The thing with the urgent missions, frenetic quests or other supposedly pressing heroesque business that McKenzie ended up being dumped with wasn't the actual doing bits, he reflected, but the travelling bits in between. Films and comic books just glossed over the hours spent sitting in some form of transport or another, unless there was a chase, or the particular mode of transport was crashing/exploding/imploding/slowly ripping itself apart or otherwise behaving in a dramatically interesting fashion. In reality you had to just wait, brooding over whether you were making the right decision or not, were wasting your time, had already fatally let someone down or one of a thousand other irritating worries until you got to where you were going and could actually get the fuck on with whatever it was you were supposed to be doing. Thus with McKenzie and the carriage.

The first two magical universities had proved to be red herrings: there had been one Adept Tal-something, but he wasn't a he, Adept Talosia was a she, and eighty-something years old, a very lovely old lady with several grandchildren, according to the helpful but over-informative clerk. McKenzie was now rattling towards the Royal Free Magical College, gloomily convinced that there would be no Adept Tal-something there either. He was increasingly of the opinion that all this buggering about was pointless, and he should go with his instincts: return to the Guild Hall then break stuff and people until they agreed to release Jadhara and leave McKenzie, Danandra and Sharinta alone. That, at least, wouldn't be as annoying as being stuck in a creaky carriage with, apparently, fucked-or-no suspension.

"Royal Free, guv," the driver finally said, pulling to a halt by a frankly tasteless building that looked like a talentless architect had chewed up a book about ancient Rome and then vomited onto the blueprints.

"Right then," McKenzie grunted, jumped out, and strode purposefully towards the entrance. It would be fair to say he wasn't in the best of moods. Like the other two universities he'd called at so far, there was a sense of powerful background magic radiating from it.

Once inside, he sought out the first person he could see: the clerk. This one was a ratty-looking sort, perched high up behind a too-tall marble desk-pedestal thing.

"Morning," McKenzie said, making a vague effort at summoning up a modicum of politeness. "I wonder if you could help me. I'm looking for an Adept, name of Talcoughcough."

The clerk looked up grudgingly from his work, and sniffed. "Tal-who?"

"Oh come on, you must know him. Tal to his mates," McKenzie said.

"We might have many Adepts who are 'Tal to their mates', but I am neither required nor inclined to help their drinking cronies locate them," the clerk told him.

McKenzie sighed, reached into his jacket, and withdrew a silver piece. "This oughta cover any quote-unquote admin fees for you to look him up on a list and tell me how to get in touch with him. This is a genuine emergency – at least three people are in very real danger, and Tal can help me find them and, hopefully, help them."

The clerk eyed the silver piece as if McKenzie was holding up a dog turd. "I do not take bribes to divulge the personal details of our faculty members," he said. "Now I advise you to leave before I summon the Wardens."

McKenzie put the silver piece away, then reached up, grabbed a handful of the man's robes, and yanked him down to eye level.

"Argh!"

"This probably isn't fair," McKenzie told him. "But I'm having kind of a shitty day and you're being a snippy twat, so whatever. Now tell me where to find any bloke Adepts here whose names start with Tal, or I'll have to start hitting you a bit. I'll feel really guilty about it later, I expect, but I'm kinda working to a tight schedule here and, like I tried to explain, people are genuinely in danger - besides you, I mean. Now say yes sir."

"Ugh! Yes sir!" The clerk said, in a strangled tone.

"Fan-dabbi-dozy," McKenzie said, and released him.

The clerk adjusted his robes. "The man you seek has an office through those doors, across the quadrangle to your left, marked with a crown. He's in there."

"See? Not really that hard at all. Have a super fucking day," McKenzie said, and strode off through the doors the clerk had indicated.

The clerk passed his hand over a small, yellow orb. "Wardens office? This is reception. I've just been assaulted by a man who was demanding to see Adept Talius. I've tricked him into going to your office."

Then he sighed, and took up his quill once again.

"Quick thinking, there," a man's voice said. The clerk looked up - there were four black-robed mages stood before him. He sighed again - more students late with assignments, no doubt.

"Bad morning?" The same one asked him.

"You could say that," the clerk said.

"I'm sorry to have to tell you," Makhrup said, producing a dagger from within the folds of his robe, "that it's not about to improve. Now tell me what you didn't tell him."

