Sythyry

Wingsa: “Hello. The guard who called for me did not explain too clearly precisely what needs to be done.”

Me: “Wingsa! A pleasure to see you again!”

Wingsa: “I am not wholly certain of that. Or, at any rate, I am not wholly certain that it is a pleasure to see you again. After hearing the news about you, I would just as soon avoid you for the next seven years.”

Me: “Oh, my marriage, you mean? This isn’t about that.”

Wingsa: “Your tofitude to your own servant. What in walls possessed you to do such a thing? Did you think of the insult to the name of Glikkonen even for an instant?” Glikkonen being my common ancestor, with Wingsa.

Me: “Glikkonen’s reputation is safe in many, many history books — as is yours. My own reputation is less so. In any case, the current issue is not about that.”

Wingsa: “This injured Rassimel?” Zie looked at the body of Prince Rastomil, still unconscious and badly wounded — and carefully kept that way because, while it was certainly his body, it was certainly not his mind and spirit in it. “What is he, that he requires a wizard to heal him, when there are so many fine and well-trained members of the Healers’ Guild about?”

Me: “I am one!”

Wingsa: “You, Sythyry, are the kept lizard of a mediocre chef.”

Me: “True! But my marital duties have not caused me to forget my advanced training as a healer. Or as a wizard, for that matter.”

Wingsa: “Then why didn’t you heal him?”

Me: “He’s actually occupied by the spirit of the Lady Noshi … or perhaps Lord Kethji or even the supposedly-dead wizard Nanggi-Zi. We haven’t sorted the matter out for certain yet. “

Wingsa: “Nanggi-Zi? Nanggi-Zi is dead these decades, and the World Tree is a better place for it!”

Phaniet: “Who did she marry? Or do you have some other reason for despising wizards?”

Wingsa: “Lord Kethji. That wasn’t the problem. She was a subtle and vicious Mentador mage.”

Me: “Still is, I suspect.” And we explained matters.

Wingsa: “Fools! I don’t suppose you discussed the matter with the supposed Lord Kethji?”

Me: “… We’ve been a bit busy.”

Noshi

So we went back upstairs, and untied the doddering Lord Kethji, and administered various purgatives, curatives, remedies, and washings. He really needed the washings; the household routine had been rather disrupted by the battle in front of Kethji’s cell.

Jagraton: “So! Who are you, in there?”

Noshi (in Kethji’s body): “I am Lady Noshi. I’ve been trying to tell you that all along.”

Jagraton: “You were not!” But we looked at his record of events later, and, indeed, Noshi had several times corrected someone who called her by the wrong name.

Wingsa: “Now! Tell us about Nanggi-Zi!”

Me: “And how you came to be in Lord Kethji’s body.”

Noshi: “Oh, I’m still in … “ She wailed.

Rastomil: “And I seem to have yours. I will attempt to take good care of it — now that I’m not tied to a table and fed on dazing-drugs!”

Noshi: “Can I have it back please?”

Rastomil: “Now that we are rescued, perhaps it would be time for a spot of victim-restoring, what?”

Wingsa and Me: “We hope it is that easy, but rather anticipate complications.”

“I do not appreciate a bunch of foreigners sneaking into my home. My wife-to-be is quite ill — extremely sick — quite unwell, and needs her rest. She is suffering from a fever of the brain, and may be a bit delusional.” Prince Rastomil’s body stood at the staircase, with five house guards.

“Speaking as a master of the Healer’s Guild, I note that no such thing is even remotely the case,” I said.

Rastomil’s body glanced at all of us. With a distressing lack of any sort of visible magic — we were still in that cursed cloud of hiding-spell — Yerenthax roared at the top of her lungs, and drew the magic sword I had made her, and turned it against me in a sudden and total fury. (Ow! She hits very hard with the thing!)

I, with usual Zi Ri urgent speed, tried poking at her with the Eye of Mirizan and Melizan, to figure out what had been done to her, so I could undo it.

Jyondre, with usual Orren urgent speed, pounced at Yerenthax and removed the Distant Sabre from her hands. This was quite a bloody and painful procedure, and would probably have been a great deal worse if Yerenthax hadn’t been trying to keep from hurting him. Their conversation went something like this:

Yerenthax: “Give me that sword back, Jyondre. I need to kill Sythyry.”

Jyondre: “Why, my dear love and keeper, do you need to kill Sythyry?”

The other bipeds among us were generally embattled at this point, though the details are not terribly interesting. I helped out with a tough ice fairy — the seven-winged burning thing would have been a total disaster in this situation, since we did not want to incinerate much of anything.

Yerenthax: “Zie’s going to force me to break my Word of Honor!”

Jyondre: “You’re not bound by any Words of Honor just now.”

Yerenthax: “Yes … but … zie’ll get me to make one, then force me to break it!”

Jyondre: “Actually, you’re under a mind control spell from someone else.”

Yerenthax: “I’m sure I’m not! Gormoror are all but immune to Ruloc Mentador!” (which more than false, though less than true.)

Jyondre: “I’m sure you are — and it’s a Mutoc Mentador spell, changing your thoughts around, not a Ruloc one. Gormoror don’t resist that much.” (He was wrong — it was Creoc Mentador, making a new obsession in Yerenthax’ mind. Such technical details did not matter.)

Yerenthax: “Oh! Curse it, you’re right, but I still need to kill zir before zie makes me break my Word!”

Jyondre: “How about we turn the tide of this brutal little melee that is going on at the head of the stair first? I give you my word of honor that, if Sythyry tries any tricks on you, I’ll help you thrash zir thoroughly. Besides, Rastomil definitely did cast a mind-spell on you, and whatever Sythyry might be planning to do, Rastomil probably has already done.”

Yerenthax: “An excellent plan!”

Jyondre gave her the Distant Sabre back, and she struck Prince Rastomil’s body once, with a carefully moderated degree of force. He fell down unconscious. (Note: to all monsters and primes who think that taking over someone else’s body is a good idea: your vitality is a matter of how good your spirit is to holding on to your body. In general, your spirit will not be nearly as good at holding on to someone else’s body, especially at first. So, you will be particularly vulnerable to injuries that would barely slow you down in your own body… unless of course you take a different approach to the matter than Nanggi-Zi did.)

