Sharinta was enjoying herself in the tavern across the square. She was holding court, which was one of her favourite activities, or at least one of her favourite activities that you could do in public, or, she edited internally, one of her favourite activities that wasn't one of the activities that most people thought you couldn't do in public, Sharinta being about as open minded a person as had ever lived.

In her case, 'holding court' meant being the centre of attention of a group of young men, each of which had found himself besotted with her. This was far from uncommon for Sharinta, her clerical gifts in the fields of persuasion, attraction and seduction being second to none - it actually took effort to stop it happening (unless she was with McKenzie, who seemed as immune to that as he did magic, manners and subtle hints). The curse normally prevented her from doing anything interesting, pleasing or fun with the opportunities this presented – but not, for some reason, tonight. She was slightly drunk already, and probably, she reflected, only about two more drinks away from abandoning the pretence of being McKenzie's 'backup' (he could handle himself, she thought, then laughed at her own double-entendre - one of her admirers assumed she was laughing at a witticism he had just attempted, and beamed) and leading the two most handsome men away somewhere to see what other pleasant surprises the night would bring.

"Varran!" Someone was saying. Danandra had to say it a couple more times before Sharinta recognised her assumed name.

"Da- Zalla!" She said, spotting her friend weaving through the crowded inn toward her, and remembering at the last second to use her assumed name, too. "Are you okay? What the fuck happened?"

The two women hugged.

"I'm fine," Danandra told her. "We need to talk, though."

One of the young men coughed. "May we have the pleasure of being introduced to your charming friend?"

"Yeah. Zalla, some guys. Some guys, Zalla. Someone get her a drink while we have a word. A private word," Sharinta said. Obediently, a glass of wine was handed over, and the men retreated away, leaving Sharinta and Danandra to a corner table.

"Are you okay?" Sharinta asked her. "You seem different."

"Wait a moment," Danandra said. She concentrated, muttered briefly, and Sharinta was aware of the sounds of conversation and music fading to a muted sussuration.

"Private now. I'm fine," Danandra repeated. "Just furious with Leni, furious and, well, shamed. She ate someone: terminally."

Sharinta experienced a sudden sinking sensation. "I've got the most fucking awful feeling I know exactly what you're about to say."

Danandra explained what had happened.

"Fucking hell. Poor woman. Did the merchant buy it?" Sharinta asked.

"I think so," Danandra answered. "He was happy enough with the money, anyway, I don't think he'll report the incident. But people may talk."

"If they do, they'll talk about a troll being a fucking troll, not anything out of the ordinary. Trolls eat people, it happens."

"It shouldn't," Danandra stated, and shivered.

"McKenzie said something along the same lines earlier," Sharinta replied. "Hard to disagree, when you think about it."

"But people don't think about it, that's the problem. At least not until it's too late. It's odd," Danandra said.

"It's like you're channelling him, now," Sharinta told her. "He has this wild idea to find out what's going on and stop it."

Danandra snorted. "He can count on my help. Where is the boy wonder, anyway? Still in the inn?"

"Brothel, it transpires," Sharinta answered. "Posh one. But yeah, he's still inside. It was still standing, last I checked. Now: what is it you're not telling me?"

Danandra looked startled.

"Something about you has definitely changed. Something in my line of expertise. You, Danna, spent last night with a man, and I am never fucking mistaken in these matters," Sharinta grinned wickedly.

Danandra blushed for a moment. Of course Sharinta would sense something.

Sharinta practically vibrated in her seat. "Well, come on! Out with it. I want details, and possibly even measurements."

"Shar!"

"Oh, come on."

"His name is Talius," Danandra told her. "He's an elfmage, an Adept at one of the universities. He's good - very good."

"I'll bet he was. Was he good once, twice or more?"

"Shar!" Danna blushed again.

"Sorry."

"What I meant, as you well know, is that his magic is very precise. Efficient. I saw him teaching his students, or testing them really, with a shield. It was more than just good craftsmanship, it was...art," Danna explained. "I've told him I'll see him again."

"Awesome!" Sharinta said, and clinked her glass against Danna's. "You're due a bit of happy. We all are. I would say I'd like to meet him but since that would likely involve him meeting Leni too, well, that's probably out of the fucking ques- hang on. How are you going to work this?"

"You see?" Danandra replied. "How indeed. It was a stupid, stupid thing to do."

"Well, the curse seems to be slightly loose at the moment. I'm probably not supposed to be out on my own, getting drunk and flirting with strangers, but McKenzie's idea of using the mission as an excuse seems to be letting me get away with it," Sharinta said. "Enjoy it while it lasts."

"What if it extends to ensnare Talius, though? It happened to McKenzie, it happened to Heska - it could happen to Talius," Danandra said, worried.

"Who's Tal Arse, and what happened to me and Lady McWolf that might happen to him? I can't even think what sort of Venn diagram that'd produce. Hello Danandra, by the way, how the fuck are you and where the fuck have you been?" McKenzie asked, sitting down within the effect of Danandra's muting spell.

Danandra sighed.

"Long story," Sharinta told him.

"Fair enough, I can't be arsed, either," McKenzie said. "These blokes hovering near the table like a bunch of vultures around a dead cow: are they waiters or something? Pint of something beeresque, please mate."

"They can't hear you, genius," Danandra stated, wincing internally at the reminder of 'dead cow'.

"They're not waiters," Sharinta told him. "And your choice of analogy is not fucking appreciated."

"It's not appreciated on two different levels, in fact," Danandra added.

"They don't look like waiters, to be fair," McKenzie agreed, ignoring the objections. "Where the fuck have you been, Danandra? Our usual mutual arguing thing aside, are you actually OK?"

"I'm fine. The short version is that I spent the night out with a friend, came back to the warehouse earlier to find that Leni had left the cow you bought her but eaten the delivery woman, and for some reason the curse had not intervened as one would expect. The merchant had to be bribed to let the matter drop. A curse on all trolls and their predatory ways," Danandra gave him an executive summary.

McKenzie was silent for a moment, and then there was a splintering sound. He'd been gripping the table so hard he'd broken the edge off it.

"I will fucking kill her," he growled. "She's gotta be stopped. In fact, not just her. All this shit stops. I'll fucking kill every single troll on the planet if I have to, but one way or another, I will wake people up to the way they are."

The women were quiet for a moment.

"So anyway," McKenzie said, recollecting himself. "Who's Tarelus?"

"Talius. Danna's boyfriend," Sharinta supplied. "An Adept at one of the magical colleges. He's very precise and efficient."

"I'll bet he is," McKenzie smirked.

"Oh, honestly. You're as bad as her," Danna said. "The subject is closed. I take it we're now conversing with an accredited member of the Guild of Assassins? And what is that brown stuff all over your clothes?"

"It's rust," McKenzie said. "There were iron spikes, at one point, and nobody'd been down there with any oil anytime recently. Also various things were shot at me, which was just a laugh a bloody minute. Then there was a giant fake snake I was supposed to distract by shoving a prostitute at it - thanks for the tip off about the exact nature of the place, by the way, Sharinta, that was massively helpful - but I didn't go with that solution and went to, y'know, beat it up instead. That could be a problem, maybe: they're only lookin' to hire nasty arseholes."

"I'm surprised they even bothered making you take the test," Danandra commented.

McKenzie ignored that. "Anyway, to cut to the chase, I passed. Got a sapphire and a letter I'm supposed to take somewhere at midnight. Kind of annoying, to be totally honest I was hoping for an early night."

