Genia

Chapter LXXI
In Which the Brute Squad Is Sighted, and Someone Cries Wolf

I spotted the first patrol a few minutes later, turning out of a stone-paved square into the street perhaps fifty meters behind me. They were sufficiently easy to locate; the clang of their heavy boot and metallic weapons and belt buckles was a complete contrast to the relative soft-footedness of sandals that were mostly leather and a thin piece of finely cut wood – essentially cardboard.

I was lucky that way. There my luck abruptly came to a halt.

There was a pair of soldiers, rifles slung casually on their backs. A little too casually, I decided as I dodged behind a tree. They were relaxed and confident, walking across the street at a comfortable pace, occasionally menacing passers-by with a look.

The third to round the corner was my old acquaintance from afar, the Warwolf.

It was no wonder the patrol was relaxed and confident. The Warwolf was the Brute Squad. And he had my scent, or at least a semblance thereof, to boot. Now I could not hope to hide, even if I was inclined to. Partially, of course, I was; I could not simply walk up to them with my hands in the air. If only for my own perverse enjoyment, I was about to lead the soldiers and their puppy on a merry chase. I waited to make sure, while the patrol advanced down the street, and the Warwolf’s glazed eyes slowly focused as he scented his prey. Namely; me.

I saw the change emerge in his behaviour. As slowly his attention was caught, the doleful, almost sad lurching step was transformed, and the hunter’s instinct emerged. The wolf dropped down to the ground in the mouth of the small alley from which I emerged, and circled the spot several times, growling loudly.

I believe I already mentioned there was something distinctly canine about him.

It was just about time to abscond. I checked the strap of my basket, and loosened it a little bit, to be on the sure side. Then I picked my umbrella up and silently trotted off. Say what you will about my sportsmanship and physical capability – and most of what you are likely to say would use words like ‘nonexistent – I can actually sneak pretty well. I turned the corner of the alley with none the wiser, and was making off between some fences by the time I heard the heavy, running tread of armed goons behind my back.

I dodged them by climbing the nearest fence. I did so rather awkwardly, and wasted several minutes carefully mounting the two-meter or so structure, and eyeballing the ground below for a jump. I landed in a patch of vegetables, and scrambled up, tearing the stalks of bean sprouts, struggling through a growth of young and tender green onions, and fled, pursued now not only by the Fifth Columnists, but by the outraged cries of the housewife whose planting I destroyed.

My basket remained hanging by a loose clump of hemp off the low stone wall.

The commotion behind my back increased exponentially as three more persons dove – much more rapidly – over the wall I had just traversed. The housewife’s shrieks rose to an outraged crescendo of indignation before cutting off abruptly and being replaced with a throaty growl and the painful crack of a rifle-butt thwack. Then there was momentary lull, as the men trampled confusedly among the same beans and onions, and then I heard their voices ring out.

“Split up, she’s gotta be in here somewhere!”

“Yessir!” And the rapid thunk-thunk-thunk of heavy footsteps. The Warwolf growled again, and started after the confused trail of my scent, mixed now with the thick verdant vegetables of the garden, and a little bit of mud and stale water. I had no interest of being caught quite yet, so I splashed, wrinkling my mouth with distaste, through one of the low-dug canals that served the population of Shubat-Anshar as sewage and waste disposal. Then I climbed the stairs of a relatively silent building up onto the roof.

Below me, the beast twirled in confusion over the odorous slush. I crouched behind a parapet with linen sheets stretched to dry flapping on it conveniently, and frowned, trying to formulate a vague observation which kept getting lost repeatedly in simple calculations of speed, distance and maze-solving. I felt like a lab rat with a vast incentive – starvation, perhaps – to find the cheese, whose attention could not possibly be spared for the little flashing lights. Yet the flashing lights were important and generally indicative of people in labcoats who, if luck permitted, could be coaxed to divulge parts of a sandwich.

