CHAPTER ONE
 
The girl hurried through the street.  Barely any light covered them; only the occasional lantern hanging over a tavern door or slats of illumination peeking between shuttered windows offered oases from the darkness.  Thick clouds covered the sky, trapping in the suffocating heat of the day and shutting out the moon.  The girl tried to walk normally but kept casting nervous glances over her shoulder.  Not far to go now, she told herself.  It wasn't a very dangerous part of East Zabrial but the hour was far too late.  No part of East Zabrial was truly safe at night.  She had lived in the city all her life and it could still frighten her.
She emerged into Cantini Way, looked up and down the street and cursed, her fear mounting a little.  At the end was a right turning into Alstace Avenue, where she lived.  But just before the turning she saw a large group of silhouetted figures milling around a rare street lantern.  Their calls and laughs spilled down the street; all male and all probably drunk.  The girl slowed her pace.  They were probably theoretically harmless, she knew, at least by East Zabrial's standards.  Just a group of louts who had been thrown out of a tavern.  But what exactly was she going to have to put up with, a teenage girl walking past a group of at least ten men sharing a bottle.  A whole barrage of lewd suggestions at the very least.  She really was in no sort of mood for that.  Not after the evening she had just endured. 
An alleyway to her right suddenly caught her eye.  She stopped and considered it.  She knew the streets in this district very well.  That alley, she was almost certain, turned left into another and she could go down that to eventually reach the courtyard where her house stood from the other direction.  She glanced both ways down Cantini Way again.  The drinkers hadn't seen her and nobody else was about.  She stepped into the alley.
The darkness became almost absolute.  She could barely make out the house walls which stood a foot either side of her.  She moved slowly, uncertain how even the ground was, and also breathed through her mouth to avoid the growing stench of garbage and urine.  After a dozen steps she was regretting her choice and her anxiety was fermenting into a barely suppressed panic.  She kept going, however.
Because it was so dark, she didn't even notice the doorway she walked past.  And she didn't notice the two men standing there, waiting for what the night might bring.
 
"Excuse me, sir?"
Jed Colac, who had been giving the tavern a first cautious audit, turned with some irritation.  The doorman, an extremely dark-skinned and extremely large man with a shaven head, leather armour and a cudgel, was looking expectantly at him.
"No weapons allowed inside, sir," the doorman continued in his deep baritone.  "If you wouldn't mind handing over your sword..?"
Jed sighed, but unfastened his sword belt and passed it over.  The doorman put it in a large bucket behind him, which already held a considerable armoury.
"I get that back in any condition other than it's in now…" Jed began to warn, then lost heart.  "Oh, forget it.  Bet you've heard 'em all anyway."
Besides, he decided, he rather approved of the policy.  The tavern lay on East Zabrial's central docks and adhered to the traditions of such establishments.  It was dingy, low-ceilinged, smoky and full of men who, had they been upwardly mobile, might have aspired to being the dregs of society one day.  Shadowy groups clustered around the battered tables, some muttering to one another, some gambling on dice and some just drinking their way towards surly oblivion.  A few looked up as Jed Colac walked in but none seemed very interested.  He scarcely appeared out of place, he knew.  In his late twenties but looking older, he had a haggard and slightly scarred face, weary eyes and straggly brown hair.  He was tall and actually quite slender but seeming plump; close inspection would reveal armour being warn underneath his dark, baggy clothes.  He didn't look altogether very pleasant and was rarely subjected to close inspection.
He continued looking around the tavern until a man sat in one corner gave him a small wave.  Unlike Jed, who had the pale brown skin of a Dorlafan, both men at the table were again very dark in complexion.  One was extremely bulky – not fat, Jed knew – with and oval face and pudgy features, the other was emaciated, small and restless.
"Evening Syran," Jed said to the larger man and indicated the other.  "This the bloke then?"  Syran nodded and Jed turned to him.  "Evening, lad.  My name's Jed Colac.  Here's how it works.  You tell me the truth an' I give you money.  Simple enough?"
The smaller man looked directly at him for the first time.  His eyes, the whites as well as the rims, were scarlet.
"Blimey, you caught it all right," Jed said cheerfully.  He waved his fingers in front of the damaged eyes until the man irritably turned away.
"Piss off with that," he whined.  "I'm sick of everyone doing that.  I can see, all right?  Just not too well yet."
"OK, OK, sorry.  So what happened to you?"
"It was the other night, right?   And me and my mate were just hanging around, not doing any harm to anyone, when-"
Jed sighed.  "OK.  I guess I didn't put across the whole 'tell me the truth' part too well.  Let's back up a bit an' start again…"
 
The men had followed the girl for several steps before she heard them.  She turned and just made out two patches of denser blackness heading towards her.  Instantly she turned back and began to run.  A second later, they pounced.  She made it a short way, then her foot slipped and she stumbled for a fatal second.  A hand grabbed her arm, roughly forcing her round.  She flailed out with her free hand but her wrist was caught in a steel grasp; she kicked forward and only made contact with air.  Meanwhile, the other man had slipped around the struggling pair.  He grasped the girl's arms and forced them behind her back.  That left his companion free to concentrate on her clothing.
She did not scream.  She never screamed.  That gave the man, beneath his intoxicated lust, his first indication that something was wrong.  Instead, as he ripped her coat open, she began muttering something.  It seemed to be a foreign language, full of strange accents, sudden rises and falls.  And it apparently wasn't even being addressed towards her attackers, but was just a speech inside her head being read at random.  The speech began quietly but, as the man was about to pull her blouse apart, built into a piercing crescendo.
Then the dark alley was filled with sudden, searing light.
 
"I dunno how fucking long it lasted," the man continued to whine.  "Probably only a second, but it was so damn bright I couldn't see nothing else for ages.  Me pal neither. We were staggering around like fucking cripples half the night.  Miracle we weren't set on, that's what it was.  Couldn't see anything till half-way through the next day.  I'll probably never see properly again.  But if I meet that little bitch again, I'll see enough.  Fucking wizards.  There ought to be a law."
"There is," Jed said evenly.  "Last time I heard there were one against rape an' all, but hey.  Where can I find this mate of yours?"
"You fuck off," the man returned with sudden venom.  "You think I'm telling you that?  Who the fuck are you anyway?  I tell you now, you anything to do with the Guards and you can kiss my-"  He froze.  Jed had moved his hand under the table and the man was suddenly feeling a sharp object pressing into his belly.  "What's that?" he hissed.
"I were to make an educated guess, I'd say it were a dagger."
"You- You're not supposed to bring weapons in here."
"Aye, I know.  An' if I were you I'd make a stiff complaint to the management.  Security in this place is shocking.  Get what you pay for, I guess.  An' last time I remember, I was paying you for information.  So never mind the sudden coyness, let's here it."  After being supplied with a name and address, Jed continued.  "OK.  An' to save time, I know it were dark till that blinding light came along.  I know you were too busy thinking with your dick to really notice this girl's appearance.  Just a handy vagina for you, right?  Or not, as it turned out.  But as far as you know, what did she look like?"
 
The bell rang and shoals of girls immediately pushed gratefully out of the school gates.  All wore the same uniform; a baggy, pale brown dress which stretched half-way down their shins, a flat and broad-brimmed hat, long socks and solid sandals.  They filled Kaskar Lane in a beige, solid mass and then slowly dispersed in chattering twos and threes.  One pair, walking arm in arm, paused to buy bottles of iced water from a strategically placed stall and then headed for their homes, three streets away.
"Like, I don't know what I was thinking when I took church studies," one of them was groaning.  "I thought it was gonna be like what we get taught in, well, church.  Lots of ever-so hearty exploits as Narlan crushes his enemies.  Who'd have thought he made so many speeches.  You'd think, ocean god, right, there's certain practical problems with that."  Dala Ossasi looked almost indistinguishable from any other sixteen year old Zabric schoolgirl.  She was tall, slim, dark, vivacious, delicately featured and pretty in a slightly androgynous way.  Only her eyes were rather unusual.  Very large, they also had an unfocussed look which gave Dala a (largely) unjustified air of stupidity.
"You want less of the speeches and more of the smitings?" Minyanis Axot giggled.  Though the same age as her friend, Minyanis was very different in appearance.  Small and plump, she had an oval face which, though tanned from the sun, was much paler naturally.  High cheekbones and curved brows flanked narrow, tapering eyes.  Her wide mouth was usually smiling and her generally sunny demeanour created the aura of uncomplicated happiness; again, not necessarily accurate.
"Now, I'm not saying he should smite left, right and centre," Dala protested.  "You know me, I'm all for giving peace a chance.  But sometimes a god's gotta do what a god's gotta do.  And what's with all that manifesting himself that goes on?  Always as the same thing too, a giant man made out of water.  Like, show a bit of originality, man.  God, sorry.  Do you suppose clothes are part of that get-up?"
"Let's see now watery trousers, a little watery hat… It doesn't seem very likely."
"So he'd be naked?  With his you-know-what in full view?  Urgh.  And how solid is the whole set-up likely to be?  If I saw him and a bit of water dripped off the end of his chap, I'd just freak.  Do you think we're being blasphemous talking like this?"
"You are," Minyanis said happily.  "But as I'm not Church of Narlan myself, I'm just being intolerant."
"Cool.  And now we've got to learn yet another Tars Tukas off by heart for History.  I love and respect them all, of course, but you do wish the legends of our city would just shut up once in a while.  Now there's a face I've not seen before," Dala continued without a pause as they turned into the courtyard where they lived.  "And I'd be quite content not ever seeing it again."
The courtyard was surrounded by quiet three-story houses built of amber stone.  Once they had probably looked grandiose but time was gradually diminishing them.  In the centre of the courtyard stood a cluster of trees, dehydrated and also slowly dying.  The compromised grandeur of the scene matched its neighbourhood.  It lay in the southern reaches of East Zabrial, on a gently rising hillside.  It wasn't on the clifftops to the north, where the mansions of the city's elite stood.  Nor, though, was it one of the truly festering districts which comprised the heart of East Zabrial.
The man under scrutiny was broad and plump featured, clad in a dirty, short-sleeved tunic.  He was lying propped against one of the trees with his hat covering his eyes, and he appeared to be asleep.
"I think he looks sweet," Minyanis declared as they studied him from a safe distance.
"That's because you're on heat, Min."
"True.  You want to do anything tonight?"
Dala made a face.  "Chores, chores and more chores is what I will be doing, even after I've finished my date with Mr Tukas.  How about tomorrow?"  They had no school the next day.
"Sure.  If you want, we could meet up with that girl I was talking about."
"Oh, the one who works at the docks?  Yeah, cool."
"She's big and brawny with huge muscles and she's a modern woman with her own career and she's really nice and-"
"Min," Dala interrupted.  "I kind of already agreed."
"Oh.  Sorry," Minyanis giggled.  "When I have a good oratory prepared, I hate to see it wasted."  More seriously and quietly, she added, "You haven't told your parents about the other night have you?"
"The fact I'm not being locked in my room the instant I get home from school should answer that one.  I've not even told them I was out that night, let alone what…"
"You know, Dala, you should talk to someone about it.  There's bound to be, I don't know, a wizard who can be trusted, or if not an actual wizard then-"
"I know, I know," Dala said uncomfortably.  "I will, I promise.  Some time.  But I think I've still got it under control."
"But even so-"
"Min, please."  Dala spoke so plaintively that her friend relented.
"OK.  Sorry.  Meet you here tomorrow about noon-ish?"
"Noon-ish."  And they parted towards their respective homes, which frowned wearily across the courtyard at each other.
 
"I ought to have some suitable words for this sad occasion," Jed declared.  "But all I can come up with is 'Good.'"
He had found the second would-be rapist.  The man was lying on his bed with his hands tied behind his back.  Heavy bruising covered his face and his crimson eyes were wide open.  His head had been bent back at a lethal angle.  Clouds of flies fought for pickings from the body, and steady lines of red ants greedily marched up and down it.
"Don't hang rapists in this city, do you?" Jed continued.  "So, good."
Syran was stood beside him, surveying the body with equal dispassion.  "Maybe another word," he suggested in his deep voice, "Should be 'why?'"
Jed shrugged.  "Here we've got some little turd who lives by picking on helpless victims an' robbing 'em's the kindest thing he does to 'em.  He don't make much of a secret where he lives an' him an' his mate are prone to boasting about what they've been up to.  Only a matter of time before someone's dad caught up to one of 'em."
"You think that's all it was."
"It's the most likely.  Let's not get jumpy before we have to."  He sighed.  "OK.  We ain't got a clue what to look for, but we'd better have a quick nose around to check there's nowt totally bloody obvious."
It didn't take long.  The room, which lay in a decrepit apartment block close to the Gunti Market, was small and poorly furnished.  The dead man had had few belongings and no inclination to tidy them away, simply leaving them scattered across the floor.  Jed picked distastefully through the filthy plates and undergarments, then glanced over his shoulder at Syran.  His partner was carefully examining the body.
"Anything?"
Syran took a closer look at the ropes around the man's wrists.  "Tied his hands up, pushed his head back, broke his neck.  What you'd expect.  Some sort of slime on the ropes."
Jed joined him and touched the rope.  "Any idea what it is?"  He sniffed his finger and flinched at the smell.
"Slime's slime to me."
"Any guess how long he's been like this?"
"Three days?"
"Night after the attack then."  Jed wiped his hand on the bedsheets.  "OK, let's go."
The instant they stepped out into the hall, a door opened and a face glared suspiciously at them.  Jed rounded on it.
"An' what are you bloody looking at?  There's been a dead body lying next door to you for three days.  Garrath, don't you people use your bloody noses?  Let's get back to my place," he said to Syran as they hurried down the stairs.
Jed's 'place' also lay depressingly close to the Gunti Market.  The market itself was a world-renowned trading point for the goods and marvels of two continents; but the district was not a good one.  Nor was the guest house where Jed was staying a good one.  His room enjoyed a view of a brick wall three feet away and, apart from the absence of clutter, looked very similar to the one he had just left.  Jed did not have clutter.  Most of the items he had brought to East Zabrial were carefully stored away in case civic-minded landladies happened to wander into his room.
"I dunno why you couldn't put me up at your place," he complained, splashing his face in a tub of filmy water.
Syran settled easily back onto the bed.  "I told you.  Matters of security."
"Oh, aye.  That old one.  You know, I've got a family of trolls living next door."
"Yes, I noticed them.  They'll be traders from Ellniss.  Harmless.  And you're not supposed to call them trolls."
"Eh?  Oh, right.  The Dwarves who live in the Cities have got like that.  Can't call 'em Dwarves anymore, you've got to call 'em what they call themselves in their own tongue.  Khukalak or summit like that.  Say it wrong an' everyone thinks you've got a throat infection."
"I meant, they aren't technically trolls.  They're oolags.  Similar ancestry but a different species.  Real trolls are ten feet high and wouldn't be welcome in the average guest house.  Even in this city."
"Yeah?  Leave toenail clippings half a yard long, that sort of thing?"
"They've a tendency to eat masonry.  And – what's that other thing?  Oh yes.  People."
Jed leant against the window frame with his arms crossed.  "You live an' learn, I guess.  An' what have we lived an' learnt?  We’ve got a bright flash of light, maybe caused by magic, happening in the neighbourhood which might be the right one.  You overheard two girls talking, sort of hinting that one of 'em's got powers.  And that one sort of fits the semi-description given by a weasily piece of shit who can't even see properly anymore.  Ain't quite good enough is it?  We're gonna have to do a bit more digging."
"It's your call.  But we need to move quickly."
"Aye.  But we've also got to be sure.  This it one of those blow it once, blow it forever deals."
"Maybe quicker than we first thought," Syran persisted.  "If that man wasn't killed by an angry parent.  After tying him up, before breaking his neck, they could have questioned him."
"Yeah, I know."  Jed started wandering around, waving his arms in frustration.  "You know what I'd really like to do.  Get in touch with the dam Elmii an' ask their advice.  Don't suppose you've got that scriving ball, that wondrous device they gave me to communicate with 'em across vast distances in an instant, to bloody work yet?"
Syran shook his head.  "I'll keep trying.  East Zabrial's a tricky place for using magic.  There's too many random forces passing through it.  It makes everything fluctuate."
"Yeah."  Jed gave a short, mirthless laugh.  "An' there's no chance they'd have sent me out with faulty equipment, is there?  Like, that'd be totally out of character for the preparations for this mission."
"Has anyone told you you're a bit cynical?"
"Aye.  Someone on the Elmii told me that once.  An' when wizards think you're too cynical, you get a bit worried."
 