"Show me the letter," Danandra asked.

"Fuck the letter, show me the sapphire!" Sharinta said.

McKenzie dug both items out of his pocket. "You can't keep this," he said, before giving the sapphire to Sharinta.

She didn't seem impressed. "It's not very big anyway. Looks normal, too, I wouldn't say it was enchanted."

"I know that already," McKenzie said.

"The letter, however, is," Danandra told him.

"I know that too. Don't try to open it, it'll log the fact it's been opened, or something. I assume that's why it's vaguely weird, anyway. Do you know where the address is?" McKenzie asked.

"Yes. It's near the Imperial Library," Danandra replied.

"Joy. I can check a book out while I wait for my appointment," McKenzie commented.

"You have an Appointment already?" Danandra asked.

"No. I mean appointment normal-person appointment, not a pseudo-polite euphemism for killing some poor twat," he answered.

Danandra handed the letter back, and looked like she was on the verge of saying something. "Well...don't be late," she finally advised him, after a pause.

"Thanks, D, I was planning on turning up late, drunk, stoned and in swimming trunks until that handy reminder." McKenzie gave her a sour look.

"Oh, you know what I meant," Danandra said.

"I think it's Danna's equivalent of 'good luck', McKenzie," Sharinta said.

"Really? That's what you meant by that?" McKenzie asked.

"Obviously," Danandra stated.

McKenzie continued to look at her. "In what way is that obvious?"

"Oh very well. Good luck, then," she harrumphed.

McKenzie laughed. "Thank you, Danandra. Good luck yourself: I hope Tally Ho is prepared for the level of closeness and sharing you're going to bring to your relationship."

"Talius," Danandra corrected him. "And-" she paused, and glared at McKenzie.

Some long-underused neuron dealing with sensitivity told him it was time to stop taking the piss. "Go on," he said.

"I'm different with him," she said. "It can't have escaped your attention that I'm normally somewhat of a, a..."

Neither Sharinta or McKenzie elected to finish this sentence for her, which was an achievement for both of them.

"Somewhat acerbic," Danandra finished. "Well, not last night. I could be me again with him, the way I haven't been in years."

"Aw Danna," Sharinta said.

McKenzie coughed uncomfortably. "Yeah, well, best of luck Danandra."

Danandra seemed to suddenly realise what she was saying and who to, and her personal privacy wall came back down with a slam.

"It's Zalla in public, Khelan," she told McKenzie, reverting to their cover names. "You probably shouldn't be seen with us. You're almost certainly being followed, and this could blow our cover."

"I didn't see anyone," he said, looking up and peering around.

"You wouldn't, would you?" Sharinta pointed out. "Kinda the point of assassins."

"That's true," McKenzie allowed.

"You've probably blown our cover already," Danandra said.

"Well, can't we just say that the cover is just cover, in that case?" McKenzie asked.

They both stared at him.

"You lost me there, grand high spymaster," Sharinta stated.

"Just come clean. Ish, anyway. Yeah we're not setting up a thaumagocliri-, thaumitoclei-, magicky-clericky type business but are actually four monumental badasses who killed Merrick the dead hard zombie bastard, took out the troll pirate Alice, disposed of the last heir to the imperial throne - 'cos nobody knows any better, do they? - make up some other shit, blah-di-blah, we're in town looking for new opportunities in the offing-people line. Heard you were the people to get in touch with. Bada bing," McKenzie explained.

Danandra looked shocked. "I think you actually just approached being subtle, there, McKe-, Khelan."

"Stopped clock, etc." McKenzie shrugged.

"The troll pirate was called 'Malice', and the lichmage was called 'Mahrak', though. If you're going to claim to have killed him, at least get his name right," Sharinta said.

"What do you mean, claim to have killed him? I did fucking kill him. You lot weren't doing ultra-brilliantly at it before I turned up," McKenzie reminded them. "You weren't even there," he said to Sharinta.

"Wasn't my shift," Sharinta shrugged.

"Well, you tried to walk out on us!" Danandra retorted.

"It wasn't the most fun party I'd ever been invited to, Danandra. And I did try first," McKenzie replied.

"You haven't ever said sorry for that, not that I can remember, anyway," she accused him.

"I did say to run. I said 'seriously, thirty seconds, quick, get out of the cave while I hold him off'," McKenzie replied.

Danandra gasped in shock. "No you didn't! You liar! You made some oblique and confusing reference about 'investing in the fucking off industry', you said nothing whatsoever about holding him off while we escaped," Danandra corrected him.

"It was implied!" McKenzie defended himself.

"Since when have you ever said anything implicitly?" Danandra responded.

"Yeah, alright," McKenzie admitted. "I'm sorry, okay? Anyway, that's ancient history. Point is I can genuinely put it on my CV. If they ask me how-"

"Don't mention the quintessence to them," Danandra said.

"Fucking hell!" McKenzie said. "Word in edgeways, blimey. I'll say I snapped the staff, okay? You know, I have an open invite to go back to the place I just left and spend some time in the company of a really hot girl, if I knew I was just going to get the third bloody degree I'd've fuckin' accepted it instead of coming looking for you two."

"Knock it the fuck off, both of you," Sharinta said. "Gods, I feel like I'm interceding in a failing marriage with you two, sometimes, like a fucking cleric."

"I can kinda see what you mean with the marriage analogy, but you are a fucking cleric, aren't you?" McKenzie said.

"Oh yeah, I forget sometimes," Shar said, finishing her wine. She held up the glass and pointed at it - her admirers immediately headed for the bar to fulfil her request.

Danandra sighed. "As much as I hate to admit it, you've actually had a good idea. Don't give our real names, though: it's not unlikely that the Guild may have information on Lemuel's...servants."

"Don't say his name!" McKenzie hissed, looking around. "He'll hear!"

"What?" Danandra asked, confused.

Sharinta shook her head. "We're behind a privacy spell. Even Lemuel won't be able to hear his name mentioned from behind a half decent privacy spell, and Danna's are probably about the most private going. That said, I am fucking amazed you've actually taken that on board."

"You're not the only one," Danandra added.

"Thanks a bloody million," McKenzie huffed. "Well then, if we've decided that we're all about proper spy-shizzle procedure, I suppose the sooner I piss off the better." He half got out of his seat, then stopped.

"Shar," McKenzie held his hand out.

"What?"

"Give me the sparkly rock," he said.

Sharinta pouted and produced the sapphire. "Spoilsport."

"Yeah, right. See you later, then. Don't do anything I wouldn't," McKenzie told them, and left.

"I'd better go too. Someone has to keep an eye on the warehouse," Danandra said. "I take it you're set on having fun, tonight?"

Sharinta sighed. "I was, but I'll go with you. You shouldn't have to deal with her alone."

"Don't worry, I'll be fine," Danandra said. "She's eaten already today, after all," she added darkly.

"Stay," Sharinta suggested. "Or go meet up with your precise and efficient mage. The warehouse is secure enough with a troll to guard it."

"I don't doubt it - I'm more worried about what might happen to any intruders. Unjust and odious it might be, but it's fairly routine to compensate someone for the loss of a menial slave. If anyone else comes knocking on the door and disappears, then nothing will keep the watch off our backs, even if the curse thinks they deserved it," Danandra said.

Sharinta sighed. "You're right. I'll come with you, then," she said, then added: "Wonder what the slave woman did to fall through the cracks in our infallible master's oh-so-righteous curse?"

"Have a look," Danandra said, pulling out the paperwork the merchant had given her and dropping it onto the table.