The Warwolf finally decided to look up. The flashing lights went away, and my attention focused wholly on the large, clawed paws and substantial teeth. He could clearly the better eat me. He stared up, and finally caught sight of me, or perhaps of the place where I’ve been. Overall, the notion of being caught by the wolf left me, to put it mildly, quite indifferent. I hiked up my skirt to prevent undue collapses, and whirled on a heel to pivot away from the pursuer, and dive over to the next little street. The Warwolf, eyes following my motions, growled in a fashion that was distinctly more menacing than before, and somehow more focused.

I ran.

Down the flight of stairs, out into the back yard, through the opening into the neighbours’ patch of legumes, through the nearest alley – no longer paying attention where I stepped – and finally breathlessly emerging out into a second, larger street, where the other two soldiers should have been.

The two of them had cornered the traffic in the street, and were closing on me in a pincer motion. I looked about with a panic that was no longer feigned, and braced against a house, gulping for air. I’ve never been a good runner.

The two soldiers advanced, drawing their rifles. That was decidedly not in the plan. I was fairly certain that the Fifth – and especially Auer – would want me alive, for all sorts of reasons, but I was not a hundred percent confident. In war, we all base our strategy on a gamble, and then aim not to be killed. I threw up my hands in a gesture of highly ambiguous surrender, waiting for them to hesitate. One of the soldiers’ rifle muzzles slid fractionally downward, and I relaxed a little.

The other rifle went BOOM.

That was distinctly not in the plan. I dropped to my knees behind a short flight of outside stairs made mostly of close-packed mud. It was time for some quick thinking; I needed to get caught, not shot. I’d be no use to anyone if I died now.

I scooted back carefully, and tiptoed off to the wall, which separated this stretch of garden from the street I’d previously ran down. I was almost by the wall and ready to climb it, umbrella clutched under an arm and foot poised, when a growl rattled the ground, vibrating up into my fingers, making my noise-sensitive ears want to curl inward.

Some deep primal survival instinct made me let go of the wall, suddenly and without balancing. It drove me back and dropped me to the ground with an impact that threatened to wrench loose a vertebra or two, and rattled my teeth. My eyes registered a blue patch of sky, then a vast, lupine body arced over the wall, which I just vacated, and its dark bulk descended towards my face. I flinched, covering my eyes reflexively.

A large, clawed hand swept along my arm, and I felt the pain of deep scratched, felt blood gush out and slide along my arm, smelled the saltiness, heard my shirt sleeve and the woolen poncho which I wore over it rip with a sound of tortured fabric. My fingers went numb and I let out an involuntary yowl. Then a paw was harrowing me, trying to flip me onto my chest while several more rifle shots emanated from behind, growing a little too close for my taste. I bit down on another whimper of protest, and went limp.

The Warwolf picked me up bodily – not that I was surprised; a Warwolf could handle grown men, and I was substantially smaller than that – and threw me forward, face out. I decided to withhold vociferous objections for the time I actually had sufficient oxygen, and curled in a ball, absorbing he second impact as best I could.

There was another claw. I resigned myself to blacking out.

“Whoa! Stop that!” the soldier who had lowered the rifle – or so I deduced due to the sensible sentiment expressed – was sanding over me, kicking me with a casual lack of malice in the ribs. “The boss wanted any of them alive and intact.”

I examined the cuts on my arm from the corner of my eye, and cautiously reached out to touch my lacerated scalp. Another thin trickle of blood was sliding into my eye from somewhere. “Oops?”

“Shut up!” That, clearly, was the shooting hothead, distinguishable by the tone of his voice from his more relaxed fellow (him could actually talking immediately ruled out the rather equally hotheaded Warwolf). A rifle butt was thrust into my field of vision, driving at my head.

“Hey!” I protested in a voice which came out rather more of a croak than I liked, “brain damaged prisoners tell no tales.”