East Zabrial – Gateway To The World.  (It has many more less flattering labels as well.)  Ever since Teraf was first colonised the city has been the chief port linking the continent to Elniss, which lies across the Eastern Ocean.  Great convoys of ships cross the seas twice a year; many more private sailings are made as well.  Rare herbs, fruits, skins and magical artefacts come from Ellniss, manufactured goods and weapons are sent in return by Teraf and countless fortunes have been made through the trade.  The sea also offers East Zabrial, surrounded on all other sides by desert, its easiest method of transportation and the city is the southernmost link of the chain of ports which run up the Christotan post.  East Zabrial's docks spread the whole length of its extensive harbour front.  They stretch from the Psiani Pier in the north to the central Finger of Light to the southern Abal Pier by the Town Council buildings, a great jumble of warehouses, jetties, loading bays, taverns, boat-building yards, counting houses, auction pits and recruiting centres.  They incorporate a vast array of buildings, from the overbearing Tukas Emporium standing by the Finger of Light to endless collections of ramshackle huts of miscellaneous functions.
Dala and Minyanis found Kristin L'rnass in one of the humbler areas.  The gang of hauliers she worked with had spend the morning unloading a battered looking galleon and carrying its goods into a nearby warehouse.  If the girls were hoping for glimpses of exotic Ellniss riches then they were disappointed.  The ship had travelled no further than Denlich on the Dorlafan coast and mainly carried crates of turnips.
"This is pretty exotic by our standards," Kristin told them.  "Most of the time we just get to unload fishing nets.  I see them beasties staring at me in my sleep sometimes."  She was eating her lunch, a glass of beer and a huge collection of bread rolls from a nearby tavern, as they say by the quayside.  Ahead, the huge sweep of Zabrial Bay glittered in the sun.  The rest of Kristin's gang were eating a little way away, a noisy cluster of thickset, half-naked men.
"It must be exciting when the big convoys come in though," Minyanis encouraged.  As usual, she was the more animated one.  Dala, never at ease with strangers, sat quietly by her side.
"Oh, it's a scream.  We work twenty hour shifts for two weeks solid until we're weeping with exhaustion.  Most of the money we earn, we spend it trying to get our strength back after."
"You're not exactly selling this job to us."
Kristin laughed.  "I wouldn't sell it to anyone.  It's a hard life, girls.  Dangerous, back-breaking labour and precious little reward at the end of it.  And I have to put up with that lot hitting on me all the time," she added, indicating her workmates.  Both girls thought that indicated a little desperation on their part. Kristin L'rnass was indeed big and brawny, with a thick net, a powerful chest and muscles rippling up her long arms.  She also had the thick black hair and pointed features of a Kakranfan, although many years in the East Zabric sun had turned her naturally pale skin a light brown.  Her manner was ostensibly open and uncomplicated but Dala remained on her guard.  There was a watchfulness about Kristin, and a suggestion that she was more cunning than she let show.
"But you've made your choice," Minyanis was saying.  "And stuck to it for, eight years is it?  I'd say that was a kudos-worthy situation."
"Thanks.  But I've not a lot of choice with my qualifications.  You stick with your education, girls.  It's the only thing that'll take you forward."
"Oh yes.  For example, in school yesterday we learned that East Zabrial has a patriarchal society where women are barred from all the top jobs," Minyanis said happily.
"You're not from this city are you?"
"Er, that's one of those definition-defining questions.  My parents are from Ellniss and braved, so they keep telling me, all kinds of strange and bizarre terrors before they crossed the ocean.  Whereas I've just lived here, all my life."
"Same here.  My family's from Kakranfé but I've never known anywhere but East Zabrial."
"Great," Dala remarked.  "You're both from ethnic minorities but I'm the only one not born here."  Seeing Kristin's querying glance she explained, "We moved from Port Crabal when I was about five.  Go…" She waved a fist in the air but then stopped.  "Sweet Narlan, I've forgotten how to cheer on Port Crabal."
"Go Compromise?" Minyanis suggested.
"You both live around Alstace Avenue, don't you?" Kristin asked after a slight pause.  "There was a bit of trouble around there the other night, I heard."
"Er, try pretty much every night," Dala said quickly.
"Yeah, but this was different.  Couple of men tried attacking a girl and ended up getting blinded.  The rumours are saying the girl was a wizard."
Dala looked away.  "I heard about that, I think.  Why do you mention it?"
"Just concerned, that's all.  You need to watch your step, girls.  Nowhere seems safe anymore."
"Oh, you don’t need to worry about us," Minyanis said.  "Well, you can worry about me in moderation if you want, but not Dala.  She's-" She broke off hastily.  Dala turned to give her a warning glare and noticed Kristin staring at her inquisitively.
"She's what?" the Kakranfan woman asked.  "What are you, Dala?"
"She's… into self defence," Minyanis extemporised nervously.  "Really, really good at it.  The Way Of The Scorpion, the whole flying fists and feet deal, isn't that right Dala?"
"Bricks into rubble with one blow," Dala confirmed straight-faced.  She then rose.  "We'd better be going, Min.  We've got that thing, remember?"
"Have we?  Oh yes, that thing.  I'm sorry Kristin, but we've got to go and do this thing that needs doing.  If you multiply infinity by something really, really massive," she told Dala as they hurried away from the docks, "You still wouldn't be close to how sorry I am."
"It's OK, Min.  I'm sure no harm was done.  Your backing and filling technique was admirable."
"I think we can trust Kristin anyway.  Unlike certain people whose names begin with 'M', she's not exactly Miss Blabbermouth.  And she's really nice…"
"I know.  I'm sure we can.  But I've got to be so careful, you know?"  Dala sighed.  "She was right.  Nowhere's safe anymore."
 
It was a small, bricked cellar.  Far above lay the streets of East Zabrial, though there was no immediate clue of this.  Normally it stood abandoned and forgotten.  Now, though, five figures were stood on its dusty floor, clustered around a large empty table.  Long grey robes cloaked their bodies and their faces were shrouded with hoods.  For a long time they stood in silence, not apparently acknowledging each another.
Then one gave a small signal and they threw back their hoods.  Each had a vaguely humanoid face but with some porcine characteristics; broad, flared nostrils, thickset red eyes, tusks which protruded up from heavy lower jaws.  Their skins were a dull green, their heads were bald and their ears were long and tapered.  One of the creatures looked older than the others insofar as that could be discerned; the many lines creasing its face were deeper and its movements were slower.  It lay its hands on the table top and, after another gesture from the first creature, began to chant.  Its surprisingly melodic voice echoed around the cellar, an undulating cascade which sometimes incorporated strange, protracted words and sometimes was little more than a keening wail.  The other creatures waited silently.  Eventually the air above the table began to glow.  As the older creature chanted on, the light danced, split and formed itself into a pattern of lines and rectangles.  The chanting abruptly stopped but the shapes still hung there.
"What's this?" the first creature demanded.  Their language was rough and harsh, a guttural collection of growls and grunts.
"What you wanted," the older one replied.  He seemed to have been left exhausted and swayed as he stood.  "Where she is."
The other stared at the pattern.  He knew about humans, had studied them for years.  The way the lines were organised, they could almost be part of a street plan.  "This is in this city?"
"Yes.  Remember it.  I cannot-"
"I need more.  I need her home."
The older creature sighed and closed his eyes.  He began to chant again, more faintly now and under his breath.  For just a second, half of one of the blocks glowed brightly.  "Remember," the creature whispered.  And then the whole pattern vanished and the creature slumped to the ground.
 
Dala shut the door, locked it and, for good measure, shoved a chair under the handle.  Then she focused on the daunting task ahead of her.  The water was boiling over the fire, the materials were all assembled.  She rolled her sleeves up and fastened them in place with bangles.  The kettle was lifted onto the fire and emptied into the tub, and an equal amount of cold water was added.  Then she started working through the enormous pile of washing up.
The Ossasi family were technically middle class; 'comfortable,' although that wasn't always Dala's chosen phrase.  Her father was a middle manager at one of the city's vast trading concerns and brought home a reasonable wage.  Unfortunately her mother, like all respectable married women in East Zabrial, was discouraged from taking paid work.  She compensated, as far as Dala could tell, by bearing an immense number of children.  She had brought ten into the world to date, of which seven were still alive and six were still at home.  The sheer volume put a strain on everything – space, time, resources, tempers.  The Ossasis could only afford to employ two servants, Mrs Ossasi was usually unwell or in confinement and the bulk of the tasks were spread down the generations.  Dala was the second oldest.  For a long time she thought that was a uniquely unfortunate position – old enough to be put upon without garnering any special attention or privileges – until last year when her big sister got married and left home.  Now she had learned what the eldest was forced to do.
She didn't mind, however.  Not truly.  Providing her conditions were met – most revolving around the supply of that elusive resource called privacy – she could endure it.  Plate after plate was immersed in the soapy water, scrubbed clean and untidily stacked beside the sink.  If the endlessly shifting complexities of the household had created a situation whereby she, despite having a huge stack of homework waiting, was the only one who could possibly do the washing up, it could be borne.  After all, such tasks did give her time to think.  And she could once again play a game called resisting temptation.
Because there was no need for her to go through this laborious process.  She could have boiled the water in a second rather than spending the long minutes lighting the fire – but there was no need for water either.  With a little concentration, she could have cleaned the pots in an instant.  She could have dried them and stacked them away, and for an encore cleaned the house from top to bottom, placed mound upon mound of delicious food on her family's table and probably written her history essay too.  They did not have to live in this cramped, slightly decayed house either.  She could create for them a mansion, a palace, ten palaces.  In an second.
Instead she continued to scrub the plates.  Because those who dismissed Dala as a vacuous dreamer – and there were many who did – were only seeing what she cared to show them.  She didn't fully understand her powers, it is true.  She was unaware of all the many technical terms for them beyond the simplest of all: magic.  She had, however, read enough and learned enough to know that nobody can wish anything into existence without consequences.
There were many possible ones but the most pertinent for Dala was the risk of the Academy of Magic detecting her.  This great institution tries to control magic all across the continent of Teraf.  It has spies everywhere – especially in an eclectic city like East Zabrial.  It demands that all those born with magical powers – the so-called Gift of the Gods – travel to its base in northern Erenland, hundreds of miles from East Zabrial, and submit to its decade-long training programme.  What the Academy and its enforcers, the 'recruiters,' do to those who disobey them does not bear thinking about.  On sleepless nights Dala did think about , because she had no intention of complying with Academy rules.  Erenland was alleged to be the dreariest place on earth, wizards were said to emerge from their training with all traces of humanity bled out of them; and besides, she could not leave her friends, her family, her future behind.  She wasn't going to let a few powers map out her entire life.  If she could control them – and she was almost certain that she could then nobody need know any different.  She had told Minyanis about them because she told Minyanis about everything.  Her family, the rest of her neighbourhood; they had a few strange incidents over the years to puzzle over when matters slipped a little out of hand but no inkling of what Dala was.  It was working.  She was almost sure it was working.
Sometimes, though, she wondered if her powers had charted her course anyway.  They had been with her for as long as she could remember, but she first became truly aware of what they constituted when she was ten.  Ever since then she had been secretive, withdrawn, always giving the impression of holding something in reserve.  Her teachers all found her intelligent but somehow difficult to engage, never wholly there at lessons.  Half considered her a challenge, the others just concluded she was lazy.  Her headmistress, Dala knew, had noticed how swirls of trouble tended to follow her and kept a suspicious eye on her.  And Dala also aware of her habit of drifting through life as if it were of only marginal importance.  She had also heard rumours of what properly trained wizards could do; summon up demons and elementals, open portals to strange knew dimensions.  Sometimes her world would grow almost too flat or exasperating to bear and she wondered if it might be worth it.
Her reverie was interrupted by the sound of a furious argument from outside.  One, no two female voices and one male; one was her mother and another was… Dala sighed and began drying her hands.  Yes, it might just be worth it.  Anything else seemed worth the price on occasions, so long as it would get her out of East Zabrial.  She unsealed the kitchen and stormed towards the front door.
Her mother was stood on the threshold, holding her youngest child who was just starting to wail with all the noise.  Liberally exchanging insults with the lady, being barred from entry by her ample figure, was Ellik.  A youth slightly older than Dala, she had once thought his slim build, very dark features and floppy mane of black hair made him appear enticingly mysterious.  Several months later she thought he looked hateful; and now, twitching with impotent anger, he just seemed laughable.
"Dala!" he cried, spying her appearing around her mother.  His face instantly lit up hopefully.  "Dala, I've got to talk to you-"
"For Narlan's sake, Ellik," she snapped back.  To her amazement she noticed Kristin standing just behind Ellik.  The elder woman was hovering uncertainly, as if debating whether to intervene in the scene.  Dala turned her attention back to Ellik.  "Do you not get how this works?  I've finished with you.  Therefore, we don't see each other again.  What part don't you understand?"
"Dala, I wasn't sure what to do," Mrs Ossasi said anxiously.  "I know you said you didn't want to see him but he is your boyfriend-"
"Was, mum.  As in, past tense."
"Look Dala, I'm sorry, all right?  I know I made a mistake.  But I want us back together again-"
"Well, big whoop.  The point being, and I hope you're following this, that I don't.  Not now, not tomorrow, and though you might stand a chance when the sun falls into the sea, I really wouldn't-"
"You can't fucking treat me like this!" Ellik suddenly screamed, and seemed to be about to leap forward.  Abruptly, though, he stopped.  Kristin had laid one hand on his shoulder and took hold of his arm with the other.  Ellik squirmed in the grip but it appeared to be unbreakable.
"All right, sonny," Kristin said calmly as she manoeuvred the struggling boy away.  "Let's just take a few breaths and calm down, yes?"
"Get the hell off me!  I'll-"  A hard shove from Kristin sent him floundering several steps across the courtyard.  He wheeled round, face furious and ready to spring.  One look at Kristin tensed form convinced him otherwise.  "You can't treat me like this you whore!" he yelled instead at Dala.  Her only response was to roll her eyes.  "I'll tell everyone what you're like.  I'll-"  And then two steps forward from Kristin sent him skipping fearfully away.
"Oh, please," Dala said when he had gone.  "Mum, if I ever start falling for someone like that ever again, could you please lock me in the cellar?"
"Dala darling, you always fall for boys like that."
"Way to go, Kristin," Dala called out as the docker approached, looking bashful again.  "As smart a piece of bouncing as I've seen."
"Yes, thank you… Kristin was it?" Mrs Ossasi said nervously, jiggling her howling baby in her arms.  "Can you excuse me please?  I'd better put him to bed.  This has been a bit… Dala…"
"I know.  sorry.  My mum," she announced when the lady had hurried indoors.  "She's a bit highly strung.  Which is no surprise.  That's her tenth she's carrying and there's another one on the day.  We learned at school where babies come from but I'm not convinced in her case.  I think she must have a machine in the attic where she churns 'em out."
Kristin leaned against the door frame, shielding her eyes against the sun.  "I don't think she likes me."
"She doesn't actually dislike anyone.  You threw her, that's all.  She's a firm view on a woman's role in life and none of it involves turfing boys out by the scruff of their ears.  Thanks again for that, by the way."
Kristin grunted her acknowledgement.  "If you don't mind me saying… weren't you a bit hard on him?"
"Let's see now.  I was going out with Ellik for three months.  The other week I found out he was also going out with someone else, a girl I happened to think was my friend, for two of those months.  And for a couple of weeks he managed the difficult but commendable feat of cheating on both of us.  I think a touch of flinty-hearted disdain is only seemly, don't you?"
"Shit."  Kristin looked at her with concern but Dala was gazing into the distance with her slightly expression.  "Sorry.  Are you all right about it?"
"Oh, I've had the usual anguish, self-loathing, loneliness… Pretty much worked through them all though.  Well, sort of.  I guess I'll be fine in time.  You're probably right though.  I shouldn't wind him up like that.  You might not be around to rescue me next time."
"You'll probably be OK.  With all those self-defence classes and everything."
Dala snapped her attention back.  She gave Kristin a slightly suspicious glance but failed to detect anything.  "Oh yes.  Them.  Not that I'm complaining but how did you manage to show up anyway?  Do you live around here?"
"Sort of near here," the Kakranfan said vaguely.  "I just came to see Minyanis."
"Oh, right.  Cool.  I'll come across with you if that's OK.  She'll want a full account of what's just happened.  A girl who likes keeping up with neighbourhood gossip, Min."
 