With Prince Rastomil’s body down, the household guards stopped fighting us, and whined in considerable confusion.

Victory Cerebration

Fixing Yerenthax: Jyondre and Phaniet lured Yerenthax out of the illusion-cloud, to somewhere where Phaniet could see the spell on Yerenthax. It was a routine sort of Creoc Mentador spell (insofar as those things are routine at all), giving her an intense obsession that I needed to die or I would force her to break her Word of Honor. Breaking it would have been a challenge, both because it was quite a strong spell, and because she would surely have felt that my efforts at spell-breaking were somehow forcing her to break her Word of Honor. The obsession would only last for some hours — fourteen hours, to be precise, which bespeaks a substantial amount of Creoc Mentador power behind the spell — so Jyondre took Yerenthax off to a hotel on the other side of town, and kept her quite occupied until the spell wore off.

Fixing Rastomil: We took Rastomil’s unconsious and possessed body out of the tower, so we could see what the spell on it was like. (Carrying a fallen prince around the city did attract some attention. Fortunately he was a foreign prince, and we had a city guard officer with us, so the attention was limited to smirking and spoken musing that foreigners cannot handle the local liquor.) We got him to the edge of the cloud, and saw a big complicated Mentador-Spiridor ritual working all over him. This surprised nobody at all.

And he went into convulsions. A nasty kind of convulsion, stressing every muscle in his body — that sort is usually fatal pretty fast, since some muscles, like the heart, are useful for life. The convulsions started when we moved him past a certain sharp boundary (not the boundary of the cloud), and stopped when we moved him back over it.

“Well, that explains that mummy corpse,” said Phaniet, and I nodded ruefully.

Rastomil, in Noshi’s body, had been lagging a few steps behind. Evidently Noshi’s legs are sore from various ill-treatments. He said, as he approached us, “I am finding something very painful here, as though my entrails were still back in the tower, and I am stretching them nearly to the breaking point.”

“That’s about right,” said Phaniet. “I’m fairly sure that Noshi, in Kethji’s body in the tower, is keeping them alive.”

So we took him and him (and her and her, too) back to Noshi’s tower, and worked on getting rid of the illusion-cloud instead. And, since this is a major magical working in a foreign city, we sent for Wingsa for advise and legitimacy. (Wingsa is slight relative of mine, fourteen hundred years old, green and yellow scaled, featherless, and best at Corpador and Herbador.)

[This is not a particularly pleasant scene. If you find rape by mind-control too upsetting to read, skip this entry and take up again with the next one. -bb]

And here is what Rastomil said had become of him in the banquet:

“Have some more pâté, good Prince Rastomil. It is thoroughly delicious — extremely excellent — thoroughly wonderful when spread upon these wafers of crisped rice,” said Lady Noshi.

Prince Rastomil took the proffered delicacy. “I don’t know that I am a good prince, by anyone’s estimation, but it is certainly good pâté. I have never had better, not even in the private dining room of the Duke of Barency.”

“They do not serve such things at the feasts in your home city?” asked Noshi. Her husband Kethji groaned deeply in his wheelchair. Noshi beckoned to her butler, who spooned another dose of the fuming purple drink into Kethji’s mouth. Kethji fell back into a dull quiescence.

Rastomil glanced at the lord and the butler, but no explanation was forthcoming. Every lesson of etiquette suggested that he ignore his host’s oddities. He shook his head. “Oh, don’t go to a grand public feast for tasty food! The chefs are too busy making it look impressive — when they’re not fretting about the logistical problems of serving a hundred people piping-hot cheese souffles all at the same time. Maddening, I’m sure it must be, for them.”

“Maddening, yes,” said Lady Noshi. “Are you not feeling somewhat maddened yourself, just about now?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea what you might be talking about,” said Rastomil. He realized, suddenly and intensely, that he was a male Rassimel and that Lady Noshi was a female Rassimel, and something appealing could be done with that. “Perhaps you could explain it to me? In private?”

Lady Noshi slid over to him, and started to undo the bright copper buttons on his plum and burgundy waistcoat. “It should be quite obvious.”

Which it was. Rastomil glanced over at Jagraton, but the bodyguard simply sat back in his couch with a lazy smile on his face and gave no signal of disapproval. Probably this was just the sort of dissolute behavior and international disgrace that the mission required. In any case, Rastomil felt as if he must take Lady Noshi — or anyone! — or burst. He had never felt such a stringent need in his loins. Perhaps he had been as eager, early on with his true love, but never with such a feeling of impending punishment should he fail to satisfy himself.

So he drew Lady Noshi to himself, and acted as etiquette, or his peculiarly demanding body, dictated.

…

It was some minutes, perhaps a third of an hour, before Rastomil was capable of paying attention to anything but the juncture of Rassimel bodies. He glanced at Jagraton, who still seemed unconcerned.

Another thought occured to him, with considerable difficulty, and he looked at Lord Kethji. A husband, after all, might have some concerns about his wife’s behavior.

Kethji was, in fact, staring at him, mumbling something in a vague voice. Rastomil, was seized by curiosity — that tiny fraction of him not already seized by lust. Without disengaging, he guided the compliant Lady Noshi to a position on her back. She seemed glad of the change; probably her thigh-muscles needed the rest.

As if coincidentally, this position put Rastomil’s ears closer to Kethji’s mouth. “That’s how it starts, yes, for me too,” said the lord, in a voice that seemed wrapped in cotton.

“Be quiet, Kethji,” snapped Lady Noshi.

“Noshi,” he mumbled, a vague and pained protest in his voice.

“Butler! More of the lord’s medicine!” commanded Noshi. The butler brought the nacreous cup to Kethji, and the lord drank of it despite his protests.

Rastomil thought she was remarkably aware of the room around her, and even imperious, considering what their bodies were up to. He certainly couldn’t manage it. He could barely think of …

…

The next time that Rastomil could actually think, he quirked his ears at Noshi, and mumbled, “Aren’t there laws against this sort of thing, in Hanija?”