“And do prisoners with no brain damage tell tales?” the voice sounded skeptical enough, but a foot went in to intercept the rifle butt. I could smell the leather, steel and unwashed sock as they hovered in front of my nose.

“That depends. Is your perk programme any good?”

“Not much of a dental,” the senior man (I assumed) displayed an uncharacteristic amount of humour, “but we get great life insurance.”

I examined the rifle and the foot attentively. “Can’t very well argue with that.”

The foot withdrew. After a second, the rifle disappeared as well. A hand – human, this time, not clawed, but still immensely strong – grasped the scruff of my neck and hauled. I could either hang by my own shirt collar, or follow. Prudently, I decided to follow.

On my feet again, I inspected the three faces in front of me; one amused but locked under tight control, one canine and expressionless and one bitterly furious.

I was very much caught.

Chapter LXX
In Which We Backtrack A Little, and Take a Stroll

Head up, back straight, I thought, trying to uncurl myself from the ball into which I rolled on the floor. Right. A brilliant strategy in theory, which the human body is simply not programmed to withstand, even when the spirit is willing. My spirit, I assure you, was only too willing, but the flesh, alas, was weak. I did manage a movement of the arm to wipe the blood pouring freely from my nose.

But let us backtrack a little.

For a while, after I left Rostov standing by the side of the road, things were quite easy. The road was narrow, dusty, and ordinary. And very empty. I walked along it, head bowed slightly to keep out the worst of the sun, carrying my large, mostly empty basket, sandals scuffing the dirt. I looked nondescript and insignificant again, the genuine fear once more lending credibility to my disguise.

I made my way through the slums clinging to the city of Shubat Anshar from outside the wall with the cursory habit of one who had been there before – as I had, merely a day prior – without sparing more than a fleeting glance to the hordes of naked, dirty, doomed children and their emaciated, equally dirty mothers. The city wall came up in front of me like a clay forcefield, large and impenetrable, and I slouched even further, trying to conceal my face in the shadow of my scarf.

The soldiers at the gate – a different pair this time from the two on post yesterday – a grizzled older man somewhere close to my age, and a kid no older than Garent, looked as uncomfortable and belligerent as any conquering army amidst too many incomprehensible, mysterious natives. Still, they looked somewhat more wary and alert than they had before.

I stood by the side of the road, frowning thoughtfully

I had no real notion how good a description Auer had provided his soldiers with. Surely, it could not be as good as all that. Out encounter, such as it was, had been brief and superficial; his notice of me more subconscious than aware. For all I knew, he had a mere vague impression of me; a sort of pale, blond whiff of an idea. Perhaps he hadn't even noticed the blond.

The two guards chose exactly that moment to pick on a man entering the city, towing a sort of wheelbarrow. They blocked his road with their guns – the man stared at the weapons with blank fear, notably familiar with them only by a sort of mythical hearsay – and were posing questions to him in what even I could tell was horribly mangled Akkadian. The man was shaking his head more than giving any coherent responses, and these responses he did give were bewildered and, as time passed, annoyed.

The guards' attention wandered. It did a more or less elliptical survey of the area, and fluttered to stare at a girl with promising features carrying a baby. Then a woman approached the gate from the other side.

The soldiers leapt.

The maneouvre was executed in a fashion that, to me, was almost comic as they abandoned the man they’d been perfunctorily harassing and went for the woman trying to leave.

She looked nothing like me; she was small and swarthy and – even accounting for the trials and lifespans of the past – probably a few years my senior. An elderly woman who, by her dress and attitude, was a denizen of the slums that I’d been now departing. She had gone to do business in the city, and was now confronted by these suspicious, angry foreigners when she merely wished to go home.

They thought I was inside. As we suspected, as we hoped, Auer thought I was inside.

I started laughing silently, clutching my hand to my mouth, shuddering helplessly in a surge of almost vicious hysteria, fighting at the same time to both regain control, and relinquish it entirely. Once I traverse this little obstacle, and find myself inside the walls, all moments for emotional unburdening would be very much over.