"So what've we got?" Jed asked.  "A fire which showed every sign of preparing to gut Alstace Avenue like a fish suddenly went out for no good reason.  That was two years ago.  A couple of years earlier, the typhoid epidemic sweeping through the city did a mighty suspicious detour around the whole neighbourhood.  Year before that, a boy run over by a cart in Cantini Way who weren't expected to live made an amazing recovery.  After being held in the arms of a young girl who lives locally.  Same girl, far as anyone can tell, who was seen striding towards the fire just before it went out.  Same girl seen who, a good while ago, was seen near a building which miraculously didn't collapse till all the family living in it got out.  Same girl who's a friend of, whoosit, that Ellniss lass.  Minyanis something.  Who was nearly beaten up by a bunch of street kids last year, only to be rescued by a bright flash of light not unlike the one that blinded our rapists.  The rapists whose sort-of description sort of matches that girl again."
"Dala Ossasi," Syran said quietly.
"Ladies an' gentlemen, we have a winner," Jed nodded, lazily stretching his legs.  They were sat at a table outside Jed's tavern, enjoying the early evening sunshine and watching the busy flow of Lelgar Street.  "Probably," he added.
"Are any of the neighbours suspicious?"
"What of?  Unless you're looking for summit, there's now to see.  It's just a bunch of stuff that's happened over a long stretch of time.  An' our girl always happening to be nearby.  Some think it's a bit weird but, hey, that's what you get living in this city."
"She's been careful then."
"Oh aye," Jed smiled.  "An all the weird stuff's happened for the better, not the worst.  Average wizard first gets their powers, they get up to all kinds of stuff.  Good, bad or just plain silly, owt that'd let them test what they've suddenly got.  All kinds of hell goes on.  This one only ever helped people, even when she was pretty young.  That's one thing the Elmii told me to watch out for."
Syran sipped his drink, a strong peppermint flavoured liquor.  "And did anyone find it suspicious that you were interrogating them about neighbourhood history?"
"Naw.  I gave a cover story.  Said I was working for the Academy.  Investing a dangerous build-up of background magic which might be behind all these odd events they've been having."
After a while, Syran carefully said, "I see.  Tat was an interesting and possibly suicidal approach."
"Got 'em talking though.  Soon as they realised there was someone they could blame i.e. me, there was no holding 'em back.  Besides, I was pretty much a marked man whatever I said wasn't I?"  He sighed theatrically.  "Wonderful city this.  You welcome Nisans, Erish, Elves, Dwarves, Kakranfans an' pixies with open arms.  You happily rent rooms to trolls – sorry, oolags.  You don't even have that much problem with wizards.  But anyone who looks a little bit Dorlafan, boy he'd better watch his step."
Syran surveyed his companion, wondering how the pale brown skin, lank brown hair, green eyes, open and garrulously mouth and impeccably flat Triple Cities accent could possibly be construed as 'a little bit' Dorlafan.  "Oh, all right Mr Gruspoth," Jed called out cheerfully.
The figure addressed stopped by the door and gave a shy wave.  He was barely more than four feet tall and almost as broad.  His curiously gnarled face was dominated by an immense nose, which reared out many inches and then dropped down almost as far as his broad mouth.  A pointed chin, pale green skin and almost perfectly round red eyes completed the outlandish appearance.  The rest of his body may have been equally transfixing but it was wrapped in a black, baggy hooded suit.
"Good afternoon Mr Colac," the creature said.  He had an appropriately nasal accent but spoke meticulously and formally.  "I hope you are well."
"Just terrible, thanks for asking.  Mind you, you're spot on about the oolags," Jed told Syran after Mr Gruspoth had gone indoors.  "Good family that, once you get to know 'em.  They've lent me their mangle.  An' speaking of vital pieces of equipment, I don't suppose you've got the scriving mirrors working yet?"
"I have."
"Yeah?  So did you contact the Elmii?"
"Last night.  They advised you to trust your judgement."
"And?"
"That's it.  The message was completed.  That's all there was.  Trust your judgement."
Jed stared into space for a while with strange expressions flitting across his face.  Eventually he lightly remarked, "You know that us Dorlafans have a reputation for letting off long, elaborately sarcastic tirades on the slightest excuse."
"Yes."
"Yet, despite being offered the severest provocation, I'm saying nowt.  You notice that?"
"Yes."
"I just wanted it recorded.  OK, here's one part of my judgement.  There's a big Kakranfan piece hanging around our girl an' she's making me nervous."
"I've seen her too.  I don't know who she is."
"I've got my suspicions.  You still got your key to the Academy's East Zabrial base?"
Syran frowned.  "I've still got a friend there-"
"That's what I meant.  Have a talk with him.  See if they've got any Kakranfans on the retinue.  By tonight if you can."  Syran looked at him in surprise.  "I mean it.  I'm fed up with faffing around.  If the Elmii wanted a considered, thoughtful job doing, they should have hired something better than me an' my bloody judgement."
 
"Dala!  You up there, Dala?"
Dala rolled across her bed and peered out of her bedroom window.  "Oh, good," she muttered.
"Who is it?" Minyanis asked, slumped into an old chair with a folder balanced on her lap.
"Well, let's see now.  It couldn't possibly be Ellik 'turn over a new chapter and start life afresh I don't think' Acci could it?"  She moved a little way away from the windows but continued peering around the curtains.  "Time for round two it seems."
"Maybe if we ignore him he'll go away?"
They waited a few minutes.  Cries of "Dala!" continued to bellow up from the street.  "OK," their target remarked.  "Nice idea in theory, Min, but it seems-"  She abruptly flung the window open.  "Ellik!" she screamed down at the young man stood just beneath it.  "Go home!"
"Not till I've had my say, Dala," he flung furiously up.  Dala noticed other windows in the courtyard opening and censorious faces peering out into the courtyard.  "You listen to me.  We're through, you got that?"
"What does he want?" Minyanis asked nervously.
"Apparently he's packing me."
"But haven't you already..?"
"Ellik, I know we're through.  I keep trying to tell you that.  I'm the one who packed you, remember?"
"Yeah, well, there's no fucking going back now.  I've had it with you.  And tell your big dyke friend to leave me alone as well."
Dala watched him storm off.  "Well," she said neutrally, "That was bracing.  And that's the 'mindless abuse' section of the evening taken care of.  What shall we do now?"
"Call me Miss Unorginality," was Minyanis' cautious response.  "But as this is a study evening, possibly we could try a little… studying?"
Dala picked her books up and tried reapplying herself to Christotan History 1000-50.  It was hard, though.  Almost uniquely, her house was otherwise deserted.  It was the night of their monthly visit to her grandmother's house on the other side of East Zabrial, an excursion which involved the whole sprawling family being picked up and deposited in a great clump.  For once Dala had talked her way out of it, pleading upcoming exams.  The exams were real but she found concentration even more difficult than usual.  All around her, where the house usually stirred with dozens of conversations, arguments, wails, collisions and footsteps well into the night, there was only silence.  She found it a little unsettling; above all else, though, it was liberating.  The house was hers and it seemed a shame to confine herself to one small part of it like always.
"I'm going to fry something," she announced suddenly, tossing her book aside.  "Coming?"
"What are you going to-"
"Depends what I find.  come on, just ten minutes frying break.  We'll return to the books replenished and sloshing with strengthening fat.  Do you suppose he meant Kristin?" she asked as she poked around a half-lit kitchen.
"Who?"
"Ellik.  He said he was being hassled by 'a big dyke,' to use his charming phrase, and it was my fault.  I wondered if he meant Kristin."  She found two half-fishes in the larder, sniffed them suspiciously, shrugged and began heating the fat.
"I wonder say…" Minyanis shifted uneasily.  "That is, I wouldn't necessarily say that Kristin's a…"
"I know.  I'm not saying she is.  But if you've got a mentality like Ellik's, you'd assume she was."  Dala threw the fish into the pan and added lightly, "And if it is her, that's maybe a bit strange.  Has she been to see him after the day she threw him out?  If so, why?"
"It might not be-"
"You might be right.  But something strange is going on, Min.  There was your big fancy-man hanging around for a while.  And then that Dorlafan who said he was from the Academy, asking questions about me."
"He wasn't asking about you, Dala."
"Just about all the things I'd done, right?"
"But we don't-" Minyanis broke off, sharply turning her head.  "Did you just hear something?"
Dala laughed nervously.  "Stop trying to scare me, Min.  Right now it's all too easy."
"No, I'm serious.  Something… outside."  She slowly moved towards the back door, which led directly to the yard outside.  Dala lifted the frying pan off the flames and stared at the door.
"It'll be a cat.  Won't it?"
"Oh, sure.   Of course it'll be a cat.  A lovely, fluffy stray cat.  And we'll let it in and make friends with it and give it our fish, because I for one have lost my appetite."  Minyanis' voice had grown high and brittle.  She reached the door and took hold of the handle.
"Min, this kitchen's full of knives.  Do you not want-" but then Minyanis flung the door open.
The yard was intensely dark; night descends quickly in East Zabrial.  It was also, apparently, empty.  Minyanis gave a long, hysterical giggle.
"Not even a cat," she trilled, turning back.  "I guess it must have been the non-existent wind knocking over one of your non-existent flower pots."
Dala was already kicking over the embers of the fire.  "All right.  I've been creeped out enough for one evening.  How about we go over to your place to get bothered to hell by your mother, pestered by your brother and-"
"I was just thinking the same thing."  Without looking back round, Minyanis tried to swing the door shut.  Just before closing, though, it hit something.  She turned and saw that a boot had been inserted in the crack.  A second later the door was wrenched open.  Jed Colac stood in the doorway.
Both girls screamed.  Minyanis ran towards Dala as Jed advanced several steps into the kitchen.  He winced at the noise they made and began waving his hands frantically.
"Look, just bloody calm down will you?" he shouted, trying to make himself heard over the screams.  "It's all right, I'm not going to hurt you, I'm on your side.  Just listen to me."  Clinging tightly to each other, the girls fell silent and watched the intruder with petrified eyes.  "I've been sent to protect you, all right?" Jed continued urgently.  "And I'm sorry about barging in an' scaring you to death but I had to move quickly an' quietly because you're in danger.  An' I'm also sorry about the way I look.  I know I ain't exactly a reassuring figure.  Believe me, it weren't supposed to be like this.  You were supposed to be prepared from birth an' there'd always be someone watching out for you.  An' there'd be some great ceremony when you turned sixteen when you'd get given some bloody great golden key or summit, an' basically there'd be the works."  His address was directed at Dala.  While it went on, she very slowly detached herself from Minyanis and reached the stove.  "Least, that was how the all-knowing, all-powerful blokes I work for planned it," an oblivious Jed went on.  "Only a few months back they announced, whoops, we got our bloody sums wrong, the girl got herself born twenty years before she thought she would.  So I get packed onto a very quick horse and the ceremony pretty much amounts to this."  He cleared his throat.  "Dala Ossasi?  You-"
At that point Dala threw the frying pan at him.  Jed flung himself to one side and collided heavily with a work unit.  Dala was already turning and running for the other door, dragging Minyanis with her.  They scrambled through it and slammed it shut as a Jed lurched after them.  The girls scampered desperately through the darkened hallways, knocking into doors and tables.  Behind them they could hear the echo of Jed's heavy footsteps.  After what seemed like an eternity, they saw the glass pane of the front door gleaming in front of them.  And then that burst open and Syran's bulk stood in front of them.
Minyanis screamed again.  Dala was already dragging them through a doorway to their left.  It brought them into the sitting room, which was illuminated by a single hanging lantern.  Minyanis shut the door and leaned on it until Dala pushed a couch in front of it.  Shaking, they took a few steps back and waited.  The first assault scraped the couch half a foot across the floor.  Minyanis was already scanning the room but they had blockaded the only door out.
"The windows!  Quick!" she urged, but Dala, still staring at the door, shook her head.
"They don't open.  Father thought that'd be more, ha, security conscious."
The door was pushed inexorably open.  Jed spilled into the room, shouting "Wait there," over his shoulder to Syran.  The girls shrank back into one corner as he advanced on them.
"Whatever it is you don't want us to do, we'll stop doing it," Minyanis pleaded.  "And take whatever you want, only not us as hostages, because our families really aren't all that rich-"
"For the last time, I'm not here to hurt you.  Just calm down a minute an' I'll explain…" He stared at Dala, who had begun reciting a stream of strange words under her breath.  "An' you might as well stop that an' all.  It won't do any good.  If you'd just-"
Dala's voice grew to a shriek.  Chanting the last few words, she dramatically gesticulated at Jed.  There was just the tiniest glitter of light around her fingertip; and then it died away.  Dala's mouth dropped open.  She stared in disbelief at her finger, utterly at a loss as to what had happened.  Even when Minyanis began frantically tugging at her sleeve she continued gaping idiotically down.
"Dala!  Oh Gods, Dala, he's got a – You've got a neutraliser haven't you?" Minyanis accused Jed.
"Well, yeah.  But don't-"
"Dala, you know the only people who've got neutralisers.  Recruiters!  He's a recruiter for the Academy."
Dala finally looked up at Jed.  "Is that true?" she asked flatly.  "Are you with the Academy?"
"No!" Jed protested, then paused.  "Well, yes and no.  It's sort of complicated-"
"You're not taking me back there.  Do what you want with me but I'm not going-"
"I never even wanted to take you to the Academy's bloody campus.  Will you two just listen to me.  Ye gods, they say us Dorlafans are gabby but you two-"
Two noises from the doorway made them all turn.  With one solid thump Syran had been knocked on the back of the head, and with another he hit the floor unconscious.  Standing in his place was Kristin.  She held a loaded crossbow and was pointing it at Jed.
"Put your hands up," she ordered.  "Move away from them."
He obeyed very slowly and carefully, not taking his eyes off her.  The two girls fled to the sanctity of the Kakranfan woman.
"Are you OK?" she asked, then without waiting for a reply told Jed, "Picked the wrong target this time."
"Weren't me who picked it," he answered grimly.
"Oh yes?  You're just a servant of your masters I suppose."
"You and me both, I'm guessing."
"It's not good enough."
Dala and Minyanis exchanged glances.  Their relief at their rescue was quickly being replaced by a new, different kind of horror.  Kristin's attitude was strange and she seemed to be rushing towards one course…