"It's not fucking much to sum up a person's life, is it?" Sharinta remarked.

Danandra said nothing.

Sharinta leafed through the documentation.

"She didn't do anything," she said. "She was called Het, it says. Born to slave parents, sold age 8, again at ages 12, 14, 24 and 28. Lower price each time. She wasn't even 30, according to this. She looked older, I think."

"She would," Danandra commented.

Sharinta folded up the paper and put it down. "Whatever she did do, it's not in there. I hope she's happier now."

"Not according to troll theology," Danandra reminded her. "If that's true, then she's a slave for all eternity in the troll afterlife."

"The current clerical thinking on that can be summed up with the word horseshit," Sharinta scoffed.

Danandra didn't reply: and carried on not replying.

"Danna?"

"Shar, what if-?" Danandra started, but fell silent again.

"What if what?" Sharinta asked.

"Your lovesick crowd, over there," Danna said. "Could you get one of them to do something unpleasant to one of the others? Something violent."

"Danna! That's a bit dark even by your standards! I could, but the curse would stop me even if it wasn't a shitty awful fucking thing to do," Sharinta replied.

"I'm not sure it would," Danandra replied.

"Okay, you've lost me and you're scaring me, now. Please explain what the fuck you're getting at, Danna," Sharinta asked, cautiously.

"Last night, when I teleported you out of Leni, you said you itched," Danandra said, in an apparent non-sequitur.

"Yeah, it was fucking irritating. McKenzie had to heal me," Sharinta said.

"He can do that?" Danandra diverted from her point to ask.

"Yup," Sharinta replied. "Anything vaguely clerical or magical you do in front of him he can then copy, the annoyingly lucky bastard. You know that."

"I suppose so, yes."

"He wasn't exactly subtle about it, though. Anyway, carry on."

"Yes. Leni made you itch. It's minor, but that's harm," Danandra said.

"I think I see what you're getting at, but don't forget McKenzie's been trying to shoot her for a month and so far hasn't managed it," Sharinta pointed out.

"Granted." Danandra inclined her head. "However, Leni was also permitted to take the life of an apparently blameless slave woman. I was allowed to storm away from the warehouse in a rage and, believe me, I had no intention of returning at the time, I can tell you. You and McKenzie had no difficulty in simply wandering away from the warehouse on only the vaguest of pretexts and the only reason you're even thinking of heading back is out of loyalty to me, not Lemuel."

Sharinta immediately stepped on the upswelling of hope Danandra's words set off in her.

"Nah," she said, with a casual dismissal she did not feel. "It's just circumstances. Leni's eaten - like proper eaten - people before now."

"Never when there was any doubt that the curse could find a reason for their guilt of something," Danandra said.

"It's also possible to go off on your own," Sharinta countered.

"Not of your own volition, not unless you're intending to return, are doing something our lord and master wants us to do, not when you just want to leave," Danandra replied.

"What are you saying here, Danna? That if we decided to just up and fuck off then we could actually up and fuck off?"

"Shall we try?" Danandra suggested.

Sharinta made no reply.

- o O o -

McKenzie emerged from the inn - it had stopped raining a while ago and he had plenty of time, so he set off on foot in what he assumed was the general direction of the centre of the city. He did consider nipping back to The Unsheathed Dagger to use up some of that time in Hennara's company, but not seriously.

Some vestige of professionalism dictated that he do something to shake any pursuit, but he found he couldn't really be arsed. Anyone who was following him already knew where he was going and why, because they'd presumably been sicced on him by the very people he was on his way to see, so there was, in fact, nothing to hide.

His phone rang. McKenzie dug it out. Christine again.

"Vyrinios Walking Tours," he answered. "Hey Christine. How's tricks?" A passing couple peered at the strange man talking to his hand: McKenzie ignored them.

"Um, hi Crowbar."

"I thought we'd moved past the whole fake names thing, Christine," McKenzie replied.

"Yeah. Sorry McKenzie," Christine said.

Her tone was off, McKenzie thought. Usually she sounded more cheerful and enthused, even in the middle of a crisis. "What's wrong?" He asked.

"Nothing's wrong," Christine replied. "It's just, um. Look, Lemuel wants to talk to you. If I transfer you, will you promise to listen?"

"Nope," McKenzie replied.

"He said you'd say that."

"He's as wise as he is fucking annoying."

"It's important. As a favour to me, will you give him two minutes at least?" Christine asked, wearily. "Without just firing insults at him," she added, it seemed after being prompted.

"He's listening in right now, isn't he?"

"Yeah, he is," Christine confirmed.

McKenzie sighed. "Since it's you asking, okay. Put his arseholeness on. Speak to you later."

"Thanks Crowbar," Christine said, sounding relieved. Can't be the least awkward request ever, McKenzie thought.

There was an audible click. "McKenzie." Lemuel's voice sounded vaguely scratchy, the way McKenzie remembered phones sounded back in the days when you had to wind them up first. "Thank you for agreeing to take my call."

"I made Christine a promise of two minutes of actual, non-abusive phone time, Lemuel," McKenzie said. "You may wanna get right to the point, because I'm gonna keep it exactly."

"Very well. I have a request: stop putting everything you do on the internet. It seems I can't stop you, but be smart about it, at least. You're putting your companions' lives in grave danger by being so indiscreet," Lemuel said.

McKenzie laughed. "Oh for fuck's sake, Lemuel. Who the hell here can read Twitter?"

"You are not the only person who can bridge the gap between worlds, McKenzie. Others can too. Others who are not as well-intentioned as I."

"You're well-intentioned? My irony meter just went off the scale," McKenzie cut in.

"Have you stopped to consider why someone has gone to great lengths to keep your little backchannel open? It's not simply to enjoy your witty updates, you may count on that," Lemuel explained, not allowing himself to be interrupted.

This was probably bullshit, McKenzie decided. Outwardly, he said: "I'll consider it.". Another internal voice was saying 'how do I get in touch with them?'.

"Do. Even this phone conversation isn't necessarily private, McKenzie," Lemuel told him.

"Does this affect this assassin business?" McKenzie asked.

"Probably not."

"Care to elaborate on why not?" McKenzie asked.

"That's hardly possible in just two minutes," Lemuel said.

"You only got one minute eleven seconds left," McKenzie corrected him.

"Then it is even less possib-"

"That all you had to say?" McKenzie cut in.

"Yes."

"Shit, really? You placed a call across fuck knows how many light years to tell me I tweet too much?"

"It is a matter of operational security," Lemuel stated in a brittle tone.

"Operational security?" McKenzie barked out a laugh. "You've been watching too many spy films, Lem."

"It is no joke, McKenzie."

"Everything's a joke, Lem. Depends on your frame of reference, is all. I bet someone, somewhere is laughing their arse off about this whole thing: it's just a fucking pity it isn't me."

"You seem to regard everything else as a joke, McKenzie," Lemuel told him. McKenzie recognised that this conversation was about to follow the pattern of all their others, and descend into sniping. Pity it wasn't literal.

He decided, on the spur of the moment, to head this off and ask something outright. "You said I was putting their lives in danger? The girls? Well frankly Leni can go fuck herself, but why don't you put the other two - or two and a half, whatever Cally counts as when it's not her turn - out of danger by letting 'em go? To be honest I can run things at my end without the other two. They've done enough: cut 'em loose. Uncurse them. They'll keep their noses clean from now on, I'm sure of it. Frankly it'll be easier without the constant fucking nagging."