I quenched the laughter, affixing on my face an expression of blank foolishness. Eyes wandering about, face locked in an expression of permanent bewilderment, as though I could not, quite, grasp the visual input about me. In a last burst of caution, I rubbed a hand across my face; the hand had been grimy, and left streaks of gray dust along my cheeks and eyelids. I was a sight, and no man in his right mind would possibly look at me. They might look at the dirt on my face, I conceded somewhat wryly, but definitely not at me.

I took a step out of the shadows and onto the road, holding on to my blank expression like a shield. Walking at the steady, measured pace of a woman who had nowhere to run to, but would not tarry, I walked up to the guards at the gate. They moved to block my way, and I stopped.

“What d’you think of this one?” the younger soldier examined me under hooded eyelids, and I felt an unprofessional sort of disgust run down my spine. I didn’t like his look, and I didn’t like the look of him.

“Can’t be our woman. Auer told us to be careful because she’s clever. Look at this cow, does she look clever to you?” I smiled at him without exposing my too-good teeth, and held out the token necklace for his inspection. He grunted. ”****, Brown, let her pass. Our woman’s inside, anyway.”

The younger man nodded, smirking at me unpleasantly. Then he moved aside, and waved me in. I ducked my head, to prevent him from examining me further, and scurried. I moved only just fast enough to avoid the well-aimed kick the young man directed at my back. I cowered theatrically, hiding my anger and disgust in the imitation of fear, and ran off, followed by the sound of the older man’s berating. From the little I managed to catch of his scolding, his young partner was downright impervious to chastisement.

I was in.

This time around, I didn’t look for the market, nor did I look about, trying to examine the city. I dodged straight into an alley, a small, shadowed, smelly walkway that cut from the main road in front of the gate towards some buildings I could not really identify, and thought.

First, to make my way further into the city. If I could get caught on the other side of the city, that would be ideal. Though it might seem, to someone with Auer’s devious mind, like overreaching. But I should not be right here, by the gates, nor should I be anywhere near the market where I had been seen yesterday. My capture should look like an accident; a stroke of bad luck, not a setup.

I headed towards the unidentified buildings.

The part of Anshar, which I neglected yesterday, heading straight for the temple, was mostly remarkably colourless and square. Made largely of clay, with a sprinkling of stone, the streets beaten down dust and brown mud where households spilled their excess liquids – I avoided those carefully. Grass straggled through every crack and crevice in the brown dirt, buoyant and wild in the spring. In summer, it would become yellow, dry, and thorny, and would be a hazard for little children. Families lived here, women did laundry on their doorsteps, swept dirt and vermin out into the streets.

I took two or three more turns, crossing a small square with a covered, sloshing well, and a small bridge of logs over a river of unidentified substance, and stopped between two low-slng fences. It was time to make my move.

I wanted to appear obvious, but not too obvious. Firstly, I unwound the skirt I used instead of a kerchief, and wore it under my Akkadian wrap. My hair, loose now from its restraints, hung limp until I gathered it under a woefully insufficient scarf. Finally, out of the basket on my back, I pulled out – hoping that it was not too blatant strategy – my umbrella. If anything, it would not be to theatric for the soldiers. As for Auer, surely he would not be chasing me in the streets in his own wheezy person.

I stepped out of the alley, leaning on my umbrella, feeling, oddly enough, a sensation of almost palpable relief. It was irrational, but I was quite done feeling unsteady and teetering, physically and psychologically.

Thus equipped, I paced slowly along the street. The denizens of Anshar, apparently used to the new profound weirdness of the invaders which burst into their lives, cast me occasional curious glances, more related, I felt, to the fact that I was merely strolling quietly along like normal people than to the odd object in my hand. I looked harmless enough, I supposed, to befuddle them.