- o O o -

It very quickly became clear to McKenzie that the clerk had lied to him - the door across the quadrangle opened before he got there, and five rather burly chaps in black uniforms filed out of it and spread out across the lawn to block his path. These, presumably, were the Wardens he'd been threatened with. Each of them had a yellow crown on the breast of their uniform, and carried a staff - very thick, solid-looking staffs that escaped being called 'clubs' only because this was a magical college and not a pub.

"Aw crap," McKenzie said. Ah well. If he couldn't beat answers out of the guy on reception, one of these'd do.

"You're on College land," one of the wardens said, levelling his staff as if it was a shotgun. "Which means College law applies. You're under arrest."

"Not really, no," McKenzie replied. "Now, if one of you knows where I can find a guy whose name starts Adept Tal-something, then the next few moments will be a considerable lot less painful for you than they otherwise will be. Any takers?"

There was no reply, at least not a verbal one: the lead warden, however, discharged his shotgun-staff at McKenzie with a loud fwip noise and a red flash. It hit McKenzie squarely in the chest, and made him giggle. None of the five wardens had particularly expressive features, but they certainly looked a bit surprised.

"Heh - that tickles," he said. "Seriously, Adept Tal-something, then we don't gotta do this."

"Let him have it, boys," their leader said, and then they all pointed their staffs at him and opened up. They kept it up for a good few seconds, McKenzie examined his fingernails as they did so.

"It's not working!" One said.

"Aim for his head!" Another suggested.

"Really?" McKenzie sighed. "Every. Fucking. Time."

The results of the new aiming policy were predictably ineffective.

"Are we done?" McKenzie asked, when they finished.

"What do we do now, then, Merek?" One of the others asked the lead warden.

"Rush him," Merek said, and they did so.

The next couple of minutes weren't much fun for anyone (except possibly any schadenfreude enthusiasts in the group of a dozen or so students and staff who came running over to rubberneck). They ended with four of the guys lying either unconscious or at least prone on the ground, and four stun-staffs drained of all magic. McKenzie had the other pointed at the back of Merek's head, was holding his left arm in a crushing lock, and was sparking slightly from the recent inrush of magical energy.

He twisted Merek's arm a bit.

"Merek, yeah?"

"Ow! Yeah. What do you want?"

"Attention span much? Adept Tal-someone. Friend of a friend. I'm not here to cause trouble," McKenzie said.

"You're not?" Merek asked back.

"Alright, I might be. It's been a grade-A bastard of a day. But I'll probably fuck off and cause it somewhere else if I find out where this guy is. I only want to talk to him – I need his help," McKenzie explained, and increased the pressure on the man's arm.

"I don't know, honest, I really don't!" Merek yelped.

"Piss," McKenzie grunted, and shoved the man to the ground.

More of the magical security guards were running towards him from across the quadrangle.

"Hey!" McKenzie addressed the crowd. "Does anyone know where I can find a bloke called Adept Tal-something! It's genuinely a genuine fucking genuinely urgent emergency type thing. Genuinely."

A few people shook their heads - most of them ran away.

Then the sound of more magical detonations came from off to his left, and a third-floor window of a nearby building shattered outwards. McKenzie felt a spike in the background magic that permeated the entire area, and what was more, it was a familiar spike.

"Never mind," he said, and then he was sprinting toward the building, leaving gasps and amazed wardens behind him.

- o O o -

The third floor of the Adepts Hall had been turned into a magical free-fire zone. At one end, Makhrup and his three fellows were trying to get down the corridor. One of them was running through a charm to prevent teleportation, the other two, behind heavily beleaguered shields, were trying to advance so they could use their thaumatonets - Makhrup was keeping a steady stream of magical flak pouring down the corridor. The object of all this attention was Danandra, at the other end of the corridor and behind a shield of her own. She had been waiting in Talius' room, with the intention of, well: she was doing the waiting in a silken nightgown. Makhrup had learnt from the clerk that one of the trolless' former comrades had come seeking this Talius earlier, but had not quite dared to hope they would still be around. He had broken into Talius' chambers to find her waiting there, and things had then gone downhill quite quickly. Whether in robes or revealing nightwear, Danandra was several magical league divisions above the likes of Makhrup, and he was now starting to doubt that they'd survive the next few minutes even without the alleged demon McKenzie turning up.