It was Lemuel's turn to laugh.

Fuck it, I tried, McKenzie thought to himself. "Can you hear that?" He asked.

"What?" Lemuel queried back.

"The sound of two minutes running out," McKenzie said, and ended the call. "Prick," he muttered, and pocketed the phone.

- o O o -

Leni was bored. Very bored.

Trolls were not, by and large, particularly introspective creatures. They tended not to have internal dialogues, or inner lives that required attention. Time to themselves didn't really appeal.

The warehouse was dim and damp, and the smell of burnt cow had begun to turn to rotting meat.

The others all seemed to have got away with leaving the confines of the warehouse, Leni thought. Why not her?

"I think I'll go out and...recon the area," she said, to the ceiling, reasoning that the curse might be listening.

The slave woman had been little more than skin and bones - she had been a rare and welcome change to Leni's enforced diet of animals, to be sure, but there hadn't been much of her. Much of the cow had gone to waste, scattered around the floor in pieces Leni couldn't be bothered to gather up and eat, and in any case it was dead meat. Carrion. Not even a vague pulse and messy with unpleasant gore.

Leni much preferred dinner that screamed and begged.

"Fuck this," Leni snorted. "I'm off out."

She left the warehouse, and went into the city to hunt.

- o O o -

Consequently, Sharinta and Danandra found it to be empty when they returned to get their belongings.

"Leni?" Sharinta called, poking her head carefully around the door.

There was no answer.

"She may be sleeping," Danandra said from behind her. The elfmage's hand was already a-crackle with a violent spell waiting to be unleashed. If the curse was breaking, then she was taking no chances with the troll - she wished she'd given in to her anger the last time she'd seen Leni, and tried to kill her then.

Sharinta wasn't sure how she felt. She should have been feeling cautious elation, she supposed. Excitement. Instead she was feeling a sense of impending dread. The curse had been part of her life for longer than she cared to remember: she'd come to think of it as a constant, something that simply was. It seemed impossible that it might be broken.

"Let's find out," she said, and walked inside.

It certainly seemed empty, but then again it always did.

"What is that fucking stench?" She asked Danandra.

"A dead cow, or what's left of it. My fault. Sorry," Danandra apologised.

"Oh," Sharinta said.

Danandra muttered a word of magic: the warehouse was illuminated brightly by a glowing orb. It was, indeed, empty - a few moments searching confirmed it.

"That would seem to confirm our supposition," Danandra stated. "She shouldn't be allowed to leave."

"Yeah," Sharinta nodded.

Danandra laughed. "It really is broken!"

"We don't fucking know that yet, Danna," Sharinta told her. "Her stuff's still in her room, look. She expected to come back."

"Well, that's two good reasons to continue the experiment. To make sure it is broken and to not be here when Leni returns," Danandra said. "Although it'd be a public service to wait until she does get back and then kill her."

"Danna!" Sharinta said, although in truth she wasn't shocked. Danandra had a ruthless streak, and in any case she was probably right.

Danandra snorted. "Let's get our belongings together, anyway."

"What about McKenzie's stuff?" Shar asked.

"He can come and get it himself," Danandra shrugged, on her way to her room.

Sharinta started to say something, then gave up, and packed up her own stuff. It didn't take long, and all went into one saddlebag. Even so, Danandra was ready before her, with a couple of bags.

"There's plenty of gold - we can stay at a nice inn while we decide what to do, " she said.

Sharinta sighed. "We should pack McKenzie's gear up for him and head him off before he gets to his interview or meeting or initiation or whateverthefuck. If we're free, he's free. He doesn't need to be doing it, and these are dangerous people."

"They won't be missed when he loses his temper and kills them, then," Danandra shrugged.

"Danna. Fucking seriously. I know you two don't get on, but we owe him this for intimidating Leni into behaving herself sometimes when he was around, if nothing else. Gods' sakes, it's what, an hour out of our lives to help out a friend?"

Danandra expelled her breath. "It's McKenzie. He's in no danger - he can't be killed, remember? We, on the other hand, face the very real possibility of ending up dead if we start irritating the local assassins."

"I'm not suggesting that, I'm just suggesting we swing past the address in a hired carriage at five minutes to midnight and shout out 'hey, the curse is broken, jump in and let's go' before he even knocks on the fucking door," Sharinta said.

"It's still dangerous, Shar," Danandra shook her head. "If he was a normal human, I'd agree with you, but he's not. We don't know what he is, but we do know that a roomful of deadly assassins are not the worry for him that they would be for us. Look: we'll take his things so they don't get stolen, leave a note, and worry about him afterwards."

Sharinta sighed. "Okay, fine. I'll pack his stuff into that metal crate of his."

"Be careful," Danandra picked up the machine pistol that was still hanging on the back of a chair. "This is extremely dangerous."

Sharinta nodded, thinking: there's nothing about this entire situation that isn't.

- o O o -

"Senator's Sauce with that, good sir?" The food vendor asked.

"Is that the brown stuff that tastes of horse's arse?" McKenzie asked.

"Only the finest horse's arses, sir, at my stall," the vendor joked. "Direct from the hippodrome."

"Neigh thanks then: I'll have it as is," McKenzie replied. The quip seemed to translate, and the vendor smiled.

Two copper coins changed hands: McKenzie took possession of a hot pie from the vendor, and availed himself of one of the rickety stools placed around an equally rickety table to sit and eat it. This was one of many arranged around the fountain in the centre of the Library Square, to service the sitting-down needs of the punters who chose to take a risk on one of the many varieties of street food being sold by a subset of the vendors who set up stall here. The square was pretty much at the heart of Vyrinios, and, as such, brightly lit by phalanxes of the municipal magical globes.

"Thank you, good sir. Mind it's hot." The vendor said. He was a dark-skinned, rotund, middle-aged chap who seemed possessed of infinite amounts of good cheer, despite being out on a damp, wet night working his pie stall.

McKenzie took a bite and ignored the pain.

"Om nom," McKenzie said, and meant it. "Good pie."

The vendor beamed.

McKenzie chowed down on the pie, while the vendor placed a dented metal cup on the table and filled it with steaming liquid from a jug wrapped in cloth. A small chain connected it to the table, to deter casual thievery.

"Coffee comes with the pie, sir," the man said.

"Night just keeps gettin' better and better," McKenzie replied. The vendor smiled again and then moved on to deal with another customer.

After a few more bites, McKenzie - ever a master of situational awareness while eating a pie - became slowly aware that a man was watching him.

He was an odd sort. He was pale, thin and had a scraggly beard but a shaved head, which was crudely painted with a badly tessellated pattern of green ovals, a design he'd also tried to inflict on the cloak he wore by sewing lots of bits of green felt to it. He'd rounded off his look with some utterly bizarre red-and-green eye makeup, badly applied - McKenzie had no idea what it was supposed to look like, apart from 'decidedly odd'. If he was a spy for the assassins, he was a very obvious one: he was standing just a couple of metres away and staring openly.

"You have the mark of The Chosen," the man said, in a rasping voice that fit so well with the general image that McKenzie briefly wondered if he was witnessing the opening act of some experimental interactive street theatre. If so there were going to be broken bones.

"Move along, there's a good fellow," the vendor said, noting the man's appearance near his stall.

Many people, confronted with a random street nutter, become uncomfortable and attempt to ignore them until they go away. Others move away, or perhaps poke fun. Others attempt to make the bare minimum of polite responses, which most people correctly interpret as a social signal that their conversation is not wanted. Your average lost-it case, though, seizes onto this as an invitation to expound upon their particular brand of nuttery, be it religion, conspiracy theory or some other, more personal stream-of-madness.