“Oh! We are far, far above the laws of Hanija!” Noshi’s voice was clear and sharp, though her fur had gotten quite matted. “Now, on your back. Your legs are getting sore, and I won’t have that.”

Other bits of him were already quite sore by this time, he thought. But thinking about which bits of him they were, and why they were so sore, dragged his mind back into the fog of lust. “Which will only make them sorer”, he said to himself, but he couldn’t figure out how to stop.

…

Rather later, Rastomil realized that his bodyguard was gone. “I do hope Jagraton has been embarrassed away by my amatory prowess, which is quite unprecedented today. Or at least he has gone to the toilet. He is an annoying fellow, but I should be embarrassed to lose him.”

Noshi scowled at the empty couch. “I have no idea. I don’t much care. I am quite busy now; this is a difficult phase. Please don’t interrupt me.”

“That’s a quite odd thing to say to one’s lover, since she is quite busy enjoying my body,” thought Rastomil to himself. “Indeed, it’s a marvel if she’s still enjoying it. I feel as if my member has been rubbed raw, and I can’t imagine her parts are feeling much better.”

But he had no way of stopping his body’s eager movement, and soon enough his mind fell back into the clouds.

…

Lord Kethji wailed, a harsh burbling cry that barely sounded like a Rassimel voice. Rastomil glanced over. The butler was squeezing the lord’s muzzle shut, around a tube full of that purple drug.

Lady Noshi snarled at Rastomil. She turned his face towards hers. “Look in my eyes! Kiss me! You’ve been fucking me for three hours, you can at least have the manners to look in my eyes and kiss me!”

Rastomil’s mind was too hazy for him to be rude.

…

Rastomil awoke next in a very dark room. His fur felt terribly matted, and smelled as if it needed a week-long washing. He was one solid cramp from breast to toes. He tried to rise, to take care of certain bodily urgencies of a normal character, but he was tied to the bed with many cords. “Oh, dear,” he said. “I daresay I’ve been kidnapped. Or perhaps Lord Kethji recovered enough to take revenge for my adultery. I rather wish we had been able to take a private room, at least.” His voice sounded queer and high to himself. “Whatever shall I do now?” He had only a few cley, and no useful spells, and could not move; he was helpless.

At least it was more restful and less abrading that the previous version of helplessness.

“How is it that so many visitors, wearing expressions both pralient and drufe, come to knock upon the door of this mansion of the greater nobility?” asked Kebu the butler, opening a small shuttered window in the front door. The front door was unusually strong for a Hanijan door, being made of stout arken-wood and well-concealed spells. The mansion’s walls were just as imposing.

Phaniet was our designated liar. “Please announce to Prince Rastomil that Phinniet, chief factotum and accountant to the wizard Sythyry, is here, and is bringing certain valuables which Prince Rastomil will surely wish to keep close at hand, and, in general, to make whatever arrangements the Prince needs in his new life.”

“Your dumphalous and gurrept verbiage will be announced to the Prince as shortly and vulgrantly as may be,” said Kebu, and closed the window.

We waited. I think hCevian was patient, and I’m sure Zineng was. Phaniet and I tapped gently around the edges of the concealment spell. Jyondre and Yerenthax indulged in a public display of smooching which would have caused great trouble for them in nearly any city, but in Hanija they have a certificate which allows them to do it. Jagraton fretted.

Phaniet: “Zineng, tell us of the legalities of knocking this concealment spell down?”

Zineng: ” It is not registered with the city guard, and, thus, officially, does not exist. It extends outside of the nobles’ property. Can you knock it down from the middle of the canal? That would be legally safe. I cannot guarantee what might happen ultimately; it depends somewhat on the status of blackmails and suchlike.”

Me: “Worst comes to worst, we’ll fly away.”

Zineng: “Depending on how worst the worst is, I may ask for a ride.”

In due course and a half, the butler Kebu returned to the door. “My master is both habricious and moorent.”

“Oh, speak Hanijan, can’t you?” snapped Zineng.

“My vocabulary has become both chortulent and polythongrous as my years of service to this noble house have become targnestic and shreen,” said Kebu, as if his tongue were a scorpion’s tail and he were trying to shoo us off with it.

“Will you let us in or won’t you?” snapped Zineng.

“The reasons for granting you admittance are neither soofie nor gomorculous. Retreat from this door!” proclaimed Kebu.

“That’s about as clear an answer as we are going to get,” I said. “Is it time for violence yet?”

Yerenthax grunted. “Are you, perchance, trying to seduce Jyondre by acting like a blood-drunk Gormoror? Please don’t. I think it would violate some tofyof laws, and you look ridiculous enough already with those bandages.”

Zineng shook his head. “Violence is unlikely to be either legal or effective. Another approach may perhaps work better.”

Another Approach

Zineng knocked on the servant’s entrance. Yodathzo-Jam opened the door and peered at him. “I am High Lieutenant Mage Zineng of the city guard. We have reports of a serious situation. Please let me in.”

“Yes, yuss, guard mage, serious situation. Come in. Will you find my heart for me? Lord Kethji has it, under a glass dome in his secret chamber, he does. I can feel it beating for me, of nights.”

“We’re investigating that, among other things, ma’am.” And so we got in, to a crowded pantry sort of place.

“I would like to meet this famous Lord Kethji and Lady Noshi,” said Phaniet. d”Somehow I think that they know more of the answers than Prince Rastomil.”

“I’ll take you up to Lord Kethji,” said Yodathzo-Jam. “He picked my heart out of the fountain, he did. Take care he don’t pick yours out too.”

So we followed her up the servants’ staircase to the top floor, which stank. “My, but it stinks up here,” said Jyondre.

“It does. Of Rassimel wastes, to be specific, including a surprising amount of vomitus. From behind that door,” said Phaniet.

So we threw that door open, and discovered a dirty-linen closet. “Yes, yusss, we change their bedclothes a lot, we do, when they stink them up, they do,” said Yodathzo-Jam.

