tea as well.

Alan: He has faded very neatly into the background—a trick you've seen him do many a time before during family discussions.

Renate: He's remarkably good at it, yes.

Alan: (And it's so easy to role-play!)

** Renate sits up straight, and folds her hands in her lap like a school-girl. **

Renate: She tells her own story, from the day Emil left, as if it were a recitation assigned by a poetry-master.

Renate: Without emotion, without tears, in an overcontrolled voice in which the off-note has come to dominate.

Renate: When she comes to the Sea of Possibility, she cannot look her brother in the face.

Renate: As promised, the recitation takes some time.

Alan: Will responds to the story with approriate noises: applause at your dealing with Hyuri, amusement at the legend of Emilia Eaglebourne, sympathy and sadness at Dorothy Durai.

Renate: She does not react to any of it; it is all she can do to keep speaking.

Alan: But once you've told him about the Sea of Possibility, he says, "No matter how real that was to you, it wasn't me."

Alan: "I know it's supposed to be a possible me, but who cares about that? It's not me, and now that you've told me about it, it can't be."

Renate: She sits there quietly, hands folded, looking drained.

Alan: "Knowing the future is philosophically worthless, because once you know about it, you change the future to something new that you can't know."

Alan: "Whatever really happens might be worse, it'll probably be better, but the vision you had can never come to pass."

Renate: She doesn't look comforted.

Renate: Not in the slightest.

Alan: "For one thing, I've been studying up on Heaven tactics, and there'd never be that kind of formal parley. Too much of a warning."

Alan: As always, the man is making jokes that don't particularly help.

Renate: "Too much honor," she snaps suddenly.

Alan: "Did you ever ask our teacher what honor means? I did, and his answer really surprised me."

Alan: "I was expecting a listing of chivalrous manners."

Renate: "I've heard another definition. Let's have his."

Alan: "Instead, he just said 'honor is doing the right thing even at the wrong time.'"

** Renate closes her eyes. **

Alan: "I hated the definition, because it left too much room for interpretation."

Alan: "I wanted hard and fast rules."

Alan: "But now I'm coming to realize what he meant: that honor can be different for two different people... but there can't be two separate honors for one person."

** Renate shrugs. "And now yours belongs to Andragar." **

Renate: "And mine never can."

Renate: "I hate the world, Emil. Do you know that? I hate it."

Alan: "It's pretty dumb, isn't it?"

Renate: "I want to go home and never leave again."

Renate: "Except now the world is going to follow me."

Alan: "But in the middle of all the stupidity, there's so much beauty! Who can ever truly hate it?"

Alan: "Curse it for an obstinate and contrary cuss of an excuse for a giant packed-earth orb, yes."

Renate: "You got the brawn, big brother, and Sabine got the beauty."

Renate: "I'm just leftovers."

Alan: "But it's where gravity holds us, and until we can fly to the moon, it's where we're stuck."

Alan: "Nah... out of brawn and beauty, what's left? Only brains, sister."

Renate: "If I had those to begin with, we wouldn't be at this pass, big brother."

Alan: "At least it's nice to see I'm your brother again."

Renate: "I can't help that. Wish I could. In all your incarnations, seems like you break my heart."

Renate: "Which you couldn't do if I didn't love you, damn you."

Alan: "Hey, I love you too, and I'm pretty sure that things will work out better than you seem to think they will."

Renate: "You didn't fight a dragon, chase a crazy woman through a war zone, and see evil visions to get here."

Alan: "Want to go see a play? The Dragon Dust Theater has a late-night sketch show. Random satire and zaniness. Strongly anti-government, so you should like that."

Alan: "And no, I didn't, but I did get killed once. Kind of exhilarating."

Alan: "You haven't truly lived until you've died," he says ironically.

Renate: "So Godfrey says."

Renate: "I'll settle for undeath, then."

Alan: The phrase is a commonplace among tough guys, by the way.

Renate: (I think Maiandos might have used it.)

Renate: (Or maybe it was Coris.)

Alan: "Well, there's a whole vampire subculture I hear about, but that's probably not something you really want to get into."

Alan: (They're both pretty tough.)

Alan: "Maybe three or four actual vampires, and a host of wish-they-were teenagers."

Renate: "I think I'm out of the wish-I-was stage by now."

Alan: "Well, you definitely don't wish you were a vampire. For one thing, you go through a fortune in parasols."

Renate: "I'll remember that."

Renate: "Godfrey, are you interested in the theatre?"

Alan: "I have most fond recollections of the late-night theater revues in Ilium, my lady. As I recall, they are always full of energy, since the audiences largely comprise exuberant youths."

Renate: "Mm. Don't think I'll fit in real well."

Renate: "And what did I tell you about what to call me?"

Alan: "And from what I hear of Gereval's artistic counterculture, I suspect that you will find the political views evinced to be quite the opposite of Andragarian culture as you may have envisioned it."

Alan: "I am to refer to you as Renate, my lady."

Alan: Godfrey's cheek is utterly deadpan.

Renate: "All right, look, I am going to say this in front of a witness."

Renate: "I don't have any right to that title, not from you."

Renate: "I have been impressed the entire journey by the number and calibre of the people who are your friends, Godfrey."

Alan: Will is pinching his temples between thumb and forefinger, a wry smile on his face. He seems to be enjoying the little verbal duel.

Renate: "And the greatest honor I can imagine right now would be to be counted among their number."

Alan: "I am most fortunate in that regard, but I cannot lay any reasonable claim to nobility by association."

Renate: "Which you're not doing as long as you call me 'my lady.'"

Renate: "No. You have nobility of soul."

Renate: "Credit me for figuring out that much, at least."

Renate: "So you call me Renate, or I call you 'my lord.' Your choice."

Renate: "Though my friends usually call me Ren."

Alan: Godfrey sighs, which is for him an emotional gesture on par with the arm-waving of arena actors.

Alan: After some lengthy internal dialogue (which I almost typed before realizing that Godfrey wouldn't actually make it public), he says, "Of course, Renate."

Renate: "Well, all right, then. Thank you."

Renate: "And of course I understand that in public you may have to keep up appearances."

Renate: "Are you sure we're not too late to catch the show? I know I look like grim death, but I suppose it'll be dark enough no one will care."

Alan: Will points at the wall clock that you couldn't see from your seat. "It's fifteen of ten. The show begins at eleven. We've ages."

Renate: "All right, then. This is the last sight of you I get for a while, I guess, so I'd better make the most of it."

Renate: "Sorry I'm such a downer, though. It really *has* been a terrible trip."

Alan: "Well, maybe a good laugh and a hearty nose-thumbing of the establishment will make things better."

Renate: "Doubt it, big brother -- think I left my sense of humor somewhere in the Patchworks -- but laugh all you want."

Renate: "I get to think about the many and varied ways Papa will tell me what a failure I am."

Alan: "It's a strange and wonderful world, Renate... perhaps he'll be proud of you in the end no matter what. Just tell him everything you've told me, and I know he'll be impressed."

Renate: "No way. He'd keel over dead on the spot."

Renate: "Besides -- I don't think I can get all the way through it again."

Renate: "Bad enough once."

Alan: "Yeah," he agrees. "I guess... if it has been me in your place... I'd feel the same way."

Renate: That earns him a tremulous but genuine smile. "Well. That's something."

Renate: "Come on, let's go."

Renate: "I have to put this here burlap out of sight somewhere before we get to the theatre."

Alan: You finish your drinks; you thank the waiter; you pay the bill; and you step out into the late spring night.