McKenzie had given up on all that years ago. "Fuck off twatface," he said, and took another bite of his pie.

"Seek out her avatar, and claim eternal glory," the street nutter advised.

McKenzie thought that sounded vaguely familiar from somewhere, but, since he'd dealt with a great many nutters over the years, some of whom were even super-nutters, he didn't give it any further thought. He'd heard a lot of barely-coherent bullshit.

"Move along," the vendor repeated. "I've told you not to bother my customers."

"Our day will come," the nutter said, and didn't move.

The vendor sighed. "Arthan!" He called. A burly man levered himself up from where he was sitting on the edge of a fountain - presumbly he was employed to keep an eye on the various stalls and stallholders around said fountain. A cudgel, which Arthan had been unobtrusively storing under his jacket, appeared in his hands and dangled there promisingly.

"Get lost," he told the bizarrely-dressed man. "You've bin told before. Any more shit like this and I'll get the Beggars Guild involved. You don't want that, now do you?"

This threat seemed to return a little sanity to the guy: "You'll regret this!" He said, which was a very normal human reponse, and scurried away, his bizarre cloak flapping behind him. Arthan returned to his contemplation of the square from the fountain's edge.

"Sorry about that, good sir," the vendor said.

"No worries mate," McKenzie shrugged. "You get a lot of that?"

"A fair bit. The Beggars Guild clears them out from time to time. These Scalers are the latest," the vendor said.

"Scales. So that's what that was supposed to look like."

"You wouldn't know it, right enough," the vendor agreed. "Anyway, he does his rounds, bothering people about 'her glorious coming' or some such nonsense. You're the first 'chosen one' we've had, though."

McKenzie snorted. "What a singular honour," he said, finishing the pie.

"Anything else for you, good sir? It'll be twelve bells soon, you see. I was thinking of closing up early tonight."

"No, I'm good, you go ahead," McKenzie said, mouth half full of his last bite. He finished the coffee and laid a copper coin on the table as a tip, receiving a thank you from the vendor.

McKenzie checked his gun was loaded and safetied, adjusted the collar of his jacket, and then headed for the door indicated by the address.

The square was edged with lots of very grand buildings - McKenzie's destination, appropriately, seemed to lurk between a pair of multi-columned behemoths, hanging slightly back from the bright glow of the square's lights, in the shadows. It was little more than three steps leading up to a large, black-painted door: the entire building was barely any wider. There were four storeys, apparently, as there were three windows above: all of which, it seemed, had black curtains drawn across them. The whole thing radiated magic and, if not evil, then certainly a pervading air of extreme seriousness.

Taste for the melodramatic indeed, McKenzie thought. No chance he had the wrong address.

The door had a brass nameplate, but there was nothing written on it: only a picture of an hourglass. McKenzie reached out to knock, but the door swung open before his knuckles made contact with it.

"Welcome," said a voice. There was no-one stood there.

"Cheers," McKenzie replied.

"Downstairs, sir," the voice said again. "They're waiting for you."

"Thanks," McKenzie stepped through the door and peered around, but could see no-one. There were no lights inside: he dug his phone out and tapped the torch on. The door closed behind him of it's own accord.

"Oh for fuck's sake, really?" McKenzie said, as a quick swish round of the torch revealed that the stairs led only upwards. The floor was uncarpeted stone - there were no signs of any trapdoors, and no upright doors save for the one he'd just walked through.

"Yes," the voice said. "Really."

"So you didn't mispronounce or otherwise say downstairs when, in fact, you meant to say up?"

"No, sir," the voice told him.

McKenzie sighed. "Not that I expect a straight answer or even any sort of answer at all, but would you mind telling me how in the name of fucking arseballs I get downstairs in the absence of any stairs actually going in that direction?" He asked, already out of patience.

"You were quite correct, sir, in your expectation," was what he got in reply.

"Of course," McKenzie grumbled. "Why wouldn't I be?" He stumped upstairs, instead, just on the off chance that he was being fucked about with in an obvious rather than indirect manner.

This did not turn out to be the case. The stairs led upwards in three utterly identical flights. As expected, each level had a window and nothing else. McKenzie twitched the curtain aside on the top floor, and saw the Library Square outside.

McKenzie sighed, and headed back down one flight of stairs, then another, another, another and another. He'd done one more before it clicked.

"In the interest of keeping boredom to a minimum, Weird Disembodied Voice, how many more extra flights?"

"Hmm. Shall we say three more?" The Weird Disembodied Voice asked.

"Frankly I'd prefer 'only one'," McKenzie replied.

"Very well, sir," The WDV acceded.

"Ta muchly," McKenzie replied.

The WDV was as good as it's word: one more flight brought McKenzie to a door.

"A moment, please, sir," WDV said, then: "In you go, sir. Best of luck." The door creaked open.

McKenzie squared his shoulders, put on his best 'I don't give a fuck' face (which, granted, didn't take much work) and walked calmly through.

Inside was a circular room, quite large, a lot like the Victorian operating theatres that were forever appearing in Frankenstein films. It was dimly lit except for the centre of the room, which featured a chair and nothing else. There appeared to be at least three stepped ranks of black cloaked figures surrounding McKenzie, although he noticed that there were a fair few empty places and one figure was hanging upside down from the ceiling at the rear, wrapped not in a robe but in an aura of shadow which encouraged the eye to just drift past it and pay it no heed. Nobody's face was visible, although some figures radiated magic in varying degrees: there was a major source straight ahead, probably about 0.7 on the Danandra-Do-Not-Fuck-With scale McKenzie usually referred to internally.

"Be seated," a man said. It could have been anyone, although the voice came from off to one side.

McKenzie decided to adopt a demeanour of breezy unconcern, so he swung the chair around to vaguely face the voice and leaned on the back of it, instead of sitting down.

"Thanks," he said.

"Bring forth that which you won." This time McKenzie could see who was speaking by the hood moving, although everyone's faces were still wreathed in shadow.

McKenzie dug out the jewel and letter and held them up. A moment later, they floated out of his hand and up to the Talking Cloak, who read the letter.

"Does the girl live?" Talking Cloak asked.

"Yep," McKenzie said, having decided that he wasn't going to lie about it.

"State your reasons for letting her live."

"Nobody paid me to kill her," McKenzie shrugged. "I'm in this for the money, not job satisfaction - and the more corpses you leave behind you, the more attention you generate."

"Giant snakes do not leave any corpses behind,"a different voice, a woman, commented.

"An unexplained disappearance is as good as a corpse," McKenzie extemporised, "to a determined copper. Better not to give them any reason to look too closely at things."

This seemed to generate a low hum of agreement.

"Very well. State your reason, then, for choosing to take on a full-grown megalostrictor," Talking Cloak said, not sounding too happy.

"Maybe I just really, really hate snakes," McKenzie replied. This was answered by an indignant hissing from one of the robes off to his left. "Present company excepted," he added. "Probably."

"How did you make it past the first two rooms?" A new voice asked, a man this time.

McKenzie, again, decided not to lie.

"Kicked a few of the tiles out, dropped through, made my way along the bottom, up the other side, lowered the bridge, job done. The next room I just basically ran through. It was extremely annoying," McKenzie said.

"Do you expect us to believe that?" Talking Cloak asked, slightly derisively.