"We must have her as a hostage, and now!" Makhrup called to his cronies. "The man will be moments away, and we can't deal with both of them!"

He couldn't have timed this utterance any less propitiously. There was a shattering of glass from one of the rooms behind him, and then the door flew outwards and shattered against the corridor wall.

"Oi!" McKenzie shouted, as he stepped through the doorway and beheld the scene. He didn't waste any further words on pleasantries, but levelled the stun-staff and started firing.

"Fuck!" Makhrup whirled around and cried out the words of a shielding spell, just in time. The red bolts fwipped into the shield, and the shields of the other two mages. He started backing toward them, and unleashed a stream of bright glowing darts at McKenzie, but they simply buzzed into his chest and were absorbed. Makhrup swore under his breath. This was going from bad to worse.

The noises the stun-staff made went from fwips to fwurps, and it's bolts grew dim. McKenzie rightly assumed that it was running out of oomph and allowed a bit of power to flow from his hand into it, but he misjudged it and, after one phenomenally bright and loud fwoom (which demolished a section of wall) it caught fire.

"Oh well," he said, and, dropping the staff, ran forward. With Danandra in the line of fire at the other end of the corridor, the gun wasn't an option.

Makhrup swore again. The elfmage was hammering at them from the front, and the assassin was nearly on them.

"What do we do now?" One of the other mages asked, eyes wide.

Makhrup snarled, ripped the thaumatonet from the man's grasp, and flung it over McKenzie. It was the only option left. It might slow the man down, or trip him up, and they could try to escape. What actually happened was terrifying.

McKenzie wondered what the hell the mage from Aghkar's - Mak-something, wasn't it? - was hoping to achieve by throwing what looked like an insubstantial fishing net at him, but it hit him like it was made of red hot molten lead. McKenzie grunted in pain as it landed on him, then tripped and fell.

He screamed. The net felt like it was eating into his skin. Smoke started to rise as McKenzie twitched and convulsed on the floor.

"It's not supposed to do that!" Makhrup said. "Knock him out and get it off him, quick!"

The other mage produced a jar from his clothes, out of which he pulled a wadded up, acrid-smelling cloth. He advanced toward the jerking McKenzie with the intention of holding it over his mouth, but as he bent down, McKenzie simultaneously let out an agonised cry and a bolt of lightning, which slammed into the mage and sent him sprawling to the floor with a large smoking hole in his chest. Suddenly, with a flash and a flurry of lightning, everyone's shields failed.

"Shit!" Makhrup whirled around, expecting to be obliterated by an offensive spell from the elfmage, but she too was shieldless, and not making any effort to cast anything - she knew any spell would likely backfire with McKenzie in his current state. Makhrup and his remaining mage, seeing this, started backing away from the worrying magical phenomenon that had just taken out their friend. The fourth mage, who'd had his anti-teleportation spell similarly interrupted, joined them.

Thaumatonets worked by absorbing magical energy from anything they were placed on - a characteristic that McKenzie shared. The net was trying to drain his quintessence at the same time as he was unavoidably draining the same energy from the net, and it was causing a deadly magical feedback loop, complete with a slowly-building, menacing hum that did not portend pleasant things once it reached it's peak.

"You absolute idiot!" The elfmage shouted at Makhrup. "Do you realise what you've just done? Fool! Get out of the way!" Danandra advanced towards McKenzie. The tone of her voice was such that the three mages actually did push themselves up against the wall to let her through.

Whatever she was going to attempt, though, she didn't get the chance. Makhrup recalled that this was supposed to be a kidnapping, spun her round by the shoulder, and swung his fist at her face. The blow connected, and Danandra cried out.

"How dare you!" She hissed, and slapped him across the face, hard. Makhrup winced, and drew back his fist again. He had two rings on his fingers, Danandra saw, golden ones, set with small rubies.

"You failed to knock me out with your first pathetic effort, do you seriously expect to succeed with your second?" She taunted him. Makhrup snarled, and hit her again. She'd been right, though - the blow wasn't enough.

One of his cronies sorted the situation by snatching up the acrid rag from the floor and holding it over her face - but Makhrup had scratches running down his face and another mage was limping before she succumbed to the chemical and slumped to the floor.

"Pick her up, and let's go," he said to the others. Between them, they picked up the unconscious elf.