Then we turned to the three barred doors that weren’t the dirty-linen closet or the clean-linen closet or the special-supplies closet. They were barred from the outside, like prison doors, and had viewing holes in them, also like prison doors. Behind one was Lord Kethji, tied to a bed, and dead asleep, with purple streaks on his muzzle. Behind the next was Lady Noshi, also tied, also asleep; she had evidently vomited a bit of purple medicine up, and her fur and bedding was somewhat fouled form it.

Behind the third was an out-and-out mummy. My best guess is that it was a Rassimel corpse, which had been dessicated, while carefully protected from rotting by means of preservative chemicals and preservative spells. Its sapling-thin limbs were tied to the bed with leather thongs, as if there were a worry that it might somehow arise and escape.

“Well. Lady Noshi seemed the most coherent of the family, at that horrible banquet. I suppose I recommend we start with her.” said Jagraton.

So we unbarred her door. Yodathzo-Jam and Phaniet cleaned her up a bit, on the grounds that few noblewomen like to receive visitors when they are daubed with their own stomach contents. Lady Noshi moaned and stirred in her sleep, but did not wake.

I was going to help, really I was. I have much medical experience, and a bit of puke neither terrifies nor disgusts me — in a medical situation at least. But there was a bottle of that nacreous purple medicine by the side of her bed, which distracted me. I judged it to be a particular narcotic of considerable potency, long duration, wide range of safe dosage, and fairly few long-term side effects, as these things go. Just the sort of thing you’d use to keep a Rassimel asleep for a long time: it is far enough from a poison so their natural healing doesn’t work that well, and it is also far enough from a poison so that you can give them a huge dose and they will eliminate it relatively slowly, as these things go. Still — “How often does the Lord and Lady get dosed with this?”

“Every two hours, yes, yuss,” said Yodathzo-Jam. “But the Lady only started that last night.”

“That’s rather a lot of it,” I said. “And I cannot imagine that it is a healthy regimen.”

“Yes, yuss, healthy don’t enter into it, not with the Lord and Lady are concerned. Healthy is as healthy does,” said Yodathzo-Jam. (Which is not true! Sometimes it seems as if healthy is as healthy doesn’t. Still, don’t take that much of the nacreous purple drug. It’s not a healthy regimen.)

So, by means partly medical, partly magical, and partly waitingical, we woke the Lady Noshi up over the next few minutes.

Waking

“Oh, capital!” said Lady Noshi. “Jagraton has come to rescue me, and he has brought the cavalry indeed! Everything but the nendrai, but I wasn’t quite expecting that.”

“We’re here to rescue Prince Rastomil,” said Jagraton, who wasn’t quite as quick on the uptake as he ought to have been, or, perhaps, didn’t want to admit just then quite how royally or which royalty he had failed.

“And I have the honor of being Prince Rastomil,” said Lady Noshi. “And I will say that I have never wished a rescue quite as much as today — and that I apologize for every bit of trouble I have ever given you on this trip here.”

Everyone else gave me significant looks, and most of them started untying her. I sat in the air in front of her face. “I’m afraid you’re going to take an unusual lot of rescuing. Most of you has been stuffed into Lady Noshi’s body.”

Her ears blushed a good deal. “Only under the influence of, I believe, some drugs or perhaps spells!”

“I was more thinking of your psyche — your mind and spirit. I’m not sure of the details, for they’ve got a damnable fog around here, but you’re currently the mind in Noshi’s body.”

Rastomil scowled Noshi’s face. “I thought my voice sounded a bit odd.”

Me: “Oh, great staring gods. Am I under arrest again?”

Zineng (né Guard-Mage): “No such duty currently is upon my shoulders. Indeed, it is unlikely that you will be arrested and I will not.”

Me: “That is less than wholly comforting. What do you mean, in more detail?”

Zineng and Jagraton: “We hereby explain in confusing order, using incorrect similes, that Lord Kethji and Lady Noshi probably have been using Mentador in terrible ways for quite some time, and blackmailing the important dignitaries and officials of the city (and staying largely to themselves) to avoid scrutiny and bloodier consequences.”

Me: “I approximately understand, if you are not too fussy about the details.”

Phaniet: “And the prince?”

Zineng: “We don’t know… some sort of mind control effect, making him think he is a native of the city? An impostor?”

Me: “Perhaps psychic possession — so that it is someone else’s mind wearing Rastomil’s body?” I am proud of this guess.

Jagraton: “Is such a thing even possible?”

Me: “It is not easy, to be sure, and it would probably have unfortunate consequences for at least one of the two, but it could be done — and a wizard of Mentador and Spiridor would be the one to do it.”

Zineng: “Nanggi-Zi, the wizard of Mentador and Spiridor, is long dead.”

Me: “Perhaps — though I would not completely count on it — but I would venture that his magical devices and tools still remain, and that the lord and lady in question can manipulate them.” My hedging there was a reflexive Zi Ri mysteriosity, not any particularly good guesswork.

Jagraton: “What can we do?”

Phaniet: “To start with, we can go and inspect pseudo-Rastomil, or possessed-Rastomil, or whatever he is. Let us be well-defended and prepared for many alarms when we do!”

Zineng: “I will be present, to lend my modest powers to the event, and an official Guard presence.”

Phaniet: “Brave man! We all go at the risk of our minds and lives, I suspect. But you also risk your job, if I do not mistake the situation.”

Zineng: “Perhaps, perhaps.”

So we collected Jyondre and Yerenthax, Phaniet, myself, hCevian, Jagraton, and Zineng. Since Jagraton had been evicted from there once already, we disguised him — a curly blonde wig, a reverse dye to give him a more conventional Rassimel sort of fur, and garments well-suited to a member of the Erotic Dancer’s Guild of Hanija, which Phaniet and Este had lying around for reasons which are perfectly reasonable and ordinary for a married couple.. And a different scent, as Phaniet insisted and nobody else could tell. I wanted to go in disguise as well, but transforming my wings at this point is unwise.

And a plentiful supply of magical protections, especially against Mentador.

From the Outside

We peered at the mansion. “It doesn’t look particularly unusual,” I said. “A modicum of magic there — the usual sorts of Corpador and Herbador and Pyrador spells one would expect in a well-made mansion. Not a trace of Mentador or Spiridor.”

“Use the Eye of Mirizan and Melizan,” suggested Phaniet.