For a few minutes, nothing happened. Auer must have had a limit on the amount of soldiers he could place about the city, and he has not considered the living quarters of merchants and small business owners (I am applying, of course, modern terminology to different occupations) to be worthy of inspections. His first mistake, I realized with amusement; like many collectors and connoisseurs of the antique, he had a slight tendency for the grandiose and a disregard of the mundane. It came through in his showman’s technique; he would never find himself in a place like this, with no historical significance or value, with no points of interest, among little, everyday people pruning their vines for spring. Exactly the sort of place I liked and felt safe in.

Only after about twenty minutes, I swerved out of a small street into a larger alleyway, with - I grinned to myself helplessly – obvious urban development in the shape of palms lining the middle. The dirt here was even more closely packed, and little piles indicated a large amount of thoroughfare traffic of the old style.

The alleyway seemed like a good choice. Even if Auer would not patrol the residential neighbourhoods, he would surely not fail to put a few me around the central streets. I nodded to myself, gripped my umbrella firmly, and started walking along the side of the road, face away from the nooning sun.

Wow, people are still reading...

...

What, did you think things were about to get simpler?

A little emphatic, aren't we?

My husband has been sunken into Dragonage for the past two wees. I haven't seen him since.

... Most? My husband and I are guilty of this to expanding levels.

Sofia and Alexander Rabinovich
Fire/Rad and En/En
Costume: Alex has a labcoat occasionally, does that count?

Okay, they are only time travelling a few years into the past, but hey, that still lets them be enigmatic when they want to. Of course they are trying to keep it all quiet... but Alex has occasional slipups.

Lorenzo Mondavi
DM/Shield
Costume: Costumes are for lesser people, he prefers his greatcoat and Nice Hat.

Not precisely a time traveller, in that he got here the long way, but he was trapped in the spirit realms for seventy years, and missed a nice chunk of history along the way. Born in 1868 and trapped in 1938, he has a tendency to be a little on the archaic side. And he has a really nice hat. He also skipped a few years back with the Rabinoviches, which only helped augment that enigmatic mage vibe he had anyway.

Future Mind
Mind/Rad

From some distant future where they no longer use our calendar. She's my subversion on time travel from the future tropes. She was 'driving' home from school one day, went through a wormhole, and got trapped in the infinitesimal chance of getting tossed elsewhere. She fights crime because it's fun, has no doom to prevent, and has absolutely no all-knowing enigmatic vibe going. Her future is neither a utopia nor a dystopia, just a society with its own problems. Tia just happens to be a huge history fan, but, sadly, by whenever-it-is AD things got a little mangled. She is still bemoaning the lack of dinosaurs.

Even I recognized the costume offhand. That is really saying something.

In my experience, most RP is done in supergroups, sometimes in teams.

The D, on the whole, tends to lean towards the more... bizarre and is quite clearly not for everyone (me, personally, it scares witless) though exceptions certainly exist. Sometimes RP happens around universities, markets and the Architect buildings, or so I hear.

Regardless, Virtue is still the hub of RP. It's easier to find an RP SG here than anywhere else. There is a whole swath of them in the thread stickied at the top of this board, and there are several ones that haven't gotten around to adding themselves in yet. Most of these are populated by good RPers and characters that have never sniffed a catgirl.

Feel free to prod me in game(@Genia) for teams, or look into our SG. Though, to be honest, I am hesitant extending any sort of invitations at present because I and my husband are out of game for a few weeks (till next month, probably) due to unforeseen internet provider issues. Still, I never said no to a person who was interested in RP and caught me online.

Good luck and welcome back.

Chapter LXV
In Which a Volunteers Commits to the Gambit With the Proper Posture

“Wait, no. I didn’t mean it like that!” Garent protested.

“You were brilliant,” I said encouragingly. “You went exactly where I wanted you to go, and you were absolutely right going there.”