"Hold!" A new voice said. Everyone looked up: a blond-haired elf in Adept's robes had appeared at the other end of the corridor. "Release her!"

Makhrup pointed and muttered, and a glowing blue arrow leapt from his finger. Instead of hitting the newcomer, though, it seemed to be sucked off course and into McKenzie, who screamed. Another bolt of lightning blasted out of him, this time destroying another section of wall. The Adept's Hall was probably going to need a fair bit of building work after today.

"Don't be a fool!" The elf said - he had not troubled himself to raise a shield: it seemed he knew what was happening on the floor between them better than Makhrup, and knew he was in no danger from any magical assault. "To attempt any magic is madness - you're lucky you just didn't kill us all. Magic will not function safely until the feedback cycle you have created has reached its conclusion. That conclusion will, inevitably, be a large explosion. We will have only moments in which to act - this poor unfortunate must be encased in a shield, but we will only be able to create one in the instant before the explosion. Now, if you three wish to be worthy of the title of mage, then leave her alone and help me contain this disaster!"

"Well Adept - the much sought-after Talius, I presume - since you are so wise in these matters, I think we shall leave you to deal with this while we tend to our own affairs," Makhrup told him. With a sarcastic bow, he turned and left. His two accomplices followed him into the room at the very end of the corridor, dragging Danandra between them. With the sparking, crackling McKenzie in the way, Makhrup knew there was no way Talius could follow them - but there was no other way out.

"The moment that fool engages his shield and magic becomes possible again," Makhrup said, picking up a chair, "we will go through this window," he used it to smash the glass out, "and levitate to the ground. Do you understand?"

His mages nodded.

Back in the corridor, Talius calmly adjusted his robes and prepared for the task at hand.

"I will find you," he promised, quietly, but whether he was addressing Danandra or Makhrup was open for debate.

Nobody else arrived to help - this would be down to him, it seemed. He ran through the sequence of his spell in his mind, mentally rehearsing it. It would have to draw most of it's power from the explosion itself, which would mean a third layer of shielding which absorbed power and fed it to the other two. Since it would be protecting the outside world from the person inside rather than - as was usual - the opposite, the whole thing would have to be inverted. There could be no gaps, no weak points - and of course it would have to be unimaginably strong.

It was, in other words, almost inconceivably difficult. It was fortunate, then, that he was extremely good at shields.

The man on the floor gasped and jerked - it was surprising that he was still alive. There was no help for him, Talius thought. He was already dead, he just didn't know it yet.

The hum built to a peak, and then the man coughed, and the noise stopped. Magic became possible, for a few brief moments.

"What-" The man began to ask.

"Sorry: make your peace with the gods now," Talius said, and cast the shield. A dark grey sphere slammed into place around the man.

"Go!" Makhrup said, and the kidnappers leapt out of the window, murmuring spells to slow their descent to the path below. Then they sprinted for the gates. Two wardens tried to intervene, but Makhrup simply blasted them out of the way with red bolts similar to their own.

Talius' shield turned from dark grey to bright white, and he grunted with effort. He had wrought well, though - the violence of the magical fury within fed the very shield walls it was raging against. There was no noise - just light.

Makhrup spotted a waiting carriage, and chivvied his men into it.

"I'm on private hire, guv, and not to be funny but I don't hold with blokes as carries unconscious half-dressed women around," the driver said, then inhaled ready to shout for a watchman.

Makhrup pointed a sizzling, sparking finger at him. "Drive. Fast."

The driver let the breath out without a shout. "On the other hand," he said, and urged his horse into motion.

After what seemed an incredibly long time, the light coming from the shield faded. Talius sighed. He would wait a few moments to be sure, and then bring it down. He expected to find a pile of ashes within.

What actually happened was a man's fist smashed through the shield, and then it was gone a moment later to reveal not a pile of ashes but the man, still with a few sparks buzzing up and down his body. To be fair, he was smoking a little bit, and appeared to have a fine dusting of ash all over his clothes, but he was very much alive.

"Well, that was pretty much in line with what I've come to expect from today," he said wearily, getting up and dusting himself off. He was standing in a blackened indentation in the floor. He coughed, then sneezed.

"Bless you," Talius said, automatically.

"Thanks," the man said. "What just happened and what did you just do?"