“That’s a bit excessive. I have been inspecting spells by the naked eye for well more than a century, and I am tolerably good at it.” I said.

“Indulge me, even if it is excessive,” prodded Phaniet. I am not one to argue overmuch with my assistants, so I did.

“No, that’s not a bit excessive at all,” I said after a minute. “There’s a huge illusion around the whole mansion — the whole of two blocks around — set to conceal Mentador and Spiridor and itself. And good enough to fool me, or me without tools at any rate. Even with the Eye I can’t see any Mentador or Spiridor, but at least I can find the illusion.”

“Simply fooling you isn’t so hard,” said Phaniet. “But baffling your magic sense, I admit, isn’t quite so easy. That would explain how they could work all manner of mind-spells and nobody would see a thing.”

“It will be troublesome, though. Even with the Eye I’m not going to be able to make out much of anything Mentador inside of there,” I had to admit.

“What is the boundary of the illusion?” asked Zineng. I described it — I fluttered around it, in fact It is two adjacent small islands, separated by a narrow canal, and surrounded by broader ones. “To be sure, the residents of the mansion rarely leave that space. None of them.”

“Should we go tell the city guard about this? See if they’re willing to be more official about the problem,” asked Phaniet.

Zineng frowned. “No. I do not trust the captains of the guard so well on this point. Kethji and Noshi are too good at blackmail. Let us proceed, and get what better evidence we may.”

Prince Rastomil, or the impostor thereof, had called the city guard to haul off his erstwhile bodyguard Jagraton. This caused a certain amount of conversation, as bodyguard and cityguard strolled away.

Guard-Mage: “I understand that the prince is your former — lover, is it? — back in Inner Ketheria.”

Jagraton: “I am his bodyguard, appointed and hired by the royal family of Barency to protect their son.”

Guard-Mage: “As you wish. In any case, he is no longer in Barency. He is in Hanija, and, in particular, in the domicile of the eccentric Lord Kethji and Lady Noshi. He seems to have placed himself under their protection. Perhaps you could take this as a form of success of your project, and enjoy a vacation?”

Jagraton: “But! That is not the true prince, but a wicked and subtle imposter!”

Guard-Mage: “A peculiar claim. Why do you say that?”

Jagraton: “Aha! I have an evidence! Did you ever meet the prince before?”

Guard-Mage: “No, I cannot say that I have. This makes it difficult for me to tell whether he is an impostor.”

Jagraton: “Are you exceedingly famous in Hanija? I do not mean to insult you — I am certain that you are thoroughly skilled, and quite well-regarded in all those circles which intersect or are tangent to the Guard — but is a newcomer tourist likely to know you by sight?”

Guard-Mage: “I have no such fame. Though your pilot Sythyry and chef Arfaen certainly know me by sight.”

Jagraton: “I assert, and I can have Sythyry and Arfaen confirm, that neither of them knows your name — or at least that neither of them discussed it much in Strayway. Sythyry calls you “The Guard-Mage”. Yet this imposter knew your name and title precisely, at a glance.”

High Lieutenant Mage Zineng (formerly “Guard-Mage”): “A grange full of gods! He did just that! This seemingly-minor event instantly becomes a matter of considerable interest to me. I believe I owe a not insubstantial sum to High Lieutenant Detective Aeji-Ru!”

Jagraton: “What? Why did we suddenly stop strolling along the canal, and start quick-marching towards a guard station in the middle of town? Am I under arrest now?”

L.H.M. Zineng: “You are a surprising witness in a most concernsome situation which L.H.D. Aeji-Ru has been muttering about for years, and the rest of us have thought imaginary. I am no longer so sure. But now Aeji-Ru and I will take the matter under deeper investigation. Captain Geng be damned!”

Jagraton: “This is not wholly comforting.”

L.H.M. Zineng: “You, in any case, are unlikely to be accused of anything. But do not be comforted; the situation is alarming.”

The Suspicious History of Lord Kethji

L.H.D. Aeji-Ru (a Herethroy co-lover with sparkly purple chitin and a very nervous air) enumerated a list of disturbing matters.

The Servants: Lord Kethji and, after their marriage, Lady Noshi hired a number of live-in servants over the decades. These servants have, one and all, become fanatical devotees of the lord and lady, in a matter of days — or hours? They abandoned their families and friends outside, devoting themselves to their labors and masters, rarely or never leaving the island upon which the mansion rests. Now, these servants were generally chosen from among those with few close connections, so abandoning friends and family was no great matter for them … but that is a topic of suspicion to Aeji-Ru as well.

The Blackmail: Lord Kethji and Lady Noshi have been the most successful blackmailers in Hanijan history — or they have not. This is quite difficult to determine, but a handful of death-bed confessions by a handful of nobles and dignitaries suggest that the lord and lady discovered a handful of the wickedest secrets, and applied them with perfect force.

The Prince’s Feast: Jagraton told what he observed and experienced at the feast.

The Old Wizard: Lord Kethji was, in his youth, an intimate of the Rassimel wizard Nanggi-Zi. “A specialist in Mentador and Spiridor,” said Aeji-Ru, “And one with a terribly poor reputation. She had protection from the Duke at the time, and rarely showed herself in public, or she would probably have been lynched. The protection being the first of Lord Kethji’s famous blackmails. Nanggi-Zi herelf died some time ago — roughly when Lady Noshi married Lord Kethji, in fact.”

The Suspicion: So we are suspecting that the Lord and Lady have some wicked Mentador and Spiridor tools left from Nanggi-Zi, and use them in careful and wicked ways.

Jagraton: “You are willing to investigate two powerful nobles of your own city for a string of terrible crimes?”

L.H.M. Zineng: “This is troublesome. our superiors would be very upset if we did so too openly.”

L.H.D. Aeji-Ru: “Unless we were successful!”

L.H.M. Zineng: “Even if we are successful, if — as I suspect — their blackmail is at work among the judiciary and guard.”

L.H.D. Aeji-Ru: “For a fact, a worrisome fact, I have been told, in the strongest of terms, not to pursue this matter.”

Jagraton: “Oddly, I have no such orders. And I have a wizard of my own who is willing to help out.”