Up to you whether you believe it or not, I couldn't give a shit either way, was what McKenzie almost said.

"No," McKenzie said. "But if you want, I can do it again with someone watching."

"He speaks the truth," another new voice said, from behind.

"You witnessed the supplicant's test, Ellipsis?" Talking Cloak asked.

They go in for dramatic names then, McKenzie thought, unsurprised.

"No, but I can verify that his explanation is plausible. I will not go into details in public session, but I have encountered the supplicant before," Ellipsis said. McKenzie crushed the urge to turn around and try to see who.

"Was he the subject of an Appointment, Ellipsis?" McKenzie recognised Jadhara's voice. She was somewhere behind him, too.

Talking Cloak chimed in with a sneering tone. "Has your protege not been entirely honest with you, Nightwing?"

McKenzie stifled a snort of laughter. Nightwing. Blimey.

"No," Ellipsis answered her question, ignoring the jibe. "He was the bodyguard of Her Late Imperial Highness Anaharra. He took an allbane-tipped crossbow bolt straight to the head and barely noticed. Nothing personal, old chap."

Ah. The pale-haired elf assassin that had made an attempt on Narra's life in Melindron. McKenzie made himself a promise to do something to settle that score at some point, but Narra wasn't in any danger from him anymore, and now wasn't the time.

"Water under the bridge," McKenzie said.

"With the greatest of respect to Ellipsis, one man's testimony is no guarantor of accuracy," said a voice, and there followed a twang.

"Ow!" McKenzie yelled, as a crossbow bolt bounced off his left temple then clattered to the floor. He glared at the robes off to his left, but none of them was holding a discharged crossbow.

"My apologies for doubting you. That had to be tested," the same voice said.

"Apology accepted," McKenzie said, rubbing his temple.

"I was talking to Ellipsis," the voice stated.

There was no laughter. This was not a supporting environment for it, even as the result of a cruel joke at the expense of the new guy.

"Out of professional interest, would you happen to know who did take care of that piece of business eventually?" Ellipsis asked, as if nothing had happened. McKenzie wondered if Ellipsis had accepted the apology; he knew he hadn't, whether it was intended for him or not.

McKenzie could practically feel ears pricking up around the room. Ah well - in for a penny...

"Me," McKenzie said.

There was no audible gasp running round the room, but the sense of surprise was there, nonetheless.

"Ah. I see," the man called Ellipsis said. "A pity. Might we enquire at whose behest this was carried out?"

"Enquire all you want, I'm not gonna fuckin' tell you," McKenzie replied, rapidly losing patience with Ellipsis in particular and this situation in general.

"As is right and proper," someone new cut in, to a rumble of agreement. "Such details are not declared in public session, as you well know, Ellipsis."

"The question is duly withdrawn, and my apologies to all," Ellipsis said.

"Public accounts of Her Majesty's demise mention a large magical explosion. Did you create this to cover up the evidence?" Another voice asked, presumably to draw a line under Ellipsis' ettiquette fuck-up.

McKenzie nodded. "A mage created the big impressive bang for me," he sort-of-lied, "but yeah. Not a trace of Her Imperial Highness left on this earth." He hoped that Jadhara would interpret that correctly.

"Impressively ruthless. She trusted you?"

"Yeah," McKenzie said. "She did."

"Have you any other famous past appointments to impress us with, supplicant?" Talking Cloak asked. He was evidently not impressed.

"Just one. Guy named Mahrak. Heard of him?" McKenzie said, taking extra care with the name.

Silence for a moment.

"Oh. S'pose not, then," McKenzie said, slightly crestfallen.

"Are we to now believe that it was you that killed Mahrak the Undying?" Talking Cloak asked. "The most feared mage - dead or undead - the empire has ever known? Only the Archmage of Melindron herself had nothing to fear from Mahrak."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. Turns out 'Undying' was a bit on the optimistic side, as nicknames go. His Achilles' heel was his staff. Break the staff, you break Mahrak. I broke the staff. Mahrak died," McKenzie said.

"The Unbreakable Staff of Lajor-Nie, Master of Parheron?" Talking Cloak was incredulous.

"Yeah, again, unbreakable seems to be overstating the case a bit. I'd go as far as 'really fuck off difficult to break', but trust me, it broke. Took Mahrak with it when it went kaboom," McKenzie said.

"Who is Achilles?" Another voice demanded.

"That's not really relevant to the story," McKenzie said. "Figure of speech."

"How did Mahrak die?" Another voice that hadn't spoken yet, with an edge of bitter curiosity. McKenzie wondered if the man that owned the voice had lost a friend to the evil zombie motherfucker. There had certainly been plentiful evidence of failed assassination attempts mounted on Mahrak's wall.

"Screams, unbearable agony, futile rage and terror at his inescapable fate, etcetera etcetera. It wasn't pretty," McKenzie replied.

"My thanks," the voice replied. Well, if this comes to a vote, that's a definite for the 'yes' box then, McKenzie thought.

"Was this a solo Appointment?"

"No: I was got in by the original hit team: a troll, a cleric and a mage. Worked with them since: our latest gig was the Aghkar job, but obviously that didn't work out quite as expected. Oh, that reminds me, actually, there is something else: a little side job I did do myself," McKenzie said.

"And this one little job would be what, exactly? Have you succesfully concluded an Appointment with the Archmage of Melindron? Does the President currently reside in the afterlife due to your efforts?" Talking Cloak asked sarcastically. His sarcasm didn't engender any laughter, though - in fact McKenzie got the distinct impression that a few people were leaning forward in anticipation. He wasn't sure he was entirely comfortable with his recent exploits being interesting and possibly even impressive to a room full of ruthless villains.

"No, but a few months back I, well, infiltrated is probably the wrong term, but anyway I fought my way into the Pirate Lord Malice's castle and killed her. Well, technic'ly I suppose she was a Pirate Lady. Self-styled pirate nobility, anyway. Also the actual final blow was struck in the main hall of the Tower in Melindron, but all the actual fighting happened in the castle," McKenzie said. "The on-fire castle, at that point. There was also a load of troll collateral casualties, do they count towards the total? I tend to think of dead trolls as a public service, to be honest, getting paid for it was just a bonus."

There was a very trollish growl from somewhere behind him. That would be a vote no, then.

"Nothin' personal," McKenzie added.

"The Troll Pirate Malice, too." Talking Cloak sounded just plain weary, now. "Three of the highest profile Appointments of recent months, all down to you."

"Yeah, basically. Me and my crew, anyway. Apart from the Malice job, as previously stated. That was just me." McKenzie confirmed.

"Move to vote," Ellipsis said. "This is too fantastical to be a fabrication: I for one believe him and it's also perfectly obvious that we're all better off with him in the Guild so we at least have some sort of idea what notable Appointment he's going to undertake next in order for us all to be at least a mile away when it happens. I wonder that you chose not to share this information with the Guild before this session, Nightwing."

"Don't you like surprises, Ellipsis?" Jadhara shot back, neatly covering up the real answer, which was, of course, that McKenzie hadn't told her.

"I second the move to vote," said the voice that had been interested in Mahrak.

Talking Cloak sighed. "Very well. Are there any further questions?"

There weren't. "Those who would move to deny?"

Talking Cloak raised his own hand, and perhaps two dozen joined him. He sighed again.

"Abstentions?" He asked. There were only three.

"And those who would move to admit?"

A forest of hands went up, and something emitted an approbatory hiss. It was a clear majority - McKenzie didn't even need to look behind him to see that.