"A very rare interaction between objects of great magical power and objects - such as thaumatonets - designed to counteract magic by draining it. It makes using magic highly inadvisable, and always results in a large explosion. I contained that explosion. I had assumed that you had the misfortune of being caught in a thaumatonet whilst using such an artifact: I now see an alternative hypothesis will be required," Talius told him.

"I went bang. OK. Got it," McKenzie sniffed, then took note of the dead mage on the floor. "I see one of the utter twatbadgers who used that formatting net or whatever on me got what he deserved, did you happen to notice what happened to the other three? There's a girl involved, too."

"Yes, I know," Talius said. "Long gone, by now - they had plenty of time to make good their escape. Why are you still alive?"

"Buggered if I know," the man replied. "But I expect pure dumb luck has something to do with it, it usually fucking does. I don't suppose they did anything helpful like saying 'We're taking her to our secret headquarters at such and such an address, you'll never catch us now, etcetera', did they?"

Talius shook his head. "No clichés at all, I'm afraid. They went into that room, and then, I think, out of the window. Long gone by now. They didn't give any information away."

"Figures," the man said.

The sound of running feet heralded the arrival of other people.

"Adept Talius!" The first to arrive on the scene - a young man in similar robes - called out. "What happened?"

"I do not entirely know," Talius said.

"Tal-ius!" The man suddenly berated himself. "Of course it was. I'm not good with names. Anyway, got some bad news for you, well, it might be bad news, depends on your point of view. Bit of bad news the first, your possibly-girlfriend just got abducted by some bad motherfuckers who I think work for whoever's taken over from the late and unlamented Aghkar, probably a troll name of Iya, Iya...Iya-something. Dunno why they in particular were here, I thought he'd outsourced it, but there you go."

"She was involved with the crime syndicates?" Talius asked.

"Not directly. However, in related news, which might soften the blow a bit, item of bad news the second is that she wasn't who she said she was anyway. Her name wasn't Za-, Za-. Oh for fuck's sake."

"Zalla. You're really not good with names, are you?" Talius stated.

"Useless," the man admitted. "Anyway, she's not called Zalla. She's called Danandra. I'm McKenzie. Until about a day ago we were sort of undercover but since everyone and his dog seems to know who we are now there doesn't seem a lot of point in being all coy about it. Anyway, she was quite keen on you. Sorry. I suppose I'd best get after her, even though that's gonna fuck up the scheduling for the other woman I'm supposed to be rescuing. I bet there'll be another one along soon, too, this sort of thing always comes in bloody threes, it's like buses. Anyway, hope you'll excuse me. Bye." McKenzie turned to go.

"Wait!" Talius said, making a snap decision.

"Yeah?" McKenzie turned back.

"I will accompany you," Talius said.

"No offence, mate, but I'm probably going to be killing people and that. Dealing with a big magical kaboom aside, not the sort of thing for a professor to be involved in, this isn't a fucking Dan Brown novel. Buh-bye now," McKenzie said.

"I can help you find out where she's gone," Talius said. "And as of half an hour ago, I'm abandoning my academic aspirations."

McKenzie looked at the bloke again. To be fair, he was almost a 1.0 on the magical Danandra-do-not-fuck-with scale. He might be useful.

"How can you find out where she's gone?" McKenzie asked him.

"I'll need some things in my quarters - and some power. Unless I miss my guess, you can supply that, can't you?" Talius told him.

McKenzie nodded. "Yeah - but I'm reliably informed it's extremely dangerous."

"Then we will be extremely careful. Bring him and follow me, if you'd be so kind." Talius pointed at the dead mage.

"I don't think he's gonna have much to say. In case you hadn't noticed, he's got a hole in his chest the size of Manchester and he ain't breathing. He is, in fact, dead. Bereft of life, he has joined the choir immortal. This is an ex-mage," McKenzie replied.

"We'll see about that," Talius stated. McKenzie shrugged and grabbed the dead mage's legs.

"Adept Talius, the wardens are on their way. Perhaps they should deal with this situation?" The other adept interjected.

"They can do as they wish." Talius shrugged, and headed into his quarters. Halfway there he stooped to pick something up from the floor: Danandra's glasses. He slipped them into a pocket.

McKenzie dragged the body in behind him. "Is this going to be like a CSI thing?" He asked.