L.H.M. Zineng: “Which could prove essential, should the Mentador spells come flying.”

Me: “No spare Prince Rastomil in the mansion?”

Jagraton: “Nowhere I could find him.”

Phaniet: “So, perhaps he is transformed into something…”

Jagraton: “I have a perfectly fine magic sense for noticing such things!”

Phaniet: “And I have a perfectly fine illusion-spell to hide such transformations. I doubt I could get it past the Eye of Mirizan and Melizan, but I could hide it from an un-augmented Sythyry. And I am not so much of an illusionist.”

Jagraton: “Sythyry! I invoke you in the name of all that is sacred to Barency, take your eye to the mansion of Noshi and seek for Rastomil!”

Me: “Well, I think you should let Phaniet finish. She was about to say something sensible, I believe.”

Phaniet: “I was. Perhaps Rastomil is held in an extra-dimensional pocket universe. Perhaps Prince Rastomil is being held somewhere else in Hanija, or in the countryside. Perhaps he is killed and his body disposed-of. There are other options as well.”

Me: “That leaves rather a lot of universe-and-environs for us to search.”

Jagraton: “All the more urgent that we begin swiftly and exhaustively!”

The Updated Plan

Tomorrow morning, I will start trying to reconstruct an arcane connection. The procedure I am using might work, or might fail. If it works, it will give a very fragile connection, which might succeed in locating Rastomil, or might fail. This is not a good plan.

Other people will attempt detective work.

Detectives and Detectives[22 Nivvem 4385]

Investigating a noblewoman in a foreign city is not the easiest of tasks.

Jagraton attempted to chat up one Yodathzo-Jam, an old Herethroy woman who cooks for Lady Noshi, whom he chanced upon (with considerable effort) in the market right across a narrow canal from Noshi’s mansion.

“Hello there, my good lady!” said Jagraton.

“Yes, yuss. Hello. You said hello to me, young man,” said Yodathzo-Jam.

“You seem to be having a bit of trouble with those bags of vegetables, ma’am,” said Jagraton, for the old woman certainly was. She was missing a mid-leg, and supporting herself with a walking-stick in the other mid-leg, and that left her rather off-balance. “May I offer you some assistance?”

“Yes, yuss. Yussistance. You take this stick, young man. These are beans in the bags — my beans — and I won’t have them manipulated by an amateur!” Yodathzo-Jam handed him the walking stick, and proceeded to walk around using her mid-leg in the way her creator god intended (or one of the ways, viz., for walking on). She was rather worse balanced that way.

“I’m not after your beans, ma’am. I’m just going to be waiting here for an hour or so, and I might as well be helpful to a sweet old Herethroy as, say, sit and stare into the fountain and not do anybody any good,” said Jagraton.

“Yes, yuss. The fountain. That fountain. I lost my heart in that fountain once, I’ll have you know, young man,” said Yodathzo-Jam.

“Oh? How did that happen, ma’am?” Jagraton was secretly delighted; the old woman was in a garrulous mood, which might well lead to Useful Information.

“It slipped out of my head, between my antennae! Fell right out into the fountain! I’ve looked in there every time I come to the market, but, no, noesss, it’s not there anymore. Lord Kethji snapped it up, he did,” said Yodathzo-Jam.

“Oh? You’re fond of Lord Kethji?” asked Jagraton, all innocence outside, and inside all gladness that she was talking about the household.

Yodathzo-Jam shook her head. “Can’t abide the man. He took my heart. ‘Tweren’t his heart, after all. ‘Twere my heart, and he took it for hisself. Stuck it in a box on his dresser drawer, he did. Awful man.”

“Why do you work for him?” asked Jagraton, thinking: we could bribe this disaffected servant quite easily, enough to be comfortable for the short rest of her life.

“He’s got my heart, sonny! Didn’t you listen to me with hearing the first time? A squeeze on that heart and I’m out of the putter, you hear me?” shouted Yodathzo-Jam.

“Oh, he’s got it that way, has he?” said Jagraton.

“Yes, yuss. Many’s the night I spent lying by his door, crying like a snowfish. Now it’s Lady Noshi’s door, of course,” said Yodathzo-Jam.

Jagraton decided that he had enough of her confidence to ask. “What about the new one? The one who calls himself Prince Rastomil?”

“Oh, oh, I’m sure I’m going to be crying by his door soon enough too. What kind of a city is this, when a lord can scoop up a young girl’s heart in the fountain in the marketplace, I ask you?”

“It’s such a shame, truly, ma’am,” said Jagraton. “Do you know what became of the real Prince Rastomil?”

“Carry those packages to the pantry for me and you can see him!” said Yodathzo-Jam with a hideous laugh.

Jagraton was delighted. This could go quite well. It could also go quite badly, so he made sure his sword was loose in the sheath.

# # #

Jagraton snuck around behind Lady Noshi’s mansion with Yodathzo-Jam, and into the pantry to leave behind all the day’s food. Thence, into the parlor, where the fake Prince Rastomil was sitting on a sofa, going through the contents of a well-used etui that Jagraton had never seen before, and tossing out old reciepts and rusks.

“Yes, yuss! There’s your Prince Rastomil for you!” cackled Yodathzo-Jam.

“Rastomil?” asked Jagraton.

“What, you’ve come around here again?” said Rastomil. “I do believe that I told you not to. Now begone!”

“I shall do no such thing! I insist upon having my questions be answered!” said Jagraton, suddenly floundering.

Rastomil, uncooperatively, answered no questions (though Jagraton asked many), and returned his attention to the etui. Jagraton harangued him for a few minutes. Then the household’s warriors came to remove Jagraton; and, when he resisted them, a couple of the city guard. Including my old friend, the Guard-Mage.

Guard-Mage: “Someone else from Strayway, getting in legal trouble?”

Rastomil: “So it seems. High Lieutenant Mage Zineng, please do me the kindness of removing him from the premises, and charging him with anything you can find to charge him with?”

Guard-Mage: “Jagraton, I believe your name to be — please come with me.”