"Er, Kristin," Minyanis ventured meekly.  "Maybe now's the time when we start throwing him out and locking doors..?"
"There'll be other agents.  But I suppose one less won't hurt," Kristin said, apparently to herself, and Jed continued staring at her.
"Actually, right now there's pretty much only me," he said.
"That'll make it easier then."
"Or were you talking about yourself?"
Again Dala and Minyanis looked at one another, mutely sharing the same though.  When Dala turned back to Kristin, she saw her finger tightening on the crossbow trigger.
"No!" she screamed, leaping at Kristin.  She collided into her the very second the crossbow fired.  The bolt whistled through the air, missed Jed by several feet and buried itself into the far wall.  Jed instantly rushed forward; Kristin cursed and pushed Dala aside.  As Jed sprung at her she swung the crossbow, catching him in the face with the weapon's heavy crosspiece.  The Dorlafan collapsed backwards, rolled twice on the ground and lay still.  Kristin glared at him briefly, then turned on Dala.
"You stupid- what are you doing?"
"Kristin, you can't just shoot someone in cold blood," Dala returned with equal heat.  "That's not done, OK?"
"You know what he'd do to you?  You can't show these people any people.  I was trying to protect you."
"I don't need anyone protecting me that way."
"Er, I'm kind of on Dala's side here," Minyanis interrupted.  "But I'm really of the school which says we get out of here now."
Kristin took another look around the room.  Both men were still apparently unconscious.  "All right," she breathed.  "But follow me and do what I say from now on.  And we might just get through this."
She led them out of the house and out of their neighbourhood.  Soon they were both badly lost.  By day they might have recognised the streets around them, but they were discouraged from visiting them by night and they could now see why.  They were heading towards the docks and the whole city seemed alive with danger.  Groups of drinkers staggered from one dingy tavern to the next, felonious looking street vendors lurked behind their braziers and prostitutes stridently touted for business on the corners.  Here and there a heavily shrouded figure would stalk, intent on some sinister purpose of his own.  Unconsciously both girls huddled closer to Kristin, who was striding boldly down the pavement and grimly ignoring the lewd remarks flung at them.
"Er, Kristin?" Minyanis asked as they entered yet another ill-lit, foreboding lane.  "Where are we going?"
"My place.  It's not much further now."
"Erm.  Wouldn't it be an idea to kind of tell the Guards?  I'm only thinking about those two men lying in Dala's house and when Dala's family might-"
"I'll deal with that later.  Your family's not at risk," she told Dala.  "Only you are.  The priority's to get you safe."
"On that note," Dala said in a shaky voice, "I know I'm Miss Jumpy Queen right now, but I can't help feeling we're being followed."
They all looked around, saw nothing but increased their pace nonetheless.  "Sort of footsteps just behind us, stopping when we do," Dala continued, perhaps unnecessarily.
"Oh, wouldn't it have been nice if just one of us thought to tie those men up?" Minyanis trilled.
"Not much further now," Kristin repeated.  She turned them right into an almost pitch-black alley. "Watch your footing here," her voice warned as they proceeded cautiously.  "I'm at the end."  After a mercifully short distance, a looming black tenement reared up in front of them.  Kristin produced a bunch of keys and fumbled one into the lock.  "I'm on the ground floor," she said as they shepherded them into a dark hallway.  "Wait here a second.  I'll just-"
She turned and took a few steps away from the door.  The girls lost sight of her.  A second later came the sound of running feet and a strange, scuffling noise.  Then silence descended again.  Too terrified to even move, to even breathe, the girls strained their eyes peering into the consuming night.  The tension became unbearable.  Then a black shape, just visible amidst the monochrome patterns, appeared in the doorway.  The door slammed shut.  From the shape came several sharp, rasping sounds and a too-brief splutter of light.
"Kristin?" Dala finally found the courage to ask, and then only in a whisper.
The light flared again.  This time the tinderbox taper caught and was pushed against a candle wick.  But the figure holding it was not Kristin; it was Jed.
"Now just listen to me this time," he shouted, while the girls froze in shock.  "An' try an' take this in.  I ain't here to hurt you or do owt to you.  I'm here to help you.  I ain't with the Academy, least not the Academy how you understand it.  And I'm not, I repeat not, a bloody recruiter.  I've just got a neutraliser 'cause of the work I do, but that's not recruiting."
"What have you done with Kristin?" Dala demanded.  A little of her terror had left her and anger was taking its place.
"Just put her out of-"  The door shuddered to a sudden buffet.  "Ah, that'll be her now.  Shame these doors can be bolted as well as locked.  An' it's funny you mentioning her straight after I mentioned recruiters 'cause that's another thing I've got to tell you.  She damn well is one.  I did checks an' everything."
"Wh-" Dala gaped at him.  "Have you lost your mind?  Kristin's our friend.  Min, she's your friend, tell him."
"She made herself your friend maybe.  That's the way they work sometimes."
"Shut up!  Min?"
"Oh Gods," Minyanis whispered in horror.  "He could actually be right.  Kristin did befriend me first.  And she did seem awfully interested in, well, you, and kept hanging around here.  And she seemed awfully keen to shoot this man in cold blood."
"Thanks for the intervention, by the way," Jed interjected and Dala whirled back on him.
"And every time you but in, I ask myself why I bothered."
"You know why," he told her calmly.  "You couldn't just stand by and watch someone get killed.  No-one normal could, specially not you.  But a recruiter could an' they'd do it themsens if someone got in their way.  Summit in their training.  Or their water, whatever.  Look, if you still don't believe me…"  He reached over his head and pulled off a pendant hanging around his neck.  It was a small metal droplet glowing a dim, slightly disturbing light.  Jed ran his hand over it, spoke a word and the glow died.  "OK, this is my neutraliser.  An' I've just deactivated it."  He tossed it to Minyanis and quickly warned Dala, "Don't you touch it.  Even when it's switched off-"
Dala continued to glare at him.  "Oh, so I'm just supposed to believe-"
"Ye Gods, what is it with you girls.  Healthy suspicions are fine but sooner or later you're gonna have to trust someone, an' that someone's me.  Otherwise this is gonna get a lot worst."
"Dala, I think he's telling the truth," Minyanis said urgently, examining the droplet.  "I know a bit about neutralisers and this looks deactivated."
Dala turned to her.  "How on earth do you know about-"
"Don't look so surprised.  I do have depths you know."  After an uneasy moment she amended, "All right, I have unhealthy obsessions.  Be that as it may, this looks right."
"All right," Dala said to Jed.  "So what?"
"Only recruiters have these gizmos, right?  As a rule.  So get your mate Kristin in here, try an' cast a spell an' see what happens.  Then ask her what she might have tucked away."
Dala continued staring at him for another second.  Then several things happened in quick succession.  The hinges of the front door finally gave way.  Kristin hauled the shattered door out of her path and took several steps into the hallway.  As Jed turned and skipped back, a shadow seemed to loom up behind the Kakranfan woman.  Then a grey, robed shape flung itself out of the darkness and landed on her, pulling her to the ground.  Another appeared in the doorway.  t pushed its hood back and a green-skinned face peered in.
Jed swore and scrambled further back, putting his body between the creature and the two girls.  Behind him, Dala stretched out her arm and screamed a few words.  Again, though, there was just a brief glitter which died inches from her fingertips.  The creature spoke some foreign, guttural words of its own over its shoulder and advanced.  Another appeared in its wake.  A crash behind them made the human trio turn.  Three more of the creatures were rushing up the hall towards them, their robes flapping as they ran.
With a muffled thump Kristin freed herself from her assailant, leaving it sprawled motionless on the ground.  She sprang to her feet and dived towards a closed inner door.  There were a few agonising seconds as she fumbled for the key, then the door swung open.
"In!  Quick!" she screamed.  Jed pushed the two girls into the dark room beyond.  As the first of the creatures sprang at him he lashed out a boot, catching it in the chest and sending it sprawling back.  Then he dived in himself, slammed the door shut and leant on it.
"Lock it," Kristin breathed, pushing the key into his hands.
"Where are we?" Dala's terrified voice whispered through the blackness.
"My flat.  I'll just…"  A match flared and Kristin lit a lantern, holding it in slightly shaking hands.  It illuminated a small, spartan room.  "I don't think that door'll hold long."  The first assault on it almost broke it completely and came close to knocking Jed over.
"Thanks for the tip, lass," he muttered.
"What- what were those things?" Dala breathed.
"Orcs," Jed and Kristin said together.  Jed continued alone.  "An' you want to know what they're after, my guess is you."
"What?  They're after me as well?"
"Popular girl ain't you?  What have you got left?" he asked Kristin.
"Sword.  I dropped my crossbow."
"I've got a dagger in me boot.  I'm guessing our mates have got swords at least."  At that moment a blade plunged through the door, the tip sticking out about an inch from Jed's head.  It stayed there for a moment before withdrawing.  "They've got swords," he confirmed.
Kristin looked around wildly.  "The window," she ordered.  She took a single step towards it before the pane shattered and a green-skinned face peeked in with a grunt.  Kristin didn't hesitate.  She picked up the heavy mattress which lay in the centre of the room and flung it over the window.
"Guess they thought of the window," Jed said.
"I don't understand," Kristin panted as she leant on the mattress.  "Orc don't… don't attack houses.  Not like this.  Not down here.  It's…"
"Can't we talked to them?"  That was Minyanis' falsetto voice.  "Isn't there-"
"Bloody hell, don't any of you understand what's going on?" Jed yelled.  "They do attack houses now an' we can't talk to them.  'Cause they want Dala.  You got that?  They want Dala an' they ain't going away till they've got her.  An' any of you ask what they want her for an' I'm gonna lose it.  Now listen to me an' you, Kakranfan, listen especially carefully.  There's at least five of them an' two of us who can fight.  They're armed to the teeth an' we're pretty much armed with our teeth.  The one person who can get us out of this is Dala.  But she can't do a thing while you've got your damn neutraliser switched on."
"No," Kristin said instantly.  "Not a chance."
"How's your mattress holding up.  My door's pretty close to being matchsticks."
The mattress was clearly being pushed from the other side of the window.  But Kristin held it in place with all her strength and still shook her head.  "No way.  Under no circumstances can we-"
"Are you not listening to me?  This ain't summit covered in your damn recruiters manual.  This ain't summit you've ever dealt with before.  An' unless that neutraliser goes off, a lot more lives'll be lost than the four in here."
Dala took a step forward.  "I…" she began uncertainly.  "I'm not sure I'd know what to do even if-"
"Don't start with me.  You know exactly what to do, how far to go an' when to stop.  It's in your bones, lass."
"Who are you anyway?" Kristin snapped at Jed.  "Why have you got the answers."
"'Cause I'm the one trained to deal with this, OK?  An' I know this ain't one case where, if you've got a choice between a dead wizard an' a rogue wizard, you can shrug an' choose the dead wizard.  This is a damn sight more serious."
Kristin stared at him a moment longer.  Then she looked at Dala.  At first she saw an ordinary teenage girl; terrified, bedraggled, barely under control.  But then she noticed something different about her, a certainty in her poise perhaps, which made her hesitate.  Then Dala turned towards her.  Again, there was simple fear n her eyes and a different message behind it.  A conviction which clearly stated: trust me.
"You even know what's happening here?" Kristin asked the girl.
"No.  But I think Jed's right.  I know what to do about it."
Kristin considered her a moment longer, then muttered, "Oh hell."  And she reached into her tunic, produced a droplet identical to the one Jed wore and deactivated it.
"Over to you then," Jed nodded at Dala.  Another blow buffeted the door and he struggled to keep his balance.
"All right."  Dala closed her eyes for a moment.  She frowned and her voice was still hesitant.  "When I say 'now,' get away from the door.  I… I hope this will…"
Minyanis took her hand momentarily and gave her a quick smile.  "It'll work.  Go get 'em, Dala."
Dala smiled back at her friend and tried to compose herself.  "Ready?" she asked Jed, who nodded rather desperately.  "All right.  Now!"
Jed dived sideways.  An instant later the door exploded inwards, knocked off its hinged and crashing to the ground.  In its wake a squat, powerfully built orc floundered a couple of steps into the room.  It glanced around, noticed Dala and took another step towards her.  Three more of the creatures were directly behind it.  Then Dala screamed another string of strange words and swung her right arm up to point at the orc.  A bolt of what looked like pure light flashed from her fingers.  It hit the creature in the chest, picking it up and flinging it through the air.  The orc bowled over its companions and did not stop until it hit the far wall of the hallway outside.  As one of the other orcs started scrambling up, another bolt of light flashed inches over its head and hit a wall, cracking the stonework.  All stared petrified at Dala.  The girl was utterly transformed.  All fear and uncertainty had left her; she was standing bolt upright, her eyes flashing and her arm pointing menacingly.  Still she chanted in an unearthly voice which rose and fell as it emitted its strange words.  When she rose her hand again the glow consumed it but was motionless, hanging ominously until its release.  That was enough for the orcs who remained in the room.  They scrambled to their feet and leapt out of the door, pausing only to pick up their comrade who still lay barely conscious in the hall.
Dala turned towards the window, the orb of light still covering her hand.  Kristin dropped to the floor and the mattress was instantly pushed down on top of her.  For just a second, a green head looked in.  Then the light roared silently from Dala and caught the intruder directly in the face.  The head vanished.  From outside came the sound of rapid, receding footsteps.  Kristin and Jed got up and peered warily out of the window and door respectively.  The orcs had fled.
All eyes turned irresistibly towards Dala.  She stood perfectly still, breathing heavily but otherwise apparently composed.  For a long time, though, she was unable to meet anyone's gaze and stared at the floor with something approaching shame on her face.  Minyanis opened her mouth to speak but nothing would come out.  She simply looked awe-struck; Kristin was still very guarded but Jed's expression was a strange mixture of reverence and caution.  Finally Dala looked up.  She turned from Jed to Kristin and said in a shaking voice,
"My name's Dala Ossasi.  I'm fifteen years old and I'm a wizard."
Jed coughed and took a step towards her.  "Believe me, lass," he said.  "You're a damn sight more than that."
 