"Very well," Talking Cloak said resignedly. "By the common will of all assembled, you are admitted to the Assassins' Guild of Vyrinios. There is no oath, newcomer, but you set yourself against your brothers and sisters at your peril. Nightwing: this newcomer is admitted upon your request. Do you undertake to be responsible for his actions, and the actions of any hirelings or associates he should commission, for one year and one day?"

There was a palpable delay from Jadhara before she replied. Despite her snappy answer earlier, it was clear she hadn't liked the surprise that much either.

"I will so undertake," she finally answered.

"It is so witnessed by all here," Talking Cloak said, sounding slightly smug about Jadhara's hesitance. "How would you be known to your fellows, newcomer?" He directed the question to McKenzie.

Jadhara's admonition to not use his actual name rang out so loudly in McKenzie's mind at that point that he actually thought she'd spoken aloud for a moment. Then he smirked.

"You can call me Crowbar," he said. He didn't like these people, so it seemed to make a weird sort of sense to use the name he didn't like.

"Extend your hand, Crowbar," Talking Cloak said. "Fingers apart."

McKenzie toyed with the idea of giving him the Vs, but didn't.

Talking Cloak held up the sapphire. "You won this to prove your worthiness to stand in this company. Wear it whenever you stand with us again."

There was a flash of magic, and, suddenly, McKenzie was wearing a silver ring. It was set with the sapphire, which had been formed into the shape of an hourglass.

"Welcome, Crowbar, to the Guild of Assassins. Dishonour us at your peril," Talking Cloak said. As welcomes went, this was quite a foreboding one.

McKenzie suppressed a yawn.

"As Crowbar is now known to us, let us be known to him," Talking Cloak said. On cue, everyone unhooded. McKenzie had been right about Ellipsis, and the anti-Mahrak assassin seemed to share the ethnicity of those who had lived around his castle. Talking Cloak was an older guy, with silver hair and a lined, grim face. There was indeed a troll - there were two, in fact, but only one had growled - and besides them several elves as well as humans of various kinds. The hissing must have come from the...something two rows up that could only be described as an upright snake. He couldn't pick Jadhara out of the crowd, but there were a lot of people, after all.

"Welcome, Crowbar," they all said in unison.

"Um, thanks?" McKenzie replied.

That appeared to be it, then: everyone filed out of a number of different exits save for one of the assassins, who vaulted easily over the barrier and glided up to him. She was a woman - petite, beautiful, oriental in appearance, and McKenzie only clicked to her identity when he noticed that she was wearing a silver pendant in the shape of an owl.

"I've heard the term master of disguise bandied about quite a lot," McKenzie greeted her, "but you really mean it, don't you?"

Jadhara, if it really was her, ignored this. "Follow me," she said - the voice certainly matched, and, going by her tone, she seemed to have an even lower opinion of him tonight than she had last night.

McKenzie followed her.

- o O o -

The WDV turned out to belong to the house itself, which, Jadhara icily told McKenzie, was imbued with the soul of the founder of the guild: or so guild legends stated. At any rate, it repeated it's room-moving trick in order to allow Jadhara to lead McKenzie into what looked like a private members' club, only with the decorative emphasis strictly on black. A few of the cloaked Guildmembers nodded to Jadhara as she walked past to a table in the far corner.

"Privacy, please Revlius," she said, sitting down on one of the two chairs.

"The table is now private, Nightwing," the WDV said. McKenzie noted that the low hum of conversation from the other tables disappeared, in much the same way as Danandra had been able to rig the table in the inn earlier. What 'Revlius' also did that Danandra hadn't was to make the rest of the room seem blurry.

"Thank you." Jadhara said, then glared at the still-standing McKenzie. "I don't like surprises, Crowbar."

"Says the chinese woman who was blonde and blue-eyed last time I saw her," McKenzie replied.

Jadhara snorted in un-amusement. "There is no such place as China here. Now, I'm going to ask you a question. Think very carefully if you decide to answer it with a lie. Very carefully. I take it extremely personally if I'm lied to. Are we quite clear about the thinking carefully and the taking lying personally?"

"Is that the question?" McKenzie asked back.

"Don't be facetious, it's unbecoming in a chap. Are we quite clear vis-a-vis the requirements stated, Crowbar?" She repeated.

"Crystal," McKenzie replied.

"Very well. Did you really kill her?" Jadhara asked.

McKenzie didn't need to ask who she meant.

"You really want the truth?" McKenzie asked back.

"I always want the truth, Crowbar. Don't ask me that question again. Did you kill the lost princess?" Jadhara repeated.

McKenzie thought carefully about lying to her. Was she testing his honesty or whether he was as ruthless as an assassin needed to be? The latter seemed unlikely given that she'd gone out of her way to make sure he knew Hennara was in no danger.

"How private is private?" McKenzie asked. "Will the Weird Disembodied Voice be able to hear what we say to each other?"

"No. The spell is absolutely secure, even from the entity which cast it," Jadhara replied.

"You 100% on that?"

"Yes," Jadhara replied.

Okay then. McKenzie made a decision, and shook his head. "No. I didn't. Nobody did."

Jadhara's expression was reasonably neutral before he spoke those words, and remained reasonably neutral afterwards, but nonetheless McKenzie could feel an easing in tension. Right answer, he thought.

"Then she's still alive. Interesting," she said. "How about your other claims? Did you really kill Mahrak the Undying and Malice?" Jadhara continued to press him.

McKenzie nodded. "Yeah, they're both dead. In pretty much the way described."

"Define 'pretty much', if you'd be so kind," Jadhara asked.

"Pretty much in that 'yes, they're dead' and 'it was me what did it'. If you don't want to be lied to, don't ask for more details: I'd be lyin' if I said I was willing to tell you everything about me and what I am," McKenzie replied.

Jadhara looked up at him and nodded.

"Please do sit down, Crowbar."

"Thanks, Poshblades," McKenzie said, and sat down.

She actually made no objection to the irreverent nickname, but then again if the alternative was 'Nightwing' McKenzie supposed you had to take what you could get.

"I imagine you have a great many questions for me," she said.

"Just the main one, really," McKenzie replied. "Can you get me back to Earth?"

"You're not overly given to beating around the bush, are you?"

"Not really. I'm not tryin' to be rude, by the way, but I didn't really want to come here - that's here planet here, not here building here, although frankly this place isn't my ideal hangout - in the first place. I don't really like it here very much, and there's someone I desperately want to see again who is - unavoidably but very much because of me - now back on Earth. On top of that there's someone back there, well, probably back there who has seriously pissed me off and I very much want to panel the shit out of him with something really heavy until he can't piss absolutely anyone else off again ever," McKenzie said.

Jadhara looked at him and sighed.

"No, I don't have a way back to Earth. That's what I was going to ask you, I'm afraid," she said. "Awfully sorry."

"Fuck," McKenzie said.

"Quite," Jadhara replied. "Drinks, I think, are in order. You were engaged in what seemed to be a quite serious attempt to rid the world of Vyrinian Firewater last time we met, will you be continuing now?"

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck," McKenzie repeated.

"I'll take that as a yes," Jadhara said, standing up.

- o O o -

"So the imperial bodyguard really was in love with the princess." Jadhara said, after she had returned with a bottle full of golden liquid and a pair of glasses, and McKenzie had rallied somewhat.

"Yes, he was. I was, I mean. Am, probably. But like I say, she's on Earth now," McKenzie answered, sipping the drink.