“Sofia…”

“Madam, it might be a stroke of brilliance, but it’s much too risky. Kushan might be killed.”

“Gah!” Garent groaned, shaking his head rapidly from side to side as though trying to get something despicably nasty out of his hair. “She wasn’t talking about Rostov. I can tell.”

“Rostov might very well be killed on sight,” I agreed easily. “We wouldn’t want that.”

“Then who-- no.” The others were finally catching on. The thought was so preposterous, it took a few minutes to settle down and, at the moment, none of them were thinking – only reacting. I couldn’t blame them; the entire plan was the result of a moment’s inspiration where everything, from beginning to end, was made clear.

I slid down to sit on a rock, and waited for the initial storm to blow over.

I was never much of a chess player. My husband, the mathematician, is quite good at it. He could boast victories; I could only boast not losing spectacularly. I was an indifferent player at best and, when opportunity permitted, much preferred to leave the black-and-white board to the men. But we all played a different sort of chess – the chess of human minds and emotions. And on that much larger chessboard I could hold my own. This chess game was not building up in our favour, but it could still be won, if the right strategies were employed, and the right chesspieces were dispatched. I could see it.

It merely so happened that I was the pawn.

“You might very well be killed on sight, too,” Garent said snappishly.

“I might,” I concurred, shrugging uncomfortably. “But I might not. I might be underestimated.”

“That would only mean they will kill you a little later, once their estimate proves wrong,” Lorenzo said dryly.

I nodded silently, conceding the point, and waited. The waiting took a long time as all three of them racked their minds for other options. It was rather sweet, really, they were so used to protecting me from extreme risks that, to some small degree, they’ve come to believe I was weak. But now strength, in the way we understood the terms, counted for very little, and the ability to protect anyone from anything was nonexistent.

“If a hostage is what is wanted,” Lorenzo said finally, obviously displeased “I should be the one to go.”

“Why you?” Rostov was impassive. The notion of unpleasant decisions was not particularly foreign to any of us, but he, perhaps more than anyone else, had, at present a specific goal in mind. If he could not find a perfect route to the goal, he would take the merely convenient one. Nevertheless, he wanted all the details ironed out.

“Obviously, because Auer wants me above and beyond anybody else. I should make the perfect hostage for the man’s vanity.”

“You are not expendable,” I said simply.

“And you are?”

“For the moment.” I traced a thoughtful finger on the packet of papers lying on the ground at our feet. The implications were obvious; we needed Lorenzo free to act, so that he would be able to interpret the cuneiform – something of which I had no knowledge at all – and then, perhaps, operate the mechanism which allowed time travel. He should be the one to take possession of the gem.

“I should think, with minor alterations, our plan would work just as well as before,” I said briskly. “Instead of Rostov going and opening the passage, I will do it. You three will wait outside as was the plan, and we’ll proceed as usual.”

“What if you get caught and can’t get out, or what if they decide to kill you as revenge?” Rostov inquired sarcastically.

They’ll kill me anyway, I knew but didn’t say, or think. I clutched the handle of my umbrella-walking stick painfully till my knuckles went white, but Lorenzo and Rostov were too busy plotting to notice, and the pain in my knuckles obfuscated my thoughts from Garent’s reach. But not, I thought, before I could wreck havoc inside. The notion didn’t bother me as much as one might think; I was a little fey, my emotions drowned by the sort of adrenaline rush one gets when one slams headfirst into a bungee jump.

“Perhaps a diversion…?” Lorenzo suggested thoughtfully. “If we were to split up, and, say, cause a little noise…”

“That makes sense,” Rostov rubbed his chin thoughtfully, and I winced in displeasure. That method increased my chances, perhaps, but did little to aid theirs. Rostov smirked in eerie delight. “That would make sure they’ll look at someone bigger, wouldn’t it?”

I raised an eyebrow. “Like you?”