The Induction

I might not pay that much attention to the woes of Jagraton, who did nothing much to make himself well-loved. I definitely listen to Jyondre and Yerenthax. I believe I will listen more to Invincible Fire Demon in the future. (This has absolutely nothing to do with him being very Orren, remarkably sensible for an Orren, plenty cute, and experimenting with kissing members of other species.)

Jagraton: “I demand you help rescue Prince Rastomil!”

Me: “Thank you very much, Jagraton.” I avoided any number of more sarcastic replies only with the greatest of moral character difficulty.

Invincible Fire Demon: “Well, will you help?”

Jyondre: “We’re going to!”

Me: “Of course I will.”

Invincible Fire Demon: “If you don’t, we’re going to go there and take care of the situation ourselves.”

Jyondre: “We’re going to go there and beat up that Lady Noshi.”

Me: “I’ll help…”

Invincible Fire Demon: “We’ll rip her fur out ’til she tells us what she did!”

Jyondre: “And how to reverse it!”

Me: “I’m in.”

Jyondre: “We’ll risk our lives!”

Invincible Fire Demon: “Our honor!”

Me: “I’ll help.”

Invincible Fire Demon: “Our visas!”

Jyondre: “But this is wizard work!”

Me: “Which is why I’ll be helping you.”

Jyondre: “Without a wizard we will surely fail!”

Invincible Fire Demon: “Doomed! Doomed!”

Jagraton: “Let’s get on with it!”

Yerenthax and me: “But they’re so cute when they’re in a Wild Rush!”

Invincible Fire Demon: “Were we rushing? … sorry!”

Our Clever Plan

The plan evolved into two parts. (1) Find out where the real Prince Rastomil was hidden, and (2) extricate him from the place discovered in part (1).

Jagraton: “And (3)! Skewer the liver of this imposter who is imposting away at the identity of the prince!”

Phaniet: “No, or not unless we somehow challenge him to a duel or something. We know too much about the Hanijan legal system already.”

Me: “And the prison system, for that matter. Though you might get along quite well with Khipo.”

Our Less Clever Results

Phaniet: “Here is some fur of the prince, from his brushes. It will serve as an arcane connection, allowing us to locate him with perfect accuracy.”

Me: [after a couple of failures] “Unfortunately, I believe Rastomil has has been subjected to There is None Who Knows Thee, which breaks nearly all arcane connections. His fur is useless for location. Perhaps the kidnappers were, unaccountably, expecting to kidnap him.”

Phaniet: “There is a way …”

Me: “Yes, but it’ll take me three days to do. I’ll get started tomorrow morning.” Abandoning a good bit of work on an enchantment, alas.

Jagraton: “But! By then he may be killed, or removed beyond the range of your spells! Now! Start seeking him now!”

Me: “The procedure has to be started at dawn. Provide me with a dawn now, and I will start now.”

Jagraton: “I must seek him myself, and sooner than soon!”

So we messed around a bit with Veil spells (which conceal the subject from most senses), and miniaturization, and flight, and detections spells, and location spells, and all sorts of things.

Jagraton, of course, was the one who actually went inside Lady Noshi’s mansion to hunt around. At night, of course, for the best safety and convenience. In the shape of an invisible and inaudible hummingbird, he zoomed around, looking everwhere he could. He buzzed over Lord Kethji, who mumbled and rocked in his bed in a locked room high up in a turret, his cheek-fur sloppy with splashes of that purple drug. Lady Noshi herself slept in a knot of blankets on a cot in the next room over, also dripped with that purple narcotic — perhaps her guilty conscience over adultery and kidnapping and all would not let her sleep without such aids.

Prince Rastomil’s impostor got the nicest bedroom, on the second floor of the mansion. A big round bed draped in chenille and mink-fur, a decanter of licorice brandy on the side-table, a big box of feminine jewelry on the vanity, big shelves of books on two walls, a substantial closet of clothing for a noblewoman in the Hanijan styles. The impostor sprawled in the middle of the bed, looking utterly at peace with himself and the world. There were no signs that he required any narcotics. He did wear his disguise to bed: natural enough if it were a matter of spells.

If the mansion held any prisoners, or dungeons to hold them, they were not visible to Jagraton.

“I should like to have someone sneak into Noshi’s mansion and look around for Prince Rastomil,” said Jagraton. “I’m not much of a sneakiste myself, though. Is there anyone on the Strayway roster who is?”

“On the roster, yes, we have a Sleeth named Rheng, who styles himself the ‘Thief Supreme’,” said Jyondre, managing to keep a straight face. “He would be far and away the best person on the roster for the task.”

“I don’t think I’ve met him,” said Jagraton. “Could you run off and talk him into helping?”

“No … he is far and away, period. We don’t update the ship’s roster very often. I don’t think there’s anyone really capable of it on board,” admitted Jyondre.

“Except hCevian!” said Invincible Fire Demon.

“I don’t think we should ask a Locador demon for help unless we’re quite sure we need it,” said Jagraton, who is actually more sensible than we gave him credit for.

“I recommend a frontal assault!” boomed Yerenthax.

Jagraton muttered something prejudiced and/or true about Gormoror.

“Let us go to the front door of this mansion and — knock upon it! Thereafter we may inquire about the presence and condition of Prince Rastomil. Bared blade and bloody brand — we shall seek him out of hand!” proclaimed Yerenthax.

“Bloody brand? Do brands even get bloody? And wouldn’t ‘burning brand’ be just as alliterative?” asked Jyondre.

“Much better!” said Yerenthax, and scooped Jyondre up in a tight embrace.

“Is this a planning session or a poetry critique session?” asked Jagraton, flicking his tail angrily.

“Or a make-out session?” asked Invincible Fire Demon, who has not quite gotten used to such public deeds by the transaffectionate.

“Why must it be only one? Why can it not be all three?” asked Yerenthax, who is also more sensible than we generally give her credit for.

# # #

The plan was, that Jyondre and Invincible Fire Demon would knock on the door, while Yerenthax and Jagraton lurked behind bushes as backup. Yerenthax, the Gormoror, looks too ominous for social calls. Jagraton, of course, can look socially acceptable, but he was perhaps too well-known as the prince’s bodyguard.

Knock! Knock! Knock!