"Ah. The magical explosion was the side-effect of an unsuccessful attempt to get yourself home?"

"Unsuccessful attempt to get both of us home. She made it. I didn't," McKenzie clarified.

"You have come closer than I have, then," Jadhara admitted to him. "I've tried, once or twice. It's one of those undertakings that is incredibly difficult to do badly, and an order of magnitude harder to achieve safely."

"That was the impression I got," McKenzie said, "when it literally blew up in my face."

"Might I ask how you went about it?"

"Not entirely sure myself. It was started from the other end," he answered.

Now that the immediate disappointment of discovering that Jadhara didn't have a door in the back of her wardrobe that led to Earth had faded, McKenzie had become aware of two, or perhaps three, things.

Thing the first: he had lots of questions he wanted to ask Jadhara. Even if she didn't have a way home, was she in touch with anyone back there like he was? Did she have a mobile phone secreted away somewhere too? Did she have a workable way back home that only required, say, some willing volunteer with access to one-point-twenty-one gigawatts of quintessence, which she had previously ruled out only due to the extremely low availability of said individuals? It was probably a mark of the weirdness of this conversation that 'are you a shapeshifter?' wasn't even in the top ten.

Thing the second: he needed to be careful what he said. He was, after all, having a conversation with an assassin, not a guidance counsellor. This complicated thing the first, too, because certain questions could only be asked by revealing stuff about yourself, ie, that you absorbed magic and threw it back out exponentially.

Thing the perhaps-third: Jadhara had been pretty damn hot last night and was now pretty damn hot in a completely different ethnicity. This added up to extremely scorchingly hot, even by the standards of someone who regularly hung out with the likes of Sharinta. McKenzie was having to suppress the boneheaded male urge to do and say things to impress her. At 400-odd years old, he still hadn't completely managed to prevent himself doing dumbass shit because of women, as evidenced by recent events around Narra.

Jadhara was clearly quite perceptive, however, since the next thing out of her mouth was: "I don't expect you to trust me, Crowbar, any more than you expect me to trust you. Answer with as many or as few details as you wish: but please don't lie."

McKenzie nodded. "Understood. I'll keep the details light, for now: but in all honesty I'm hazy on it myself. It involved using certain abilities I have, or have recently acquired, anyway, and one hell of a lot of energy. It made a tunnel sort of thing. I could see New York, at the other end of it."

Jadhara looked somewhat quizzical. "New York? What happened to old York? Was it destroyed in the civil war?"

McKenzie was forced to undertake a sudden paradigm shift in his head as the definitions of the conversation he'd been expecting to have and the woman he was having it with were suddenly rewritten.

"Whoa," he said.

"Yes, I'm older than I look," Jadhara said, with a flash of irritation. "Please be so good as to take a moment to incorporate that into your reality picture, and then let's move on, shall we? What happened to York?"

This revelation probably came as a much bigger shock to McKenzie than it would to a normally-lifespanned person. As far as McKenzie was aware, the only other person that shared his imperviousness to the ravages of time was Lemuel, so this was something like unexpectedly meeting a family member that you'd never known existed.

"No, seriously. Whoa."

"Here," Jadhara topped up his drink. "Take a moment, by all means."

McKenzie chucked the drink back, and did, indeed, take a moment. Tell her or not? He thought. Well, he hadn't made a secret of it to anyone else. He decided to just answer her question for now and tell her later.

"Nothing happened to York. Still up in Yorkshire, being northern. I mean New York. In America. Not ringing any bells?" He asked.

"America does, vaguely. New York, I'm afraid not. I've been here quite a while," she said.

"That's puttin' it mildly, by the sounds of it. As I remember it, New York became New York in like 1600 and something. Charles the Second was on the throne, I think. His brother did something fairly catastrophic to the Dutch at sea, which kicked off some high-level country-swapping, and so New Amsterdam became New York," McKenzie said. "I think, anyway. It's all a bit hazy."

"I see," Jadhara said. "Cromwell lost, then?"

"Hell no! We won."

It was now Jadhara's turn to have to suddenly reassess the parameters of the conversation, but to her credit she managed it a bit more gracefully than McKenzie.

"Am I to understand that when you say 'we' in this context, you are not simply expressing a mutuality of feeling with the roundhead cause but are, in fact, telling me that you were one?" Jadhara asked.

"Yeah, I'm older than I look," McKenzie said, not without a flash of smug satisfaction. "Please be so good as to take a moment to incorporate that into your reality picture, and then we can move on. Again."

Jadhara was silent for a few moments. McKenzie silently filled her glass up.

"Thank you," she said, absently, then collected her wits. "Has a lifespan of several hundred years now become normal for mortals? Were the alchemists right all along?"

"No. Just me, and one other. And what do you mean by mortals, exactly?"

Jadhara sat back in her seat. She looked shell-shocked.

"Who are you, Crowbar? Do you have any names I might recognise? Please tell me. I thought we were all gone."

McKenzie sat back in his own seat. He thought he'd come here to find a way back home, but it was looking like he was about to find something else entirely.

"If there is a we, Jadhara," he said, "then I don't know what we are, and the only name I got that you don't already know is McKenzie."

"That's not your name," Jadhara told him.

"Well, I'm me and I get to pick my own name. So McKenzie it is," McKenzie said.

"Is this your true form?" She pressed him.

"True what? Seriously, what the fuck are you on about?" McKenzie asked her. "Don't get me wrong, exactly what the fuck I am's been a matter of burning curiosity for me ever since I shrugged off a cannonball to the chest at the Battle of Naseby, but you're making no sense whatsoever. You're an ice cold beautiful assassin with a cut glass accent and enough poise to equip an entire battalion of supermodels, can you start acting like one again please?" Irritation was never very far from McKenzie, no matter how earthshaking the conversation.

Jadhara's answer, it seemed, was to turn into a different woman. Her eyes became blue, her skin ran through a few pantone shades before settling on a deep and even tan, and her hair, though it stayed black, writhed into loose curls and escaped the ponytail she'd had it confined in. It was a pretty impressive trick, and she was still beautiful.

"Familiar?" She asked.

McKenzie blinked in surprise.

"Sun. Sea. Blood. Sand," he said. "Blimey, you are familiar, a bit. Holy shit."

Jadhara drew half a breath in.

"And so are you, now I look," she said. "You've changed, a lot, but you are unmistakably you, once one realises to whom one is talking. Your disposition is still as sunny as ever, I note."

"So we must have met, in England." McKenzie countered. "It's been a long time, and to be honest I'm not brilliant with faces, especially when they seem to change frequently. Not too great with names either, though, truth be told. Apologies, but 400 years is a long time to think back."

Jadhara laughed.

"Somethin' funny?" McKenzie asked.

"Pricelessly so," Jadhara replied. "It's been longer than 400 years. This is a face I wore a long time ago. No-one has seen this face for over 2000 years, when I went by the name of Helen, for a while. A rather famous Helen. And now I know who you are."

"You do?"

"Can you not guess?" She asked, and laughed again.

"To be abso-fuckin'-lutely honest, luv, I really didn't come here to play guessing games," McKenzie replied.

Jadhara ceased her laughter, and smiled. "I'll give you a clue, then, since you're an old friend: you used the name not half an hour ago. It was your most famous one."

McKenzie went cold. "No," he said.

"Yes," Jadhara - Helen - said. She filled his glass up again: he had drained it in surprise. "It's an absolute pleasure to see you again, Achilles dear. How's the old heel bearing up?"