“I wouldn’t want them to be shortchanged,” Rostov smirked, and the rest of us winced painfully. I winced perhaps a little more painfully than the rest, contemplating my stature, all meter-and-sixty of it from toe to the disheveled crown of hair on my head. Comparing it mentally to the two-meter soldiers crowding the temple really did not present itself as favourable, right then and there.

I looked down at Auer’s papers and rubbings again. None of the translations, at least, offered much in the way of information regarding the temple’s layout. Most of them- aside from the prophecy account from last night – were general designations of priestly routines, and some scripture-like writing about the glory of Anshar. The Akkadians and Sumerians were not like the Egyptians – they kept their history, their most important things, not on walls in plains sight, but on tablets, stashed away and preserved. A culture of libraries and words. Not of pictures and monuments.

“The hardest part,” Lorenzo was saying gravely when I lifted my head from the papers again, “would be for madam Rabinovich to escape after she is caught, and cross the temple. I do not see what we can do about that.”

“Nothing.” I flicked a hand at the concerned looks the men – including Garent, who somehow managed a concerned look without looking – gave me. “I am going to have to improvise. Perhaps,” I smirked, “I can make, ahem, short work of the little nooks and crannies in there.”

“Ow!” Garent covered his ears theatrically.

I murmured, “I do beg your pardon,” and looked on unrepentantly.

Banter, though empty, was good. Banter kept my mind off of how risky an endeavour this truly was, and how badly dependent on luck. In my entire life, if I could avoid doing that which involved luck, I did; my luck all too often ran sour.

“Okay,” Rostov roused me from my reading only a few minutes later “We should move out. I’ll walk you up over there, and see that you got in.”

“Very well,” I gripped my umbrella and used it to level myself up to my feet.

“Whoa,” Rostov stared at the long, black object in my hand and rolled his eyes. “You can’t take that. You’ll get caught.”

“I want to get caught, Rostov,” I reminded him gently.

“Not until you’re in the city, you don’t. If you come in through the gates, not even a microbe will be able to make it inside after you and we, if you didn’t notice,” he gestured at the three of them, standing in a loose semicircle with Garent at my elbow, “are a little bigger than a bacteria.”

“I can’t leave it, either,” I said, displeased.

Garent bent down, and picked up the woven straw basket which I used to bring food only last night. He offered it to me quietly. “Perfect,” I told him, and slipped my umbrella inside. The curved black handle was barely peeking out of the loose straw and hemp. I strapped the basket to my back, tying it to with a piece of cord and wondered whether I should bother with a few more items.

Probably not. I will be searched thoroughly, I felt certain, and there was no use handing the Fifth anything they didn’t already have.

I held out the packet of documents to Lorenzo, and guided Garent’s hand to rest on his arm.

“Don’t get yourself killed,” he said with outward calm, but his hold on my hand was a death-grip.

“I’ll do my best,” I smiled, and pulled away. Then, remembering in the last second, I lifted the strap of my precious first aid kit from my shoulders, and passed it carefully over his head. He blinked and touched the strap as though he wasn’t sure what it was. “Here you go. You get to carry it till we meet up.”

“You shouldn’t go,” he said a little dully, staring down. I reached out and turned him a little to face me.

“Remember what I told you in Vienna?” I lifted his chin with my free hand until he was looking-not looking straight at me. “Head up, back straight. I’ll see you gentlemen later.”

I spun on my heel, and walked off towards the city, without turning back. After a while Rostov caught up with me.

After a while longer, he swerved off and I continued on my own.

((The Alien Box Invasion has been defeated! Also, Writer Number I is out of the army now, and we return to our regular, three-day schedules.

--Dylan and Genia))

Chapter LXIV
In Which A Cunning Plan Goes Unexpectedly Awry, Again

In the morning, as something of a portent for things to come, we all awoke with a headache. It could have been the drink, but even Garent was robbing at his temples absently, as though to get rid of a minor nuisance. As for me, my head mostly ached from lack of sleep. Rostov seemed a touch wild-eyed with hangover. Or perhaps with anticipation, it was hard to say.