CHAPTER TWO
 
Capu Sergesta looked like a wizard.  There was very little else which could be said about his appearance.   He had a long grey beard, skin the texture of wrinkled parchment, sunken, cunning eyes and fingers stained a multitude of unwholesome colours.  Just so there was absolutely no confusion, he had a long frayed robe, a staff and beads tied into his hair.  The effect, in other words, came off.
"Now then, Miss Ossasi," he said, staring at Dala over steepled fingers.  "Which aspects of your situation are you still unclear about?"
Dala exchanged a glance with Minyanis, who sat next to her.  "I think," Minyanis prompted, "This is one of those times when you tell the truth no matter how it makes you look."
"You sure?"
"Pretty much."
"OK."  Dala turned back to Capu.  "Maybe we should start with sort of all of it."
A faint smile scuttled across the old wizard's face.  "I quite understand.  It is a considerable amount to take in.  And I realise that Mr Colac's account may have been rather lacking in some respects.  He is an invaluable operative but his grasp of the underlying-"
"Hey, just talk about me like I ain't here," Jed called from one corner of the room.  Leant against a wall, he was sporting a vivid bruise on one cheek.  "Oh, that's right…"
They were in an elegant conference room in a gentrified area around Zabrial Town Hall, along the southern stretch of the docks.  The murals on the walls were fresh and exquisite, the furniture was comfortable and the view outside was a stunning panorama of Zabrial Bay.  The room, and an equally refined bedroom and study attached to it, had been leased by Capu Sergesta on his arrival in the city two days ago, two weeks after the fight with the orcs.  Jed had inquired why the need for secrecy which saw him stuck in a fetid bedsit did not extend to his superior.  The answer, in Jed's opinion, was rather unconvincing.
"Actually, Jed's account was pretty clear," Dala countered, and glared at the man.  "And all the better for having been delivered about fifteen times a day.  But, well, I guess those pesky underlyings are beating me as well."
"Of course."  Capu gave another brief smile across the large oak table.  "Then I will try to explain it as clearly as possible.  Please feel free to interrupt me at any point if you have any queries.
"I sit on a council of wizards called the Elmii.  We are broadly under the auspices of the Academy of Magic, although not strictly part of their hierarchy and not always covered by the jurisdiction.  The relationship is quite… complicated.  There are five of us on the council.  We also employ non-wizards for specific purposes, gentlemen like Mr Colbic and his associate Syran, whom I gather you have also 'met.'"
Minyanis nudged Dala.  "Did you hear that?" she hissed excitedly.  "He can pronounce inverted commas."
"The Elmii," Capu continued, "Have but one function.  This is to find and protect the one we call the Guardian.  Each of us on the council have spent many, many years studying this strange and mysterious topic.  We also have at our disposal a considerable volume of writings, for the Elmii as a body has existed for many centuries.  Of course, our knowledge still has many gaps and discrepancies-"
"Fifteen years, fifteen years," Jed chanted softly, but Capu ignored him.
"-But I think we can justifiably consider us very learned on the subject of the Guardian."
"OK," Dala said hesitantly.  "All clear so far.  When it comes to the Guardian, you are The Guys.  Which brings us to the real question-"
"What, of course, is the Guardian?"  Capu paused for a second.  "You are aware, I trust, that there is more to this world than is immediately perceivable.  There are unseen energies and forces which are consistently in a state of flux and interacting with one another.  Together they compose what is commonly called life energy.  This gives breath and consciousness and the very stuff of being to every living thing.  The distribution of life energy is complex and uneven.  Some people are granted a surfeit of it from birth and they are able to transform it into magical energy.  Wizards, in other words, of with I am one."  He inclined his head modestly.  "That much is, I think, relatively simple.  Yet the whole situation is more complex.  There are certain configurations, a precise ordering of the patterns of energy…" The wizard paused again, frowning in thought.  "I am afraid it is hard to precisely explain it in layman's terms.  Just as the eddies of the energies are localised around small focal points, we wizards, so the entire pattern is centred around a single point.  Without it they would be… no, not destroyed, but knocked so greatly out of alignment that the result would be chaos.  That central point is the one we call the Guardian.
"The Guardian, or Guardians I should say, are human beings.  There have, we are almost sure, been seven to date in Teraf's history.  There is only ever one at any one time.  They do not exist concurrently – that is, there may be a gap of some quite considerable time between the death of one and the birth of the next.  Only when the patterns of energy reach a particular phase is a new Guardian born.  Predicting when the next Guardian will appear, what form they will take, is the most trying of all the Elmii's duties.  Whilst the Guardians are perfectly normal humans in most respects, they have a magical aptitude quite beyond even the greatest of all ordinary wizards.  Casting spells is, however, the least of the Guardian's functions.  For they exist to maintain the world as we know it, to prevent it being tipped into cataclysmic anarchy.  And as I am sure has been made clear to you, you, Dala Ossasi, are the current Guardian."
For a long time Dala simply stared blankly at the old wizard.  Then she rubbed her eyes and held a brief whispered conference with Minyanis.  Surfacing from it, she demanded of Capu.  "All right, I've got a few questions if you don't mind.  Like, what in the name of Narlan was all that-"
"Dala," Minyanis warned.  "Break down and isolate, remember?"
"OK, OK.  All right then.  Firstly, let me tell you a bit about myself.  I'm a fifteen year old girl you wouldn't notice if you passed in the street.  My dad's a small cog in a very big machine, and the only one of my ancestors with a claim to fame earned that by collecting a record number of drunk and disorderly charges for a single year.  My school teachers pretty much despair of me and my morals have been compared, not favourably I might add, with an alley cat's."
"She's got a lot of understated qualities though," Minyanis added loyally.
"I have magical powers, I admit that.  But all that means is I've got magical powers.  My point is, you could throw a street in any street in East Zabrial with an even chance of hitting a more likely saviour of the world, or whatever I am."
"You have to understand," Capu said tolerantly.  "Such details – parentage, academic achievements and so on – are of peripheral importance to the fundamental-"
"I knew you were going to say that.  But there's still a pretty yawning credibility gap here needing to be bridged."
"I quite understand.  "I must reiterate, however, that the Elmii have spent many years in study to anticipate the likely appearance of the next Guardian.  Due to the patterns of energy, this phenomenon can be predicted.  Only to an extent, I admit.  There was an unfortunate error made regarding the dates, which meant that our first contact with you was not quite as it should have been-"
"I do like a man who understates well."
"But we were certain that the next manifestation would be in East Zabrial, the southern districts of East Zabrial to be exact, and would be in female form."
"Female form?"
"And Mr Colac's field research has allowed us to identify you with precision.  I will try to explain the key criteria.  Tell me, how long have you been aware of your magical aptitude?"
"I…" Dala frowned uncertainly.  "Well, pretty much as long as I can remember."
"There was no moment when you suddenly became of it?  When the 'magic rose,' as the process is commonly termed."
"Not that I can remember.  It's just always been there as far back as I know.  Right alongside eating, walking and the rest."
"And when you cast a spell?  Do you feel in any way weaker?  Drained somehow?  As if a little part of your body has leaked away?"
"OK, this is getting weird now.  What am I saying?  Even weirder."
"I shall take that as a 'no.'  Finally, have you ever used, or been tempted to use, your powers in a less than wholesome manner?  A small amount of petty thieving, for example?  Or a trick played on somebody?  Perhaps not now, but when you were younger?"
"Well, I don't know… I mean, there's been times when I've not been sure I've done the right thing.  Or gone too far or whatever.  But I've always tried to keep the whole magic business down to a minimum.  And when I do use them-"
"It has only been to help others or in self-defence.  I know.  And yet you claim that your morals otherwise are not wholly pure.  Why then has your magic only ever been used in an altruistic manner?"
"I don't… Er, it's just…  I'm not sure it even occurred to me, to be honest.  It's just never what I've associated my magic with.  Yeah, what's with that?" she asked Minyanis with sudden indignation.  School could have been a breeze if I just used my magic.  Those bullies who picked on me when I first started could have found out what dung tastes like themselves and saved the experiments with me.  And I went through all the trouble of breaking in to steal those test papers, and all the trouble of getting caught and kind of nearly expelled, when I could have just cheated with magic."
"But it never occurred to you," Capu repeated.  "And that is how we are sure, Miss Ossasi.  Let me tell you about my own experiences, and those of every other magician.  There is always a time at the start of our lives, the length of which varies from wizard to wizard and in my case was my first twelve years, when we can do no magic at all.  We do not even suspect the existence of our powers.  They are present within us but they are still dormant.  And then, very suddenly, they rise.  It is an extremely curious sensation and quite unforgettable.  And no wizard can cast any sort of spell whatsoever without some cost to themselves.  This cost depends on the magnitude of the spell.  Because nothing can come just come from nowhere, you understand, and the energy a wizard uses in creating an effect through magic is drawn from the energy within their own body.  Furthermore, before each wizard receives the correct Academy training, virtually all are tempted to use their powers recklessly and for personal gain or mischief."
"You included?" Dala asked brightly.  "Why, what did you get up to then?"
For the first time in the meeting Capu looked a little disconcerted.  "I… That is…"  He rallied.  "The details need not concern us.  But please remember that even I was young once.  Hard as it may be to believe."
"All right.  So what you're saying is, I'm not a wizard at all?"
"I am saying that you possess powers which contravene all natural laws.  You are a wizard quite beyond all wizardry, a being unlike any other in the world today."
Dala was so stunned by this that Minyanis had to whisper in her ear again before she recovered.  "OK, let's… shelve that or the moment," she said carefully.  "Next question, what exactly is she doing here again?"
She indicated Kristin, who was silently sat on the other side of the table.  The face of the Kakranfan woman was impassive but her eyes flickered from speaker to speaker.  She looked up neutrally upon Dala's challenge and said, "You've read my letter?"
"Yes, Miss L'rnass's letter does confirm her right to be present," Capu smiled apologetically.  "As the head of the Academy's East Zabrial base points out, they are entitled to be kept informed."
"I don't see why," Dala protested.  "You said you and your pals weren't under the Academy's jurisdiction."
"We are and we aren't.  The precise situation is quite… technical.  Suffice to say that the invitation was offered as a matter of courtesy.  The internal politics are quite complex, I'm afraid."
"Look, your politics are your affair.  But you still haven't explained why I'm in the same room as a woman who tried to trick me, kidnap me and drag me across the Erenland."
Kristin still gave no response so Capu said, "I quite understand your sentiments-"
"Do you?"
"-But I imagine the Academy wanted to keep this matter as clandestine as possible.  As Miss L'rnass has already learned a little of your status, sending her as their delegate was a way of minimising the number of people in the know.  The Academy, I'm afraid, tends to place practicality above tact.  And please try to bear in mind that Miss L'rnass was only performing what she believed to be her duty.  It was a simple misunderstanding.  The Academy… should not be considered our enemy."
"What about the orcs then?" Minyanis asked suddenly.  "Those big green slavering things that almost killed us?  Can they be considered our enemy?"
"Yes, I am-"
"And why do you keep doing that pausy thing when you're talking about you and the Academy?" Dala asked.
"Dala," Minyanis warned.  "Good question, but focus?"
"OK, OK.  What's with those orcs then?"
"I am glad you have mentioned them," Capu said, probably because they led away from the Academy.  "As I trust Mr Colac has mentioned, your unique status is not without attendant dangers.  There are certain groups, who I am afraid you may encounter again, who wish to stop you.  We knew there would be and we know a little about them.  I confess that we did not anticipate orcs, and I am not sure where they fit into the overall pattern, but rest assured that will be-"
"Stop me?" Dala interrupted tensely.  "And they do that by killing me, right?"
"I am afraid that is the simplest way.  But do not be afraid, Miss Ossasi.  From this point forward, the full experience and resources of the Elmii will be concentrated on safeguarding you-"
"You've done a bang-up job so far."
"Oi," Jed said, bridling.  "If it weren't for me the other week-"
Dala glared at him again.  "Go on.  Do remind me who saved who from the orcs?"
"What does she have to do?" Minyanis asked Capu hastily.  "Dala I mean.  To keep all these energies in line.  Are there spells and rituals she has to perform or does she have to, well, just be Dala as hard as she can?"
"The answer is somewhere in between," Capu replied cautiously.  "In the main it is sufficient, Miss Ossasi, that you exist, that you are.  Nonetheless, there are a number of rituals which must be performed at certain set times.  The Elmii has mapped out a very precise schedule… which we can go into later," he added, noticing Dala's expression.
"Oh good.  More tasks.  More homework."
"They are not onerous but I must stress their importance-"
Dala stood up abruptly.  "OK.  Whatever.  But we do that later, right?  Good.  Right now I need some air.  Min, you need some too, don't you?"
"Do I?  Oh, yes.  Gasping for it."
Dala swept out of the room, Minyanis trotting obediently in her wake.  The door slammed shut and Capu stared thoughtfully at it.
"Well," he remarked, half to himself.  "The writings do warn that the Guardians are often headstrong and their characters may cause as many problems for their protectors as those who threaten them.  Now I understand what was meant.  Although I was led to believe that Zabric women were generally quiet and docile."
Jed shrugged and approached the table.  "I like her."
"She's a stuck-up cow and you know it," Kristin said, still not looking up.  "You just fancy her."
"See what you mean about tact an' the Academy.  Pretty much peaches an' vinegar ain't they?"
"Perhaps you ought to go after her," Capu sighed.
"She'll be back.  An' while she's gone, you, me an' smiler here have got summit to talk about…"
Dala took the first door out of the building.  It led to a quiet inner courtyard surrounded by the tall grey walls of the complex, a circle of palm trees in the centre.  The eternal sun was at its midday zenith but the door had a small porch shading it.  Dala leant against a pillar and closed her eyes.  After watching her with concern for a few minutes, Minyanis ventured,
"Dala?  Are you OK?"
Dala smiled wanly at her friend.  "I'm… I've no idea what I am."  After another pause she asked, "So what's your take on all this, Min?"
"Well… there are some legends about it, aren't there?  How a humble-born child is actually the saviour of the world and they've got all these great powers.  I think there's even an East Zabrial version of it.  Didn't the hero beat off some sort of frogmen or something?  Frogs definitely came into it somewhere.  Of course, the hero had spent his childhood in a cave by the sea and he was a 'he' so it's not a hundred per cent accurate, but-"
"Min," Dala interrupted in a small, taut voice.  "I think what I was after was something which would prevent me screaming in sheer bewildered terror."
"I know and I'm trying but… Well, no, it isn't difficult actually," Minyanis said with more force.  "Because… all that Guardian stuff, it doesn't change anything as far as I'm concerned.  You're still Dala.  You're still my best friend.  That's all that matters."
"Min, I'm something even a wizard thinks is an oddity."
"Well, so what?  Why does the opinion of a man who ties beads in his hair matter?  You're still you, Dala.  You've got a strange side to you – well, you always have had, haven't you?  Admittedly it's a whole lot stranger than we thought, but that's just…"
"Human form, he said.  Like I was really something else."
"Dala, I don't think you should pay any attention to that.  It was probably just that wonderful way wizards have of expressing themselves.  I mean, I happen to know that an Academy of Magic head once compared every single person living on Teraf to parasitic mould.  How's that supposed to make us all feel?"
"I don't know, Min.  I just…" Dala trailed off.  She leant back and closed her eyes, confusion and worry etching onto her face.  As Minyanis watched her in concern, she realised that a window of the conference room was slightly ajar.  And they both heard the voices inside filtering out…
"…will you just listen for a bloody second?"  Jed's angry tones were booming.  "I ain't arguing with the first point.  Yeah, we need to get her out of the city, that's agreed.  But it don't follow from that that we're just gonna cart her straight to the Academy."
"Where else do you suggest?"  That was Kristin's voice, flat and assured.
"Er, try pretty much anywhere.  Capu, back me up on this.  We ain't spent so long beating the Academy away from the Guardian just to turn her over the second we find her."
"Look, I don't care about your problems with the Academy.  I'm just making a practical suggestion.  Keep the Guardian under your control as much as you want for all I care.  I was just saying, if others might be coming after her, the Academy campus is the safest place.  If anything happens there's protection spell after protection spell surrounding it.  Not to mention a hundred wizards to hand."
Capu's baritone began," She may have a reasonable point-" but it was roughly interrupted by Jed.
"Ah, come on.  First that's assuming the Academy council see eye-to-eye with us about the Guardian, which is a big blooming if.  An' we still don't know the scale of the opposition.  I'm reckoning there's some heavy-duty blokes out there.  You prepared for your precious campus to come under siege, Kakranfan?  For wizards to start laying down their lives for the Guardian?  'Cause that's what it might come to?"
"What's your idea then?" Kristin shot back.
"Not putting her in the fist place anyone'll look for starters.  Hiding her.  Getting her a house in some little Dorlafan village in the middle of nowhere.  Or better still, an apartment in the Cities.  Make her one more girl surrounded by thousands and no-one'll ever find her."
"Oh, that's ridiculous.  That's-"
"Not the way the Academy does it.  Aye, I know.  But it's the way the government hides its agents an' informers.  An' guess who has most success?"
"You're really suggesting leaving the Guardian unsupervised somewhere like the Cities?"
"No.  The Elmii'll keep a very close eye on her.  I'll do it myself if needs be.  But she won't be under the control of you Academy goons an' that's what really bothers you ain't it…"
"Min," Dala said in a very small voice.  "Are they saying I've got to leave East Zabrial.  Like, that is the thrust of the debate isn't it?"
Minyanis continued to stare horrified at the window.  "Er… I'm trying to find another interpretation.  I really am."
"They want me to… But I can't leave my home.  It's… it's my home isn't it?  My family are here and we've got exams coming up and my attendance rate stinks as it… Min, what am I going do?"
"You're not wanting a sensible, rational suggestion are you?  Because that's going to give me a lot of trouble."
"Whatever you've got, Min."
Minyanis made her suggestion and the two girls instantly obeyed it.  Some considerable time later, Capu recommended that Dala be brought back into the (still unresolved) debate.  Jed strode out into the courtyard.  He looked around it, searched most of the surrounding compound and finally had to announce that Dala and Minyanis were gone.
 
It was the changing of the shifts in southern East Zabrial.  The market traders were packing up their stalls and loading their carts, the shopkeepers were pulling iron shutters over their windows, the docks hauliers were limping wearily home and the salaried workers were driving their small, mundane buggies around them.  Meanwhile chairs and tables were mushrooming outside taverns, night fishermen were dragging their nets to the sea front and workers in more illicit industries were stretching and starting their trades.  Amidst the noise, bustle and confusion, few noticed two teenage girls hurrying through the streets with small packs on their backs.  Or so those girls hoped.
"Go straight across here," Dala advised as they emerged from one side-street.  They dashed across busy Cantini Way and dived into another alley.
"That's a good idea," Minyanis said, half to herself.  "Because if we'd turned down Cantini Way, we might actually find out where we are."
"I know where we are.  And I want of keep off the main roads.  Jed and the others are bound to come looking for us sooner or later.  What d'you tell your mum?"
"That I was staying at yours, of course."
"And I told mine I was staying at yours."
"Well, that should fool Jed for all of five seconds, shouldn't it?"
"The main thing was to fool our parents."  Dala took a quick, regretful glance over her shoulder.  "Though that's likely to become moot pretty soon."
"Er, Dala?  Whilst I know I was the first advocate of the 'let's run away' tactic, I did bank on us... well, stopping at some point."
"You know you don’t' have to come, Min.  It's me they want, not you."
"And you know that's very fair and I've no intention of abandoning you.  I was just pointing out a tiny flair in this plan.  You don't want them to take you from your home and family which, don't get me wrong, is very understandable.  But to escape that you're, well, running away from your home and family."
Dala stopped so suddenly that Minyanis cannoned into her.  "You're quite right, Min.  It is pretty silly.  So if you've come up with a better idea in the meantime, now's the time for it."
"And that isn't fair either," Minyanis said wretchedly.  "Isn't it obvious I don't have the slightest idea what to do here?"
"Let's keep moving then."
 
"I reckon we can assume," Jed said wearily, surveying the courtyard which stood between Dala's and Minyanis' houses, "That someone's buggering us about her.  OK.  Syran, you'd better take up your old station here, look out for them returning.  I'll do some sweeps of the neighbourhood.  Kakranfan, you take the docks."
Syran was already ambling to the trees in the middle of the courtyard when Kristin said sharply, "Just a minute.  Why am I taking the docks?"
Jed sighed.  They had quarrelled after Dala and Minyanis stepped outside, quarrelled when discovering the girls had fled, quarrelled all the way back to the Alstace Avenue neighbourhood.  He had suspected his proposal would not be passed uncontested.  "'Cause I'm trying to do this without attracting attention.  Look, Syran's been a permanent fixture here these past few weeks.  Folks are used to him.  They just reckon he's some dosser or summit.  An' they're used to seeing me nosing about the neighbourhood."
"And think you're a recruiter," Syran mentioned over his shoulder.
"Aye, but even so, they're-"
"You pretended to be a recruiter as your cover?" Kristin demanded, glaring at him.
"Aye, an' it ain't made me a popular man.  You bunch should think hard about improving you image.  Get a PR bloke to do a slogan.  Summit like, 'We only decapitate teenage boys because we care.'  Anyway, since you're posing as a docker, I figure the sight of you hanging around the docks won't stop any clocks."
"So it's nothing to do with that being the least likely place to find her?"
"Yeah, that cross my mind an all," Jed said, sighing again.  "But for compensation, if you do get her you can bundle her into a boat an' whisk her off to Erenland before the rest of us catch on.  Now, are we-"
"I don't see why your wizard friend can't just find her by magic."
"Well, nor can I.  But for the nineteenth time, there ain't a spell which can locate the Guardian.  That's why blokes like me are hired.  Best he can manage is one that'd show up any wizards in the locality.  This being East Zabrial, that'd give us a short list of ten million to work through.  Now, are we gonna stand here griping or are we gonna get to work?"
Syran caught Jed's eye and the latter lingered after Kristin stalked off, still grumbling under her breath.  "You've shown an admirable turnaround," Syran commented.  "Don't you believe she will bundle Dala on a boat to Erenland if she finds her first?"
"You can't get to Erenland by boat from here.  I reckon she'll do the next best thing."  Jed rubbed his neck.  "But needs must.  In that case, we'll just have the political fall-out to deal with.  Better than… actually, what can happen to the Guardian when you think about it?"
"In this city?"  Syran's smile was without humour.  "Here it's possible for anything to happen to anyone."
 