"Please define a 'seeyessai thing', and then I can answer you," Talius responded. He closed the door, pointed at it, and muttered - it would take quite a lot to open it, now. He didn't want to be disturbed for this.

"When you get clues from dead bodies," McKenzie said.

"That is precisely what we shall be doing," Talius replied.

"Oh okay. Right."

"Onto the bed, please," Talius said.

"He's a bit gory," McKenzie pointed out.

"I'm no longer responsible for the laundry," Talius said. He reached under his bed and pulled out a small chest.

"Fair dos." McKenzie lifted the body onto the bed. Talius passed his hand over the chest several times, murmured a few incantations, and then the lid clicked open. Inside were a black robe, three books, a silver knife, a blindfold and a human skull. The skull was decorated with various bits of silver, including silver eyes and a silver tongue.

"On his back, if you would Mr. McKenzie," Talius said to McKenzie.

"What? Oh." McKenzie flipped the dead mage over. "So, what do we do-ew!"

The 'ew!' was occasioned by what Talius did next, which was to plunge the silver knife directly into the mage's ear, right up the the hilt.

"That's not exactly how they do it on the telly," McKenzie commented.

Talius took the skull out of the chest, tied the blindfold around it's eyes, and put it on the bedside table.

"Why are you covering it's eyes up?" McKenzie asked, thinking as if that's the only bit of this whole procedure that requires an explanation. "Also: this is really, really creepy."

"They panic, sometimes, if they can see themselves," Talius said. "Now, ordinarily this requires a human sacrifice, but -"

"I'm so glad there's a but in that sentence," McKenzie cut in.

"But there is another option, which is usually impossible as it requires a great deal of magical energy. However..." Talius let it hang.

"Is this gonna end with me fighting a zombie mage hell-bent on my destruction?" McKenzie asked suspiciously. "Because I've already got that T-shirt."

"That would be an unlikely outcome almost without precedent," Talius replied.

"Encouraging," McKenzie responded dryly. "Okay so, this stuff comes as a crackling stream of power. Where do you want it?"

"Into the skull, if you would."

"Here goes," McKenzie said, pointed at the skull, and loosened the controls on the raw magic inside. It shot past the skull and destroyed a vase behind it, the fragments of which turned into beetles which scurried underneath the furniture.

"Sorry - hope that wasn't expensive."

"I have no idea - it came with the room," Talius told him.

"Lemme try that again," McKenzie said, moving closer to the table. This time his aim was better, and he hit the skull, which began glowing an unhealthy green colour.

"Awaken," Talius addressed the corpse.

McKenzie jumped as it drew in a breath and opened its eyes. "The pain!" It said, and sobbed. "Why can't I see?"

"I will return your sight to you if you answer our questions," Talius told the corpse.

"I need a cleric. Get me a cleric," the corpse replied. "I've been hurt."

"You have. Answer our questions, and I can guarantee you the ministrations of a cleric," Talius replied.

"This is beyond spooky," McKenzie said, in a sort of horrified fascination.

Talius shot him a quelling glance. The corpse gave vent to a sigh and closed its eyes. Talius nodded meaningfully at the skull.

"Already?" McKenzie asked. Talius nodded again. "This is worse than a payphone," McKenzie said, and then zapped the skull again. The corpse opened its eyes once more.

"What did you want with the elfmaid?" Talius asked the corpse.

"Without her as a hostage, he would have destroyed us," the corpse said.

"He did, in your ca-" McKenzie muttered, but Talius shot him another silencing glare. "I can see why you and Danandra get on," McKenzie muttered.

"After that. Where were you taking her?" Talius asked.

"To the Lady Jenata," the corpse said. "Makhrup has a deal with her. He said she wishes to embarrass Iyanus, the new head of Aghkar's syndicate - our boss. It really hurts!"

"Keep talking, and I will ease your pain," Talius told it.

"Iyanus has gone crazy - the other crime lords have ordered him to find Aghkar's killers and make an example of them, to prove his worth as the new boss. He can't handle the pressure - he had no idea what to do, until one of Aghkar's killers, another troll, came to find him. He got some information from her, and they made some sort of deal - his protection from her former associates in return for information. He doesn't trust his own people, so he's got the Assassins involved. They've put him under 24 hour armed guard - even his most trusted lieutenants aren't allowed in without their say-so. Now he just lurks in his chambers with her, and they're behaving like wild trolls, they've eaten four people already."