“Excuse us,” said Jyondre. “We are companions of Prince Rastomil.”

“There. Is. No. Excuse!” proclaimed Kebu, the withered butler.

“May we see him?” asked Jyondre.

“Tell Jagraton-his-bodyguard hiding there in the bushes that he is still Not Invited,” said Kebu.

“There’s nobody hiding in the bushes,” said Invincible Fire Demon, who had not learned when to abandon a pretense.

“There is nobody invited hiding in the bushes,” corrected Kebu. “The person hiding in the bushes is blorascic and plumrulent!”

“I don’t understand that…” said Jyondre, interruptedly.

“It is not meant for your ears, but for the ears of the ghost Zujazisa, who follows me about for a purpose both diacrestic and scorminary!”

“… but may we speak to Prince Rastomil, please?”

“Once yon prudescent and dulfinated Rassimel bodyguard comes up to the door like an honest man!”

Jagraton blinked at Yerenthax, who was hiding next to him, effectively, despite being twice his size. “I suppose we might as well.”

# # #

Kebu conducted the four adventurers into a parlor — a much smaller and more defensible one than the dinner had taken place in. Prince Rastomil was already seated on a chair, wearing a dressing-gown, and lapping occasionally from a steaming chalice full of some hideous-smelling herbal mess. Even he didn’t like it; he made a moue at the taste. “Ah, good day, the elegant and amiable Jagraton, and three assorted shipmates! You have come to visit me? What a wholly unexpected surprise — an unpredicted encounter — an unexpected way to start the middle of the day!”

“I was worried that you were being kidnapped, last night,” said Jagraton.

“Well, you aren’t so far off,” said the prince. “Lady Noshi has quite firmly captured my heart. As well as some other useful body parts, which, for the sake of decorum, I will not enumerate.”

“I … suppose I noticed something of the sort last night,” said Jagraton.

“I’m surprised you could notice anything. You were quite drunk. Rather maddened on a few cups of our wine, I believe,” said the prince.

“Very well, sir,” said Jagraton, his ears flat. “May I inquire as to when you will be returning to Strayway?”

“You are ridiculous!” said Rastomil, snorting. He took another sip of his herbal concoction. “Vile stuff… Anyhow, Jagraton, I shan’t be coming back at all. Later today I shall be announcing my engagement to the Lady Noshi. Who is presently indisposed, so don’t try to speak with her.”

“I wasn’t going to,” said Jagraton.

“What about her other husband? Lord Kethji, wasn’t it?” asked Invincible Fire Demon, with a bit of an edge to his voice.

Prince Rastomil gave Invincible Fire Demon a somewhat perplexed look. “Ah, dear Lord Kethji! He shall be out of the picture soon enough. He nearly is already.”

“As you are not returning to Strayway, I trust that your new fiancee has a chamber for me, close enough to your own so that I can continue to guard you?” said Jagraton.

“Your services are no longer required, Jagraton,” said Prince Rastomil evenly. “I shall no longer be paying your wages. Lady Noshi’s household warriors will more than suffice to defend me.”

“You never were paying my wages. Your royal parents do that. You cannot dismiss me; you have not the authority,” said Jagraton.

“Ah! But I do have Lady Noshi’s household warriors! And plenty of magic of my own, if it comes to that. And, of course, the law of Hanija will be on my side in any dispute,” said Prince Rastomil, with an elegant swish of his tail.

Invincible Fire Demon threw himself at Rastomil’s feet. “But what of me? Do you cast me off — your own true and sweet Invulnerable Flame Devil?”

Everyone looked down at Invincible Fire Demon perplexedly. Invincible Fire Demon whined, and kissed Rastomil’s ankle. Rastomil gently disengaged his foot. “I am sorry, Invulnerable Flame Devil. What was once between us was sweet, very sweet, but it is now past. I shall be faithful to Lady Noshi. Never fear, I shall pay the rest of your tofitude in full.”

Invincible Fire Demon wailed.

Rastomil clapped his hands. A half-dozen fierce-looking Rassimel warriors appeared. “Please conduct Jagraton, Invulnerable Flame Devil, and these others to the front door. They may leave in peace; but see to it that they do not return.”

Yerenthax grunted, “We will leave in peace, never fear. Don’t forget our wedding invitations though. That wouldn’t be polite, considering how many times we saved your life.”

“Of course not. Considering how many times you saved my life on the way to Hanija,” said Prince Rastomil.

# # #

Back in Strayway, Jagraton asked his companions what had happened. “What happened back there? The three of you are nodding grimly but with some amusement, as if you understand it. I find it mysterious and incomprehensible!” he added, for he found it incomprehensible and mysterious. He had a very hard day.

“Well, Rastomil knows my name. I’m Invincible Fire Demon, not Invulnerable Flame Devil. What happened between me and Prince Rastomil was very sweet — it was a bottle of hot honeyed hippocras and three experimental kisses after the bottle was over, in the name of studying for class — but it hardly amounts to me being his boyfriend or tofyof.” Invincible Fire Demon was blushing a great deal at that admission, though the wrongfolk were grinning immensely. “Or one-time fling, even. And he didn’t even seem to recognize Yerenthax and Jyondre, much less know what they hadn’t saved his life even once.” He glanced at the happy couple. “Not that they wouldn’t — I’ll bet they’re going to today or so — but they hadn’t. Maybe the Prince’s head is fuddled — but I’ve seen him quite drunk, and he’s not that clear when he is.”

“So?” demanded Jagraton.

“So I don’t think that’s really Prince Rastomil.”

Jagraton had made himself quite unpopular with us from the beginning. He did not improve much until he actually needed help.

Incidentally, I should take some of the blame for Phaniet’s behavior. After a very small dose of Jagraton, I had taken to treating him as arrogantly and dismissively as I could manage. Usually this seemed quite appropriate — as when, say, he was demanding this or that special treatment or defense for Prince Rastomil, especially one which the prince did not much want. My loyal and/or obnoxious clients Phaniet and Grinwipey were more than happy to follow my example.

Usually, as I say, this was quite appropriate. In this instance, more concern for Prince Rastomil would not have gone amiss.