East Zabrial is built on a desert.  All its green areas – of which there are very few – are artificially irrigated, all drinking water is supplied by great aqueducts which march in from the Campbell Hills.  In the bands of slum housing which ring the inland outskirts, sand cakes the makeshift roads and chokes the unfortunate residents.  And East Zabrial has turned its back on the desert.  All its streets and houses are one way or another facing Zabrial Bay and the great sweep of the docks enclosed by Psiani Pier to the north and Abal Pier in the south.  The whole city is a vast funnel pouring its inhabitants towards the ocean, its founder, sustainer and raison d'être.  When flight is necessary, the first instinct is never to head inland.  It is always to head for the ocean.  However irrational the impulse is, however much practical concerns might turn the liberating ocean into a prison.
In the popular imagination, Zabrial Bay is always crystal clear, glittering in sunlight, swarming with boats of ever description.  Now it was not.  Now the moon cast a weak reflection on its charcoal waters.  The hiss of the gentle waves, usually drowned by the cacophony of the docks, sounded ominous in the muted night air.  Boats still navigated the bay but they were isolated and oddly sinister, only visible through the lonely glow of their lanterns.  Zabrial Bay was not still – Zabrial Bay never is – but it had the lull before a battle begins again.
"I think we could be worst off," Minyanis commented in one of her more desperately bright voices.  "For instance, I could have failed to overrule your plan to call at a dockside tavern."
"What's the worst they could have done to us?"
"Oh, you had to ask that.  I'm going to have enough trouble sleeping tonight as it is."
They were huddled around a tiny driftwood fire.  On either side stretched fine white sand, almost translucent where the moonlight touched it.  But the moon did not shine on the girls; above them was the great stone bulk of the Abal Pier.  That had been instinct too, an instinct even older than East Zabrial itself, to head for one of the piers and the gaps underneath the colossal circular legs.  To head for shelter.  And even though it was entirely the wrong type of shelter, with the temperature making its usual brutal nightime plunge but no rain likely to visit the city for months, others had also followed this instinct.  From the point where the pier left the quayside up to the high tide mark, the sand was full of nervous clusters of people.  Close to the girls, rather to close, was a bearded man who drank out of a tin and now lay on the sand shouting occasional obscure remarks to nobody.  Also nearby were a young man and woman who, form the way they closed around their meagre belongings, seemed to be accustomed to this accommodation.  Other silhouettes stretched away from the pier's shadows as well, more isolated but apparently carrying on as long as the beach itself.
"Why do you think they're all here?" Dala said, aprosis of nothing.
"Well Dala, not everyone's driven out of their homes by sinister magical agents," Minyanis replied.  "Some people, well, just don't have homes."
"I know that.  But everybody has a reason why they don't, don't they?"
"True.  But they don't exactly seem eager to confide."
That was also correct.  There was a certain unspoken understanding amongst the beach residents.  Even novices like the girls sensed it.  It was conveyed subtly by postures, by positioning, by the very occasional glances at other groups.  It was based around privacy.  Every group had their little patch of sand, which would not be violated and would confine their own movements.  Minyanis, more jaundiced than she let show, thought it was typical of her city and maybe people everywhere.  If possible, she thought, fences would have been built around each tiny scrap of beach.
She sighed and poked the fire, trying to coax a bit more warmth from the few pitiable planks of wood.  "I wonder what's happening at home now."
"Mum will be putting the oldest ones to bed," Dala said wistfully, staring down the beach.  "Or trying to.  Falcan will be playing hell.  Johath and Allyan will be bickering like mad."
"My mum will be cleaning out the hearth, wondering why I'm not there to help her.  Dad will be on his fifth glass of raki, probably telling anyone in earshot how he sailed from Ellniss with only three copper pieces in his pocket.  The money goes down in inverse proportion to the amount he's drunk.  If it's a really big night, he was a penniless stowaway.
"Bitan will probably be waking up screaming from a nightmare.  Zubaz will be wetting her bed.  Dad will be storming upstairs threatening to take his belt to Johath and Allyan."
"Maybe my uncle will have called round.  He's got a trick which involves taking out his glass eye and, well, revolting us with it.  It's not subtle but it is effective."
"What I'm also wondering is, what are our Elmii friends up to right now?"
Minyanis glanced up, unnerved by the sudden sharpness of her friend's tone.  "Dala, I'm sure they're searching for us in all the logical places.  Whereas here, by any stretch of the imagination, can't be called-"
Dala was still staring along the beach.  "Look over there."
Minyanis turned.  Some way in the distance, but moving steadily closer, were a little cluster of lanterns.  They stopped briefly beside one of the shadows.  It was impossible to see properly, but there seemed to be a small scuffle.  Then the lanterns carried on approaching."
"Well… look, we don't know it's them," Minyanis said in a taut voice.  "I mean, it could be absolutely nothing to do with us."
"Why are you scuffing out the fire then?"
"I – I'm being cautious.  There's nothing at all wrong with being cautious.  Caution should be our-"
"It's the Guards."  The girls jumped at the voice behind them.  They scrambled up and whirled round to see a man standing close to the expiring fire.  In the darkness, the only visible details were a tall, thin frame, long hair and the suggestion of a stoop.  "I'm sorry," the man said in a local accent.  "I didn't mean to startle you.  But whoever you thought the lights were, it's the Guards.  That's bad enough."
Minyanis glanced at Dala.  Her friend was standing very still and, to her mind, ominously alert.  "Er," she quavered, trying to keep calm.  "I believe there are boundary markers on this beach and, while I might criticise the proprietorial nature of that exercise, I'd quite like you to respect ours, thank you."
"Ah.  Yes.  Sorry."  The man took a few steps backwards.  "And if you'd like me to go, just say so.  But the Guards won't go away.  They're coming from the other way as well."  The girls looked over his shoulder and did indeed see another cluster of lights drawing close.
"What do they want?" Dala asked flatly
"They want you off the beach.  If they can, they'll arrest you.  But mainly they just want you off.  Have you anywhere else to go?"
"Why do they want us off?"
"Because you're too public here.  The Town Council thinks you give the city a bad name."
"A bad – isn't there a rebellion going on in East Zabrial right now?  Aren't there groups who've declared war on the government and go around killing people?  Doesn't that kind of give us a pretty bad name?"
"Maybe.  But you're a lot easier target than the rebel groups."  Many of the people under the pier were stirring into life.  They were abandoning their makeshift fires and shelters and shuffling towards the shore, some grumbling amongst themselves.  It struck the girls that this ritual had been repeated many times.  "Have you anywhere else to go?" the man asked again.
The girls exchanged glances.  "We'll find somewhere," Dala said defiantly.
"I'm sure you will.  An alley.  A doorway.  You're new to this, I can tell.  Do you know how cold it gets outside in the very dead of night?"
"Well, thank you for rubbing-"
"I can offer you somewhere.  There's shelter, there's food.  You can stay as long as you want."
"Why?"  When the man seemed to shrug, Minyanis asked,
"Are you a priest?"
"I'm not ordained by a church.  But I try to serve the great god Narlan as best I can."
"Why don't you make the same offer to them?" Dala asked, indicating the figures still stumbling past.
"Oh, I have.  I have.  Many times.  And I have been able to reach out to some.  But it's hard.  They're suspicious of strangers.  They think any offer of help has a catch.  You can see why.  They've had a very hard life."
"I can see why.  And I was kind of planning to adopt their whole general strategy."
"Can you give us a minute please, Mr… er…" Minyanis said brightly.
"I can give you all the time you need.  But the Guards aren't so patient."
Minyanis flashed the stranger a tight smile and dragged Dala a little distance away.  "Dala," she whispered in her friend's ear, "I know we said we'd be cautious.  Nonetheless: shelter, food, beds, warmth…"
"Yes.  And risk, uncertainty, danger."
"Which is how different to what we'd find sleeping in an alley.  He's right, Dala.  We don't have anywhere else to go.  And we're a lot less likely to be found by Jed if we go with him."
"So we know for sure he's not working for the Elmii or the Academy?"
"I don't think he is," Minyanis sighed.  "I think he's just a sad old do-gooder who no-one trusts.  And if he is a, well…"
"'Pervert' is the popular favourite."
"…Then he'll be no match for you, will he?"
Dala glanced up and down the beach, then studied the indistinct figure for a moment.  Finally she strode towards him and announced,
"All right.  We'll come with you.  But just remember, we've got protection."
"Narlan is your protection, my child.  Please follow me."
"And if you think of trying anything, we'll be right behind you."
"Of course we'll be right behind him," Minyanis hissed.  "That's what happens when you follow someone, remember?"
As the lines of torches converged on the pier, the trio hurried off the each and into the streets of East Zabrial.
 
Kristin looked up and down the dark, torch-pricked docks.  She took a breath of the briny air.  The she began.
Though the apt metaphor of searching for a grain of sand in a desert came to her, she was actually feeling quite confident about her task.  Confident, at least, that she was more likely to find the girls than the ridiculous Jed Colac and his imbecilic partner.  After all, it was her job – to find wizards.  She didn't like this particular type of mission.  She didn't really like any type, but at least there was more satisfaction in searching for an unknown suspect, taking her time, shifting through tiny revealing clues which betrayed an unlicensed magic user.  It was a mental puzzle and it meant any brutality could be postponed.  But sometimes this sort of search was necessary.  Occasionally the Academy would hand her a specific target, already identified by other field agents, and tell her: bring them in.  Quickly.  By fair means or foul.
Not foul means, Kristin hoped.  She fervently prayed that the girls wouldn't resist and make her use force.  She couldn't make anything of this Guardian business and personally could take Dala or leave her.  However, she liked Minyanis a great deal and wanted to protect her.  And then?  Kristin briefly wondered that before putting it out of her mind.  What happened afterwards was never her concern.  Even though she had become involved in the decision process, she remained loyal to her training.  The chase and the capture, that was all that mattered.
Her progress along the docks was slow.  She peered carefully into alley mouths and doorways.  She looked under crates, boxes, towering stacks of lobster crates, tangled balls of netting and the rest of the detritus of the fishing industry.  After checking nobody was watching, she sometimes leapt aboard some of the innumerate small boats moored by the quay to examine under their sheets of tarpaulin.  Kristin started at the northernmost point of the central docks and after an hour had barely travelled five hundred yards south.  At a distance East Zabrial's docks appear to be a single curved line, but are actually broken up into a string of bays and marinas where moored boats restlessly rocked.  High footbridges arced over them but Kristin walked around each one, checking everything in the same methodical matter.
The docks were quiet but she didn't quite have them to herself.  Fishermen occasionally walked past, carrying their catches inland; while others could be seen preparing their boats for dangerous moonlight trips, hauling nets abroad and erecting storm lanterns on tall poles.  A Guards patrol once trotted by and Kristin spotted the lights of another sweeping the beach of vagrants.  And then there were the taverns.  Every so often they disgorged another group of staggering men who proceeded to enact minor, ludicrous skirmishes, weave their way home singing independence songs or stand on the quayside to noisily urinate into the sea.  At least Kristin had warning when she was approaching another one.  Most East Zabrial taverns have discreet entrances.  A narrow doorway with perhaps a faded sign over it led down a short corridor and then a courtyard suddenly bursting with life.  Not so the dockside establishments.  Their facades blaze with light, lined with torches which stand over large windows with show the bustling, smoky interior in all its depraved glory.  Irregularly spaced along the whole harbour front, the glare of the taverns seem to eclipse even that of the great lighthouses.  It certainly travels further.  The East Zabrial dockside taverns are famous across all Teraf and beyond; Kristin had heard of them while growing up in the Kakranfan capital of Y'Kel F'raf.  They had even entered the terminology there, 'like drinkers in a Zabric tavern' being used to describe behaviour marginally more civilised than a full-scale riot.  The taverns are the most cosmopolitan places in the world, where travellers from many different species and many more nations can meet and drink.  They are also amongst the most dangerous.  Kristin's work occasionally took her into one but she never went willingly.  Women are very rare visitors; drink, machismo and occasional desperation meant she received far more invitations than she preferred, many not politely phrased.  On this occasion, she decided to pray the girls were wise enough to steer clear of them.  Whenever another drinker lurched out in front of her, she kept her head down and slunk past in the shadows.  During her adolescence, her masculine build had caused her considerable distress.  Many times subsequently, however, she was glad of it.
But she wasn't able to pass by completely unnoticed.  A man left one tavern on his own.  Kristin walked on, increasing her speed slightly.  And she noticed the footsteps matching hers.  She walked a little faster; so did the man.  When she casually crossed the road, her audible shadow faithfully did likewise.  Kristin sighed impatiently.  She had no time for his.  She did, however, have a crossbow in her belt, a long knife in a shoulder scabbard, a rather shorter dagger in her boot and very little compunction about using any of them.
She stopped dead and, sure enough, the footsteps abruptly ceased.  Spinning round, Kristin said flatly,
"Fuck off home, man.  Try anything, I'll do a bit more than just scream."
"I hope so."  The indistinct shadow seemed to be taller and broader than Kristin.  She still didn't feel afraid.  But she did receive a stab of amazement when he moved closer, allowing her to make out his features.  "I'd hate to see a good recruiter going to pieces on such a dark night."
"Oh sweet Narlan," Kristin said with another sigh.  "What the hell are you doing here, Monsella?"
"Lurking, of course.  What else do us recruiters do?"
 
It was, conceded a Dala on the lookout for any signs of perversity, a normal looking house.  Small, closer to the docks than she would have liked – but that was probably just a sign of poverty rather than depravity.  The kitchen they were sat in looked like a sparser, more cramped copy of her own.  Of course, they had not seen the rest of the house yet – and she of all people knew appearances were only part of the story – but she started to relax a little.
Nor did their benefactor, who only introduced himself as Calab, seem like a threat in the slightest.  He was approaching middle age and would probably approach it apologetically, wondering whether to knock.  Of the wrinkles beginning to deepen on his face, the most pronounced set it into a worried frown.  He wore simple, dark worker's clothes, moved clumsily and his stoop became definite in the light.  Even his strongest feature, his calm and assured voice, was less effective if you could see the worried eyes behind it.  There was something endearing about him as he bumbled his way around the kitchen, warming a fish stew for the girls while they sat at a rough wooden table.  They found it especially likeable as they had not eaten for what seemed like a long time.
"Calab," Minyanis pronounced.  "Can I just say again how really grateful-"
"Please.  I'd rather you didn't."  Calab turned away from the bubbling pot and gave a nervous smile.  "I'm merely doing the minimum, that's all.  The minimum.  If we can't help our fellow man, what is our purpose in life?"
Dala gave him a tight smile.  "Are we the only ones here then?"
"That's right.  Unfortunately Narlan hasn't blessed me with a wife or children yet.  Not yet."
"Well, that's a pity.  Though what I meant was, are you giving shelter to any other tired, hopeless etc, at the moment?"
"No, not tonight.  My attention is devoted to you."
"You've not had much luck gathering up the poor, weak and homeless then?"
"I try my humble best," Calab said with a sad smile.  "But I am but one man."
"Well, maybe that's your problem," Minyanis interjected, hoping to dissipate the strange tension between Dala and their rescuer.  "Trying to do everything by yourself.  You need to get other people involved.  Split them into teams, one scouring the city for the homeless, the others handling the cooking and general succour duties here."
"Min's an organiser," Dala said, smiling at her friend.
"Well, it just seems the logical thing.  Maybe we could help you-"
"Min, right now we're the helped not the helping, remember?  Know your role."
"We can do both.  In the long term, I mean.  Now we know what it's like-"
"You speak the truth," Calab said.  "I myself was once in your position.  That's how I know this is a fight worth fighting.  But for tonight, ladies, you are my guests.  Relax and recover, that's all.  Dinner will be ready soon, but if you'll excuse me one moment…"
He slid apologetically out of the kitchen.  The girls waited in silence.  Dala drummed her fingers on the table while she glanced around, Minyanis stared hungrily at the bubbling stew.
"Could you maybe not be so hard on him absolutely all the time?" Minyanis finally ventured meekly.
"I-"
"I think he's quite nice.  And when that stew is inside me, I'll think he's even nicer.  What have you got against him?"
"Oh, I…" Dala shook her head in frustration.  "Well, doesn't he make your flesh creep.  And doesn't something about him make you think we'd be better off sleeping in a ditch?"
"A big 'no' to the second question.  And I for one can put up with a modicum of flesh-creeping for one night indoors."
"I just feel he wants something from us."
"He's a lonely little man, Dala.  He's probably just glad of some company."
"Right.  And solitary men who want to improve the world are absolutely notorious for their mental stability, of course."
"I'm not saying we won't keep on our guard.  And if he starts getting all wiggy you can just do your… do your thing on him."  Minyanis gave her friend a wary glance.  "I've got sort of a really nosy question about that.  And if you want to tell me to commence the butting out then-"
"What?"
"Well, when we were, you know, on the run and destitute.  I though, wouldn't it be nice if I could just conjure up a really grand little house for us to stay in.  Then I thought, well, aren't I with someone who can?  Or can she?"
Dala looked uncomfortable.  "It's not that simple.  There'd have been no room to put it, for one."
"I know, but surely something-"
"It's really hard to explain, Min."  Dala squirmed on her seat.  "I don't want to hold back on you, but sometimes I just can't… Words.  My old enemy.  You see, it's like when Capu asked if I'd used my powers to help myself at school.  I wasn't, you'll be amazed to learn, completely honest with him.  Of course I thought of doing it sometimes.  But when it comes to personal gain… It's not even a case of resisting temptation.  It just feels so wrong that…" She broke off as Calab re-entered the room, then concluded by aiming her words at him.  "If something's wrong you don't do it.  End of story."
Calab gave her an uncertain glance but Dala was looking away, definitively ending the conversation.  He turned back to the range instead and cheerfully announced, "Should be ready now, ladies.  Let me just add the finishing touches…"  He pulled down a few phials of herbs and sprinkling them into the bubbling pot.  Dala casually tried to see what they were but she was sitting too far away; and her knowledge of herbs was anyway fairly rudimentary.  Calab ladled the stew into two very large bowls and carried them to the table.  They were followed by spoons and thick hunks of bread.  "Here we are now.  Enjoy."
Dala pushed her stew with her spoon.  It looked delicious; as she prodded a large cube of meat floated up through the almost solid liquid.  And it smelled even more appetising.  She looked at Calab and asked, "Aren't you joining us?"
Minyanis paused, catching the sharpness in her friend's tone.  He own spoon was almost at her lips but she surreptitiously replaced it as Calab replied, "Thank you, but I've already eaten."
"You must have room for some more.  After all that rushing around after us."
"Yes, get a bowl for yourself," Minyanis joined in.  "I hate stuffing my face while someone's standing there slathering."
Calab glanced nervously from one to the other.  "If it really would make you happier…"
"It would," Dala confirmed.
He turned back to the pot.  For a moment it was hid by his body, so Dala could not see what he was doing.  He returned to the table carrying a third bowl.  Dala carefully watched him take his first mouthful.  Then she began eating herself.
The tension of the moment evaporated.  The girls greedily wolfed down their meals, accepted seconds and then drank some mint tea Calab prepared.  As the meal progressed even Dala relaxed more and more.  Calab talked quite a lot and seemed to vindicate Minyanis' assessment - a sad, lonely but harmless little man.  His parents were dead, he explained, his sister had left East Zabrial and his brother had died in circumstances he only hinted at.  No romance had ever crossed his life.  Once his solace had come from the Church of Narlan, where he had been a lay preacher, but he resigned his post when his chapter became increasingly politicised.  Now his time and meagre resources were devoted to his self-appointed mission to help the destitute.  He did not regret his decision, claiming his few successes were worth all the travails, but the last year had definitely opened his eyes.  Human existence had proved to be deeper, sharper and more savage than he had imagined possible.  The girls nodded wisely at this, while both they and Calab privately thought they were still in the state of innocence Calab had once been in.
In return, Dala gave a heavily expurgated version of their troubles.  Calab was a very good listener.  He sympathised with every point and accepted that he would not be told all the details.  Dala's mood became even more tranquil as they drank they tea.  It was aided by a heavy weight of fatigue starting to press on her.  When she looked at Minyanis she saw that her friend was also yawning and her head was drooping.  Dala did not find this unusual at first.  Midnight had struck.  The meal had been filling, the kitchen was warm and soothing and the burst of adrenaline which sustained them during their flight was exacting its inevitable payment.  It was perfectly natural.  So her dulled mind kept telling her as she gradually slid towards sleep.
 