"Double-ew," McKenzie commented, wincing.

"Let him talk," Talius chided him. McKenzie raised an eyebrow at him, but fell silent.

"Water," the corpse said. Talius half-filled a glass from a jug on the bedside table and poured some into the man's mouth - it trickled out of the hole in his chest.

McKenzie held back some bile.

"Thank you," the corpse said. "Makhrup had had enough: he was just waiting until he had something worthwhile to bring to Jenata. One of the things she told him she wanted was Aghkar's killers - alive. The Beggars told us of a possible sighting of the man who got into Aghkar's office - that he was making the rounds of the magical colleges, for some reason - so Makhrup took us to investigate. We found the elfmage, but she was more powerful than we thought, we were still trying to overpower her when he arrived. Magic has no effect on him, so Makhrup threw a thaumatonet over him. There was some sort of thaumic event, I don't know-"

"I have a theory," Talius interrupted. "Do you know what Lady Jenata plans to do with the elfmaid?"

"No," the man shook his head, or tried to - all it did was twitch slightly. "Please, I know no more. Restore my sight, and for the gods' sakes, get me a cleric! I'm in agony."

"You wish to see? Look, then." Talius picked up the skull and removed the bindfold. The man levered himself up on his elbows, saw how badly wounded he was, and then screamed.

"Oh no! Oh gods no!" The corpse said.

"A cleric will be along in due course, I don't doubt," Talius told the corpse. "It's customary for one to attend, at a death."

"Fuckin' 'ell, that's a bit harsh, innit?" McKenzie said.

"A few moments ago you were of the opinion he got what he deserved," Talius stated.

"Yeah, but he's dead now. I tend to drop any grudges at that point, to be honest," McKenzie replied.

"I'm dead?" The man asked, aghast.

Talius ignored him. "What would you have me do, hold his hand and tell him everything will be all right?"

"No, but something along the lines of 'the problems of this world are yours no longer, return to your rest' might be in order," McKenzie replied.

"My rest..." the corpse said, looking somewhat relieved. He eased himself back down onto the pillow, and his eyes began to close.

Talius snorted. "If his life was spent in the service of a homicidal criminal, I doubt he can expect much in the way of rest in the afterlife. More fire and torment, I suspect."

"Oh!" The corpse's eyes shot open again.

"Look, I'm not au fait with the local arrangements for afterlives and what have you, but I've always been of the opinion that if there is such a thing as Hell, then you've got to be a for-reals, nasty, I-know-it's-wrong-but-I'm-doing-it-anyway-because-I-enjoy-it psychotic serial killer or dictator type. Let he who is without a mean little streak of evil somewhere deep inside cast the first stone, and all that. This guy's just like a junior gangster or something, probably didn't want to end up working for a nutter, too afraid to stop once he was in too deep. Could happen to anyone," McKenzie said, then turned back to the corpse. "You'll be alright, mate, I'm sure. You go back to sleep."

"Sleep..." The corpse said, and closed it's eyes. McKenzie reached over and yanked the knife out of his skull, before Talius could taunt him further. He could feel the magic being shut off. The dead body was, once again, just a dead body.

"Okay, well, that'll do nicely as raw material for my nightmares for the next several weeks, I imagine. Thanks for that," McKenzie said.

"We have important information regarding Danandra's location," Talius said. Evidently he was good with names. He took the knife from McKenzie and cleaned it on the dead man's robes. "Hardly pleasant, but nobody died."

"Well, technically someone died twice," McKenzie told him.

"That is, as you say, a technicality," Talius replied. He had pulled out a small bag from under his bed, and was already moving around the room filling it with scrolls, books and clothes - including Danandra's, which she had folded neatly onto a chair. The bag didn't seem to bulge very much, and then McKenzie twigged that this was no ordinary bag - it positively hummed with magic. As if to confirm this, Talius shut the skull and knife back in the chest and then put it into the bag in it's entirety, where it made not the slightest impression.

McKenzie decided to let the whole talking-dead-guy issue drop, for now. "Do you know who this Lady Jenata is?"

"A figure in the Vyrinian criminal underworld, I would suppose, although I do not know the name. I will discover where she may be found, and then we will seek her out and compel her to release Danandra," Talius said.