Recruiting for the Academy of Magic was largely a solitary profession.  Some recruiters worked in pairs but never in larger groups, and many operated alone.  The Academy had always encouraged this.  There was no logical reason for its preference – it could be said to be counter-productive – but it liked its wizards to be kept in isolated, competitive units and believed in imposing a single template on all its members.  Kristin preferred it that way.  Working with somebody else meant having to trust somebody else.  To trust their abilities, their motives, their very character.  It was a trick she had never managed.  It was far better to be alone, just yourself against your target.
Nonetheless, a very loose network of recruiters existed.  There was a vague chain of command and a mechanism for recruiting – in the more innocent sense of the word – fresh troops for the cause.  In the most extreme cases they might even be ordered to forget all their training and, briefly, work together.  Kristin thought she knew most of the other recruiters in East Zabrial.  She certainly knew Xathan Monsella, tending to run into him more often than was preferable.  In charitable moments she would concede that he had never actually harmed her, and in her more honest ones she would admit to truly disliking him.  One reason was that he treated the scattered, competitive band of recruiters as a vast brotherhood.  He was forever proclaiming about recruiter ethos, recruiter culture and, especially, recruiter ethics.  Rather than just being vulnerable individuals snapped up young and taught to abduct and kill for a cause they barely understood, Monsella seemed to feel they were an army united in a single purpose.  Kristin still suspected it was an act.  His entreaties for greater co-operation all seemed to involved doing him a favour.  But it was still horribly possible that he saw the life as noble, even enjoyable.
As she examined him under a street lantern, she remembered another reason.  Monsella was a small, slight man with a boyish face and a friendly smile.  Nobody would believe he even possessed a weapon, let alone the ability to wield it with the lethal accuracy Kristin had once witnessed.  Most recruiters looked like she did, large and intimidating.  Monsella's hidden threat unsettled him.  She worked in secrecy and lied to virtually everybody she met, but she somehow felt he was being too dishonest.
"How goes the life, Kristin?" he asked with his usual grin.
"Can't complain.  You?"
"Oh, muddling by, muddling by.  Hope I didn't scare you there.  Don't like to see a good recruiter get spooked."
Which was another, rather better, reason for loathing him.  All Monsella's camaraderie never hid the fact that he despised her.  It wasn't surprising; he was a thoroughbred Zabric.  Kristin wasn't sure if his disdain came for her being a woman in a man's role, a Kakranfan doing a job a good Zabric citizen could be performing or, most likely, a combination of both.
"Not so much spooked," she replied calmly.  "Just amazed you can be so noisy tracking someone.  You've found a good way to get yourself chucked into Zabrial Bay."
"I know, sorry," Monsella giggled.  "Just having a little fun with you.  So what brings you out so late?  Big job on at the docks?"
"Not in the way you mean.  I'm on the duty tonight."
Monsella grew more alert.  "Oh?  Hunting down a lead?"
"Lead that was handed to me.  Orders from on high."  She invented this particular line because she knew it would annoy Monsella, and it did the trick.
"Really?" he frowned.  "You do get your fair share of commissions, don't you?  Oh, which is only right of course.  If the Academy posts you to Zabrial, where there's already so many good recruiters, they should make some use of you."
"They don't hand me any more jobs than anyone else."
"No?  Well, OK… How's it going then?  Needing any help?"
Kristin hesitated.  There were many, many good reasons for not involving Monsella, starting with the three already listed, but also good ones for enlisting his help.  Most notably, it would help her make her mind up.  She was still unsure what to do if she found Dala ahead of Jed Colac.  Some of her instincts told her to ignore all  that ludicrous talk of Guardians, follow her training and hand the girl over to the local Academy branch.  Others whispered that she was in a situation unlike any other and she should behave accordingly.  Monsella would at least force her hand.  Another consideration was that as the night drew on, she was becoming increasingly desperate.
"Monsella," she said slowly, "You know even if you help me, you'll get none of the pay and damn near none of the credit."
"Of course."
"So why do it?"
"Why, for the good of our profession, of course," was the innocent reply.  "And the good of all-"
"OK, OK.  Let's start moving again."  As they walked along the quay, Kristin said quietly, "A couple of teenage girls.  One's Gifted, damn powerful too by all accounts.  The other's normal but helps her hide her powers."
Monsella nodded intelligently.  He was good at his job; Kristin had to remind herself of that.  A recruiter for ten years – the boyish figure was actually over thirty – he was efficient, tidy and quiet in his methods.  All his exaggerated talk of professionalism did mean he favoured finesse over the brute force of many recruiters.  She could trust him not to harm Dala and Minyanis, if no more.  "Any idea where they live?" he asked.
"I know.  Trouble is, they're not living there anymore.  I think they might have gotten wind I was after that.  Or maybe one of them had troubles at home.  Whatever, they've taken to their heels and vanished."
"Right.  Right.  Maybe just a little bit clumsy there, Kristin?"
"Some could call it clumsiness," she replied flatly.  "Some might just call it bad luck.  If the price of your help is another lecture on professional conduct, you can shove-"
"Not at all," he smiled with delight.  "You know me, I'm not one to kick a good woman when she's down.  But you do have a problem on your hands, don't you?  Any known retreats, favourite places, friendly houses-"
"I've checked all the ones I know.  No sign.  That's why I'm scouring the docks like a lonely pressganger."  She sighed, staring out at the restless sea.  "You're right, Monsella, it's a bitch.  They could be anywhere.  They could be stowed on a ship bound for Ellniss right now."
"Well, that'd take them out of our jurisdiction at least."  The Academy only controls magic in Teraf.  Sorcery on the continent of Ellniss has always been unregulated, possibly one reason why large swathes of it are inhabitable.  "But maybe more likely that they've gone to ground here?  Two little targets in a vast city…  There's a lot of holes where they might be hiding, aren't there?  And a lot of holes which two lost teenage girls might drop into, whether they like it or not."
"One of them is Gifted."
"The trouble is, Kristin, for some people in this city that's only a minor inconvenience."
 
Minyanis woke up very gradually.  Even when consciousness crept back, her mind was heavy and clogged with fluff.  She first registered a stiffness in her limbs, suggestions of an inability to move.  This she disregarded and dropped back into a doze.  Then came vague memories of the last night, the last of which was falling asleep at the kitchen table.  But that seemed unlikely as well.  There must have been something else, mustn't there, some time when she was shown to a bedroom or something?  She opened her eyes but could only see vague shapes in a thick darkness.  The aching from her joints was growing more intense.  She tried shifting her position.  Again, nothing happened.  This time it registered properly.  She really couldn't move.  A sudden panic coursed through her, a fear of paralysis, until she attempted it once more and noticed a chafing from her wrists.  She was tied up.  Her terror returned intensified.
"What's happening?" she squealed, and felt absurd relief upon hearing that her vocal chords still worked.
"Min?  You awake?" It was Dala's voice, a foot to her left.  Minyanis twisted her head but was unable to see her friend.
"I – I think so.  I'm trying very hard to pretend this is a dream but-"
"OK, I'll save you some time.  This is what I've worked out so far."  Again Minyanis' fear dipped and peaked; abating when she first heard Dala's voice, mounting once more when she caught its taut, near-hysterical quality.  "We've been tied up," Dala continued.  "To a wall, I think.  Whoever tied the ropes knew his stuff because I can't get mine to budge.  I'm guessing we're in a cellar or something.  And I'm also guessing that nice Calab drugged our food."
"W- we – oh sweet Kelmar and Dyastan, oh please protect-" Minyanis desperately swallowed down the wave of hysteria as it broke.  "All right," she managed.  "Are there any bright points?"
"Well, I've still got my clothes on.  If you do too, I guess I was at least wrong about him being a pervert."
"I'm so sorry, Dala.  I really thought he was just a harmless little man."
"That's OK."
"But this is all my fault, I should have listened-"
"Min.  If it makes you feel better, when we get out of here I'll bitch-slap you all around the city.  For now, let's concentrate."
A different kind of apprehension tinged Minyanis' first suggestion.  "Dala," she began hesitantly.  "You know I'd never normally… not if there was any… er, but couldn't you use your, you know, powers to… If it'd feel too much like, er, wrong, just free me and I'll free you, you know, by the normal means viz chewing through the ropes."
"I can't," Dala said flatly.
"No, course not, I understand," Minyanis gabbled.  "If it wasn't for the whole 'wetting myself in terror' factor I'd have never-"
"I didn't mean that I wouldn't.  I've used my powers for self-defence before.  But I've been trying and trying since I woke up and nothing's happening."
"Oh sweet… Do you think there's there a neutraliser in the room?  Is Calab a recruiter?"
"He could be.  Though right now it's at the bottom of my list of most petrifying options."
"W-what are we going do?  Oh sweet gods, Dala, what are we going to do?  I just want to scream."
"That would be one thing to do."
And so Minyanis did it.  Half a minute into the scream, although unheeded by her, came the sound of footsteps descending.  She then caught the sight of a metal lantern.  Illuminated by its swinging glow was Calab's thin form.  He walked straight up to Minyanis, smiled and put a finger to his lips.  Sudden terror strangled her wail.  Her round eyes followed him as we walked around the room, lighting standing lanterns.  Finally they could see the room properly.  It was a cellar, as Dala predicted, small, dry and dusty.  The girls were lashed to risking iron bars set into one thick stone wall.  Minyanis glanced at the bars and guessed they almost certainly weren't rusting enough.
"Ladies," Calab said with a slight nod, looking at them.  "Both awake now, I see.  I hope-"
Can we maybe cut all that now?" Dala snapped.  "Just get to the chase, you little prick.  Who are you working for?"
"And what are you going to do with us?" Minyanis asked, much less forcefully.
Calab's smile broadened.  He looked different, and Minyanis didn't think it was only her fear telling her that.  He was still fidgety and somehow inconsequential but was now far more assured, as if possessing some inner strength.  And he was far less apologetic, of course, and far more sinister.  "Oh, I'm self-employed," he replied.  "I've got a great many customers, though.  And please believe me, I won't do anything to you.  Unless you try to escape before my negotiations are complete.  But some of those customers… I'm afraid I can't make that guarantee for them."
Minyanis noticed Dala glancing upwards and followed her gaze.  Hanging down from the ceiling, almost as an incidental detail, was a heavy golden droplet.  It had to be a neutraliser.  Willing her voice to remain calm she said, "OK but, the only thing is, there may have been a teeniest bit of a mistake here.  It's OK, I've heard about this happening before.  No blame on either side.  Only, when the Academy of Magic comes to collect us and, of course, pay you, they might just notice we've got the magical ability of your average slug.  In fact, probably of a pretty inadequate slug."
"Well, I know that," Calab frowned, then noticed her gazing at the neutraliser and gave a thin laugh.  "Oh, I see.  Recognise it, did you?  No, that's not there for you.  But I cast out a broad dragnet and who knows what'll be caught in it?  The Academy have shown interest in my catches before now.  But no, I know they won't want you.  You see, ladies," he continued in the same friendly tone, sitting on a crate, "There's wondrous trade for all commodities in our great city.  Should that include humans?  No.  Does it?  Yes.  Some ships from far-off lands dock here looking for nothing else.  They want fit young men for their galleys and fit young women for… other purposes.  Oh yes.  So don't despair, ladies.  A few more days down here at the most and then you could be seeing wondrous new parts of the world."  He paused and frowned at them.  "What?  No pleas for me to let you go?"
"Would they do any good?" Minyanis asked.
"What do you think?"
"I think you like hearing them anyway.  I think they're part of the price you get for capturing us.  A little bonus on top of what the slave traders give you.  You get to feel all powerful while your captives cower in the basement.  But the truth is, you're not powerful, you're just-" She stopped as Calab suddenly moved very close to her again.  Fear once again displaced rage in her turbulent emotions.
"And I think you'd better learn some more practicalities," he said softly.  "This is a seller's market.  Sometimes I get to pick and choose my clients.  Some work for Ellniss nobles who want kitchen drudges.  That's not a bad life.  Not exciting, but not bad.  But some are ship captains wanting wenches for the long sea voyages.  Something to keep their crewmen… occupied during the long nights.  Oh, you don't want to hear what sort of life those girls lead.  So be careful about taunting me.  Help me make the right choice."
With that he left the cellar, leaving the girls alone in the darkness.
 
Kristin and Monsella searched all night.  Kristin continued her slow, methodical sweep of the docks while Monsella dived in and out of the myriad of sidestreets, doorways, winding alleys and grim ginnels which led off.  It was, on her request, a 'silent search'; surveillance only with nobody asked, nobody involved and everybody avoided.  It was also lonely, freezing cold, maddening and occasionally dangerous work.  And when the two recruiters met again at the pier called the Finger of Light, its immense lighthouse flashing its last warnings of night time perils and the orange rays of the sunrise spreading inland from the ocean, they both had to report failure.
"You don't give up, I trust," Monsella said, not too tired to stop being facetious.
"You do.  I do for tonight.  Thanks for your help.  I've got to report this in.  Then a few hours sleep and start again."
"Ah, the never-ending drama of our mission."
Kristin, by contrast, usually lacked the energy to work out which of Monsella's remarks were sarcasm and which were in earnest.  Recruiter work was not a 'never-ending drama'.  It was mostly an anti-social slog through districts which frightened even the locals, in search of a target far too young to behave sensibly but just old enough to be cunning.  Everything which could go wrong usually did go wrong, and when it did phlegmatism was in short supply and blame was in abundance.
"You can stop the bloody cracks about 'Jed Colac and his long leash' right now," Jed was shouting.  "I did my part of the job with, in case you forget, some top-notch help from the Elmii.  I prepared the Guardian for your great coming, Capu.  Weren't my fault that that were a case of the Seven Elves of the blooming Sheman."
Kristin needed rest, she needed food.  She also had a feeling that she genuinely needed to report developments back to the local Academy base.  Instead she had limped back to the rendezvous point at the temporary Elmii headquarters to find Jed and Syran had been no more successful.  Fatigue and suppressed nerves made the crucial job of pooling information deteriorate quickly.
"So she wasn't under your supervision anymore?" she snapped.
Jed rounded on her.  "You know why I reckon she took to her heels?  Weren't nowt to do with Capu here telling her this Guardian stuff.  You reckon it might've been because she overheard you proposing to whisk her off to the Academy?  Like, the one thing she's terrified of above all others."
"She's going now," Kristin promised grimly.  "In chains, if necessary.  We've seen how much we can trust her."
"That's still a matter under negotiation," Capu smoothly interjected.  "And for now, our only priority is to find her.  Did none of you managed to detect any trace?"  They all shook their heads, calming down slightly.
"If she's still in the neighbourhood, she's found a damn good hide-out," Jed said.  "Suppose there's still a few places we can check.  You got much underground in this city?"
"You mean the rebel groups?" Kristin frowned.
"Actually underground.  Under the streets, like."
Kristin shook her head.  "Just sewerage tunnels.  Most water comes in by the aqueducts.  I guess I didn't look absolutely everywhere at the docks.  And she might be stowed away on a ship, though that doesn't feel quite right.  Not if she's determined to stay in the city."
"Just keep looking then," Jed said, rising with a yawn.
"In a few hours.  Get some sleep first.  We won't see anything if we can't keep our eyes open."
"That is excellent advice," Capu nodded.  "Miss L'rnass, do feel free to use the facilities here."
"Oh, right," Jed chipped in.  "Do I get the piped heating an' feather mattress too?  Or is it back to the dosshouse for yeoman Colac?"
While Capu was making a disconcerted invitation, Kristin was preparing to leave.  "I'm fine where I am, thanks," she said, smirking at Jed.  "And don't worry.  Sooner or later she'll turn up.  They always do."
 
That meeting terminated at six o'clock in the morning.  Minyanis had woken up at half past five.  Calab returned to the cellar to feed the girls at noon.  They did not see him again until seven in the evening.
Minyanis was unaware of the precise hours.  All sense of time became lost in the cellar; no hint of the outside world stole in.  They could have been down there for merely an hour for all Minyanis could guess and they could have been there for weeks.  It certainly felt more like the latter.
It was not physically agonising.  She occasionally told herself that.  The cellar was a moderate temperature, not too cold or hot.  Calab, as she now discovered, was an expert at abducting people and could tie them up without discomfort as well as any hope of escape.  Though the girls were forced to stay standing against the wall, they could lean on it, their arms were by their side and any cramp was only slight.  Minyanis could even reach into her pockets, but sadly found that Calab had already removed any remotely sharp objects.  She could probably even have slept if her fear ever abated one iota.
The girls quickly made an agreement.  They would not mention Dala's powers and they would not panic.  By keeping to that pact they had a slender chance of escape.  If Calab found out about Dala the neutraliser would be wrapped around her neck, probably forever.  As it stood, he would have to take them out of the cellar some time, he might forget it and then they had a chance… It was only a slim hope but Minyanis desperately clung to it.  It was the one thought which could stop the waves inside her mounting to unbearable levels.  But the hope had to remain unspoken.  Neither of them knew when Calab might be lurking in the darkness and listening.  So their long ordeal was a silent one, with a few occasional words of comfort being all they dared to share.
Minyanis thought the moment had come when Calab fed them.  However, he didn't even untie them.  Instead he simply spoon-fed them another bowl of stew.  She considered refusing to eat it and she certainly wondered whether to spit the first mouthful back into his face.  But what if he was drugging them again?  How could it possibly make them more helpless?  And what would be the point of angering him?  It was far better to keep her strength up and maybe put Calab off his guard.  She was also terribly hungry.  After finishing the bowl she watched Dala eat hers just as obediently.  Minyanis also resisted the urge to ask Calab why he was doing this to them. She knew why, and probably knew why whoever was buying them would do it.  Money.  It was an ancient fact of life.  Slavery had been abolished in almost all Terafan nations and most of the Ellniss ones, yet the trade in captive humans remained immensely profitable.  There were always enough rogue states, pirate ships, isolated castles and backward plantations to form a demand.  There would always be men willing to meet that demand.  And the trade had long been a subterranean aspect of East Zabric life; older than the rebel uprisings or the Confederacy of Christoté, almost as old as the city itself.  It was part of the environment, part of the folklore.  As a child, how many times had heard, or called herself, "The bagmen are gonna get you"?
Naturally, none of these thoughts comforted her in the slightest.
She tried to find anything which would.  Old songs, memories, stories, anything.  The sight of Zabrial Bay at sunset, the smile her mother always found when she came home no matter how tired she was, the first time Dala had rescued her from schoolyard bullies and started their close friendship.  Soon, though, that path grew too painful.  All Minyanis could think was that such happiness was at an end; her life would never contain moments like them again.  So she fixed on her plan, her grand plain which would rescue them.  That was a barren place as well.  She couldn't believe that she could rescue them at all.  She was no rescuer, no hero and anything she attempted would go wrong.  All she could do was pray that Dala was silently plotting a far better recourse.  And finally, Minyanis could only imagine what she would do to Calab once Dala rescued them.  Ordinarily she would be horrified by such fantasies.  It was hardly ordinary circumstances, though, and she indulged herself to the full.
At seven o'clock Calab returned.  This time he brought another man with him.  The newcomer was tall, broad and pale skinned, wearing a sparse blond beard and scruffy sailor's clothes.  When he leant closer the girls could see his rank breath and see lice swarming through his fine hair.  He gave them a cursory but demeaning examination, peering into their faces and occasionally prodding them as if they were livestock.  Which from his perspective, Minyanis supposed, they were.
"All right," he finally said to Calab in a high, lilted voice.  "They'll do, I guess.  Usual price?  OK.  Throw in that neutraliser and you've got a deal."
Calab was watching the inspection a little way off.  "You won't need a neutraliser," he said calmly.
"You can't be too careful in this fucking city.  Fellow I know took a chance last month, got it right in the fucking neck.  Lost his ship and everything.  It got turned into fucking water, can you believe that?  One minute solid, the next it was just part of the fucking sea."
"The neutraliser's ten gold extra."
"Throw it in, Calab.  There's plenty of other dealers I can go to.  This isn't a sellers market anymore.  Not in the middle of a fucking rebellion."
Calab paused and then shrugged, accepting the defeat with apparent good grace.  He approached Minyanis and began untying her ropes.  Meanwhile the pale man had produced a knife and held it at her throat.  He didn't make any threats; she understood immediately.  He seemed nervous but she knew that would make him more, not less, willing to use the knife.  As soon as Calab had freed her from the wall, he bound her hands behind her back and her feet together so she could only take tiny steps.  Dala was freed and then retrussed in the same manner.  They stood still, mutely waiting for the next stage of the nightmare.
"Let's get them upstairs then," the pale man said.  He pocketed the neutraliser and pushed the girls up the cellar steps.  They struggled up them, climbing slowly and awkwardly.  In the kitchen, a large bag of gold exchanged hands.  Calab turned and sardonically saluted his captives.
"Goodbye then, ladies," he smiled.  "I hope to meet many more like you in the future."
The buyer was already anxiously pushing them towards the door.  Parked directly outside was a large covered wagon with another man waiting on the driver's board.  The girls were pushed towards the back and ordered to climb in.  Their purchaser seemed especially nervous, glancing quickly between them and up and down the dark street.  When they got into the wagon, he drew his knife again and got in behind them.  The wagon lurched off.
There was nowhere to sit except the rough wooden floor itself.  Dala and Minyanis crouched together and the man squatted facing them.  In the darkness they could only see his frame and the pale glow of his face.  The wagon rolled back and forth in silence for a few minutes.  Then the man stooped to warn,
"Don't make a sound now.  No screaming or anything.  Or else…"
Minyanis swallowed.  And then she summoned every last vestige of her will to keep her tone light when she said, "Oh, we won't scream.  Not us.  Right, Dala?"
"Not us."  Dala's voice was also unperturbed, remaining its usual neutral blank.
"It's not our style.  Besides, there's no point."
"Right," the man agreed.  "It'll do you no good."
"Oh, that's not what I meant.  I meant we'll be rescued pretty soon."
"I wouldn't be thinking like that," the man said warily.  "It'd be best if you-"
"You are just a normal slave trader aren't you?  Oh good.  You think he'll get as far as the docks, Dala?"
"If that."
"I tell you what," Minyanis continued brightly.  "Why don't you just stop the wagon now?  That would be the best thing.  I know, you could say it was all just a misunderstanding.  You could get away with, oh, just your pinkies cut off.  Still, I do admire your nerve.  You don't often see that sort-"
"What the hell are you talking about?" the man snapped.
"You do know who we are, don't you?  Calab did warn you?  Oh, that little scamp."
"Warn me what?"
"You see, I'm Minyanis Calatti and she's Dala Bacco.  As in, the daughters of Dalan Calatti and Zacci Bacco.  You know, the leaders of the Zabrial Freedom Force?"
A long silence filled the wagon.  Eventually Minyanis decided to break it with,
"And of course, I'd say their ideals are sound and they do a lot of good work around the community.  But some slanderous people insist on calling them the most militant and bloodthirsty of all East Zabrial's rebel groups."
"That's bollocks," the man said but his voice was sharper than ever.  "Calab never said anything about that."
"Didn't he?  Oh well, you can maybe understand that."
"Man wanted to make a sale," Dala agreed.
"And would you have bought us if you'd known?"
In a voice now laced with panic, the man insisted, "I think you're full of shit.  He said you were runaways."
"Oh, we were," Minyanis gushed.  "We were running away.  We just couldn't stand it anymore.  Freedom for Zabrial and all that, but the methods our fathers use… All that violence…"
"Attacks," Dala confirmed.  "Murders.  Vendettas.  Retribution."
"We just couldn't deal with it.  And that was just in their work.  They're just so over-protective of us.  Watching us all the time.  Threatening any boy who even talks to us, never mind laying a finger on us.  We felt like we couldn't breath.  And even after running away we never felt we really escaped, did we Dala?  There was always the sense that our fathers were somehow watching us.  But you know, if you don't believe us that's fine.  If you're a man to take a chance, kudos to you."  After another pause, Minyanis added, "Though what happened to that last man who took a chance with our fathers?  That poor praetor who stood up to him?  Didn't they cut his head clean off?"
"I thought they cut his belly open."
"No, that was the leader of that other rebel group muscling in on their territory.  Of course, they all had their bellies cut open."
"And whatever came out got fed to the gulls."
"I agreed with that part at least, didn't you?  I hat to think of the gulls going hungry."
The man suddenly banged twice on the wagon wall.  As it came to a halt, he jumped out and the girls heard him shouting to the driver.  He climbed back in and the wagon laboriously turned round.  It began travelling the way they had come quite quickly.  The girls decided to remain silent during the journey.
When they reached Calab's house they were bundled out and pushed towards the door.  The man violently banged on it and eventually produced a surprised and rather drunken looking Calab.  A short but ferocious argument ensued.  The pale man mentioned duplicity and good faith quite a lot of times; Calab, not surprisingly, denied all knowledge of his captives' origins.  But eventually he relented, probably because neighbours were beginning to stare curiously at the entertainment.  He disappeared and returned with the bag of money.  The other man snatched it from him and leapt aboard his wagon.  The vehicle proceeded to make a hasty exit.  Almost as swiftly, Calab pushed the girls inside and slammed the door.
"Well.  We meet again, ladies."  His face was taut with anger and he was flexing and unflexing his fingers.  Minyanis watched him anxiously.  Frightening as was been before, he had never seemed likely to lose control.  Now she wasn't sure.  "I don't know what you told our timid friend but you don't fool me.  I will find another buyer, believe me.  And next time, you go gagged."
"Er, just hang on a sec," Dala said.  She raised her head and appeared to be listening.  "Right, blondie seems to have gone.  And oh look he forgot to return your neutraliser.  I hope you keep a spare."  She closed her eyes and mumbled some words under her breath.  A few seconds later, the ropes around her wrists began to writhe.  They worked loose and dropped to the floor.  "Oh dear," she smiled, massaging her wrists.  "That'll be a 'no' then."
Calab stared at her in bewilderment.  As he froze, Dala began speaking more words.  The strange speech built to a brief, shrieked crescendo and she pointed at her abductor.  The ropes which had bound her sprung into the air and leapt towards him.  Before he could react they had wrapped tightly around his ankles and wrists, fixing his arms behind his back.  He gave a bestial cry and began straining at his bonds.  It was to no avail.  Dala pointed at him again.  Calab was suddenly lifted off the ground and thrown back several feet, landing heavily on his back.  When he had recovered his wind he continued thrashing back and forth, to no more effect.
"The thing is," Dala said as she looked down vaguely at him, "Min just told a couple of really huge lies.  Sorry about that.  She's a lovely girl but sometimes she's not exactly bound by the truth.  She told blondie that we're the daughters of rebel leaders.  And she told you that I wasn't a wizard."
Just for a moment, Calab froze and stared at her.  In the lull, Minyanis ventured,
"Sorry to interrupt, Dala, but you mentioning me and the word 'bound' in the same sentence maybe should be a prompt…"
Dala glanced blankly at her.  Then, after an apologetic smile, she repeated her earlier words.  The ropes holding Minyanis fell away.
"You'll never get away with this!" Calab suddenly shrieked.  His face was twisted with race and he was almost unrecognisable from the shy man they had first met.  "I'll fucking ruin you, you bitch.  You fucking wizards, you should be strung up."
"Oh dear," Dala murmured.  "I was kind of hoping for a bit more originality from the arch-villain.  You get what you pay for, I guess.  Still, what was that you once said about gagging people?"  She produced a handkerchief, bent over Calab and tied it tightly around his mouth.  "I guess you're not much of a villain anyway, are you Calab?" she said as she did.  "Maybe Min's first guess was right.  'A sad lonely man.'  Oh, and not forgetting the whole 'sicko preying on lost, vulnerable runaways' part, of course.  What was it, Calab?  Mother issues?  Too much love or not enough?"  She straightened up and gazed down impassively.  "No, you're right.  No-one wants to hear it."
"Dala," Minyanis hissed in her friend's ear as she pulled her away.  "Look… At-a-girl and all that, but what do we do with him now?"
Dala looked blank.  "To be honest, my plan ended with me standing over him gloating.  Any suggestions?"
"Er… just a lot of notions which begin with "We can't…"  I mean, turning over to the Guards seems favourite but he's bound to tell them about you."
"Does that matter?"
"It might.  We don't know yet."
They looked back at Calab.  "Let's just leave him while we decide," Dala suggested.  "He's not going anywhere."
They hurried out of the kitchen and down the dark streets, navigating at random.  Both just wanted to escape from the house.  "…the funny thing is, I'm a real dork at ropes when I have to use my hands," Dala was babbling.  "It's only when I use magic that I'm Miss Akassu, Lady Of The Lasso.  How are you feeling now?"
"You know how sailors talk about finding their land legs?  I think I still need to find my not-terrified legs-"
She stopped as they turned a corner and almost ran straight into Kristin.
For a second all three froze.  Kristin's mouth dropped open and a series of expressions flitted across her face, starting with shock, passing through relief and finally settling on fury.  She took a step towards the girls.  Minyanis began shrinking away but Dala linked a reassuring, and restraining, arm in hers.
"Where the hell-" Kristin began before Dala brightly interrupted her.
"Kristin, just the woman!  We've left a man tied up a few streets away.  We don't want to, you know, untie him because he abducted us and tried selling us into slavery and has done the same for a lot of people in the past.  But we don't want to turn him into the Guards because he knows about my powers, which got revealed in the whole tying-him-up business.  So can the Academy do anything with him?"
Kristin continued staring at her, lips moving a little as she silently rehearsed remarks.  Finally she settled on, "You're saying that's where you vanished to?  You were abducted?"
"Well, sort of.  We ran away, we were kidnapped, we ran away again.  End of story, for now.  So have you got a solution we can live with?"
Kristin snorted.  "And how much can your delicate little consciousness live with?"
"Well, let's put it this way.  If we wanted him carried out to the bay and dropped in, we could have done that ourselves.  But if you arrange something cleverer, he's what we'll do.  The whole being-abducted episode has knocked some sense into me and Min – not before time, you and a thousand others might say.  So we're willing to go back to the Elmii's quarters at, oh, noon tomorrow and meet with you and Jed and Capu and the whole gang again.  And we'll start up where we left off.  How about that?"
"If you think I'm letting you out of my sight for one second-"
"It's your choice, Kristin.  Either we walk off and walk back tomorrow, or we run away again."
Kristin looked at them for a long time.  Then she sighed, and her anger seemed to be expelled with her breath.  "If I had my way you'd be put on a damn leash," she muttered, but then said, "All right.  The Academy can do something, I suppose.  Show me where this man's tied up.  And on the way, tell me exactly what happened…"
 
Noon the following day and the same cast of characters had assembled in the same elegant conference room close by Zabrial Town Hall.  The mood was different, however.  Where before it had – for Minyanis at least – been characterised by sheer bafflement, now it was permeated with unease.
She was still shaken by her recent adventure, of course.  Somehow being chased through the streets by a band of armed Orcs was less traumatising than the impotent captivity Calab had subjected them to.  And for all that she hated him, she was worried what Kristin had done to him.  They had guided the recruiter to the house-cum-prison and simply left Calab in her care.  Upon being interrogated in the morning, Kristin simply said that the Academy had plenty of nice dark jails to look him in.  Minyanis still trusted her, despite everything, but did wish Dala hadn't raised the possibility of dropping Calab into Zabrial Bay.  The episode had other repercussions.  Minyanis' family wasn't the most observant ever but had noticed her absence for one night, an entire day and most of the subsequent night.  An excuse concerning a school trip to Sechetti Island, ("I told you ten thousand times") probably only bought her a little time.  Equally troublesome was her absence from school yesterday and, for that matter, today as well, this time hopefully covered by a sick mother to tend for.  Minyanis wondered if Dala had endured similar complications, although she doubted it.  Dala's large family gave her any number of useful alibis.  Besides Dala could… well, Dala somehow just knew how to overcome problems.
Minyanis looked at her friend.  Dala was in the same mood as the previous night.  Though slightly unfocussed and distanced from the world, she looked utterly determined and supremely confident about her next move.  Minyanis had seen her in that sort of mood before.  Normally an amiable and apparently confused girl, when Dala made her mind up it was hard to stop her.  It always threw people – teachers especially – and even Minyanis was a little worried where it would lead her right now.
"Well, thanks for all coming back," Dala began.  "Capu, I'm sure there's loads of stuff you still need to tell me but I've got something to say first."
Minyanis glanced around the room again.  Kristin and Jed both looked very tired; rather guiltily, Minyanis realised they had been searching for the runaways almost non-stop.  Capu was leant forward, apparently his usual serene self but with an aura of tension underneath.  All were watching Dala perplexed; all waiting for the apology, Minyanis sensed, and all wondering how she now came to e chairing the meeting.  For the first time they were realising that the Guardian might be harder to control than anticipated.  This time the thought made Minyanis smile.
"You've all heard about our little lost weekend," Dala continued.  "The thing is, our stay in Calab's holiday camp gave me time to think.  And I spotted a trend kind of emerging over the last few days.  Everyone wants to get me out of East Zabrial.  The lovely Calab tried selling me to a slave trader.  You lot argued about the best gods-forsaken hole in Teraf to plant me."
"We were only-" Jed began but Dala rolled over him in the same calm manner.
"Whatever.  Here's the trouble though.  I'm not leaving East Zabrial.  Not for a few years at least.  My family's here, my school's here, my friends are here.  Whatever I might pretend sometimes, I care about them all."
"We quite understand your dilemma," Capu said.  "But for your safety alone, especially in light of recent developments-"
"Capu, you're not listening to me.  Pay attention this time.  All of you, I want to see your 'paying attention' faces switched on.  OK?  I'm not going anywhere.  I'm staying here.  The Guardian's staying in East Zabrial. Deal with it."
In the silence which followed, Minyanis decided to insert, "In political circles, that would be described as the casting vote being, well, cast."
The silence lasted a few seconds more.  The Jed, Kristin and Capu all started to talk simultaneously.  The two girls listened to their babble for a while before Dala stole out of the room.  It was a more controlled exit than before, however, and her expression was decidedly complacent.  After a few more minutes Minyanis joined her again.