"Just like that," McKenzie said.

"Do you have a better idea?" Talius asked.

"I have another lead, is what I have," McKenzie answered him. "In case you haven't guessed, I came here looking for you, to try and get a message to Danandra. What I was going to do after that was go see a guy who had something to tell me about this situation."

"Then you should pursue that line of enquiry, and I will pursue this one," Talius told him. He shucked the blue robes he was currently wearing - he had entirely normal trousers and a shirt on, underneath - and put on the black robes from the chest. McKenzie thought he detected a certain hesitancy as the man did so, but he could have imagined it. He flung the discarded blue robes over the dead man on the bed. At that moment, there was a hammering on the door.

"Adept Talius!" A voice said. "You are commanded to open these doors! The being in there with you is extremely dangerous!"

"I'm a being now?" McKenzie sighed. "This whole thing is gonna get blamed on me, I can tell."

"In all probability, yes," Talius told him.

"Figures," McKenzie said. "Okay then, we're officially in business as previously outlined. How do I get word to you?"

"The Shining Sigils Inn, in the Magus District - it is not difficult to find. The proprietor owes me a favour - mention my name, which is Talius, just for the sake of clarity. Would you like me to write it down?"

"I hope you find her, Talius, because you two are just fucking perfect for one another," McKenzie told him flatly. "Shiny Sigils, Mage's District. Gotcha."

"Close enough. I bid you good fortune," Talius said, then, snapping his fingers, disappeared in a flicker of shadow. Upon the very same instant, the magic securing the door failed, and it burst inward under the impetus of two Wardens. There was a crowd of mages behind them, trying to peer in. The wardens levelled their stun-staffs.

"He's killed Talius!" Someone exclaimed from behind them, seeing the robes spread over a dead body.

"It's not him," McKenzie said. "This is a different guy, and technic'ly it was self-inflicted. So ner."

"Arrest him!" The same voice said.

"You arrest him." One of the Wardens, presumably briefed by his injured colleagues, muttered.

"I am so out of here," McKenzie said, then sighed and flung himself out of the window.

The rain had stopped and the sun was trying to come out, but the ground was still decidedly damp. McKenzie hit the ground and rolled, and came up liberally smeared with glass-peppered mud down the left side of his jacket.

"Fuck's sake," he said.

Emboldened by the fact he was three storeys below them, now, the Wardens opened fire. McKenzie ignored it, and headed for the gate. There were, unsurprisingly, a certain amount of people running around, gathering in groups to swap inaccurate reports of what was happening, and other something-is-out-of-whack type activity - presumably this was what people did before they had mobile phones to try and film such things.

The confusion made it quite easy even for someone covered in mud to make an exit, at least until he was headed off by Merek and another gaggle of Wardens, who spread out to encircle him.

"Seriously?" McKenzie asked them.

"You leaving?" Merek asked.

"Yup."

"Move outta the way, lads. There's nothing we can do 'ere," Merek advised his men.

"Wise choice," McKenzie said, and stalked past. The Wardens made no effort to stop him, but they did trail him at a discreet distance. His path out of the university took him past the entrance clerk again - the man was just emerging from behind his raised desk, where he appeared to have been hiding. His eyes went wide when he saw McKenzie, and he froze.

"They went that way," the clerk said, pointing out the exit.

"They went out the only exit? You don't fuckin' say. Well done, genius," McKenzie told him. "'Cos you were a dick, by the way, a girl's been kidnapped and a man is dead. Next time tell the first bloke where to fucking go so he gets there before the bad guys, eh?"

"He had a kn-kn-knife," the clerk said.

"Man up," McKenzie snapped, in no mood to be nice.

Outside, there was no sign of the carriage he had hired.

"You fuckers nicked my ride," McKenzie muttered. Fortunately, there were three or four other ones hanging around. McKenzie hauled himself up into the nearest, dug out a random collection of coins (two silver, five copper) and dropped them into the driver's lap.

"Drive," he said, noting the presence of a beggar across the street. "I'll tell you where we're going once we're moving."

"Right you are, sir," the driver said, and the carriage moved off.

What a shitty day, McKenzie thought. At least he was now going to an inn - even if this helpful assassin proved not to have anything worthwhile to pass on to McKenzie, he could receive this news while holding a drink.