I packed my bag and sorted through it carefully, rewinding bandages, counting supplies and otherwise organizing my personal worst-case scenarios. Our plan, as much of it as we managed to compile last night despite the many obstacles, was rather simplistic; Rostov was to dress in the uniform of a Fifth Columnist that he and Lorenzo killed yesterday – the one with the least obtrusive bullet holes in it – and walk into the temple. There, if he could, he would firstly open the entrance for Lorenzo, Garent and I, and then go seeking after Victor while we went below and worked on the key.

“Just don’t turn your back on anybody,” I pinned down the dead soldier’s insignia while Rostov fastened the straps and neck pads of the helmet.

“I never do. I hear it’s a Fifth Column working health hazard.” His voice was hollow inside the helmet and slightly metallic. “Not covered by the health plan, hehe.”

“I meant to say,” I muttered drily, “that there’s a big bullet hole on the back of your neck.”

“Damn.” He slapped the back of his shoulder where a gash from his own rifle bullets tore into the silksteel fabric of the uniform. I examined it, wondering if we could take the few minutes necessary for me to sew the tear shut, at least (if we could, we should). But, sadly, silksteel is not easily fixed with regular needle and thread, and I certainly didn’t carry around armour-crafting instrumentation.

“You remember how to get there, right, Sofia?”

“Just make sure it’s open on time,” I said patiently. “We’ll do the rest.”

“Sure, sure,” he hefted one of the Fifth Column salvaged rifles; a large specimen with a thick, almost comic barrel which looked like it was specifically designed to make military people laugh. They’d still be laughing when they bled to death, or when the membranes in their ears popped and their eyes came gushing out.

“I’m sure you’ve figured on that,” Lorenzo commented, “but we’re all fairly certain that Auer would be keeping a very close eye on your brother. If you find one, the other should not be too far away. In an adjoining room, perhaps.”

“I’ll just follow the explosions,” I could hear the smirk in Rostov’s voice, even though his face was hidden entirely behind a bug-mask.

“Just be sensible, Kushan,” Lorenzo admonished, looking up from his own intent cleaning of weapons. We might have lacked tablespoons and glasses, but Rostov always carried around a weapon maintenance kit in his pockets. I could only be grateful for the capacious nature of his pockets, though, since shooting seemed an inevitable necessity, and shooting a dirty gun a bad idea. The magazine slid into its place with a soft, oily click.

“Don’t worry, Lorenzo. I know all kinds of military theory. Who was it who said that the point is not to die for your country, but to make the other poor sucker die for his?”

“Patton,” I said softly. “Not in quite these words.”

“Smart man, Patton.”

“One of us should see you get in,” I shuffled my legs tiredly, steadying myself with a hand on a tree trunk. I still ached and trembled from the large amounts of walking, unaided, I had done yesterday. Running around in dark alleys mugging helpless women did not help, either. I wanted to sprawl for a few more hours, at least…

I glanced at Garent and Lorenzo and sighed resignedly. “I’ll walk you.”

We walked to the curb in the road mostly in silence. I was, on the whole, too occupied by trying to keep up with Rostov’s long, eager strides, which he did not curb for my sake. From time to time, I had to almost run to keep up and by the time that Shubat Anshar came into view in the distance, brown and muddy and squat, a large terra-cotta amoeba.

“Okay,” Rostov was even more laconic than usual “See me come through, then take everybody else in while I do my thing.”

I nodded. “Just don’t get yourself killed during the brief period when you actually can.”

“Right now,” he said and slammed the butt of the large Fifth Column rifle he wore at his side, “it’s an acceptable risk.”

There wasn’t much I could say to that.

Rostov departed at a brisk walk, and I sat down cross-legged by the side of the road, watching his progress. The road as far as the eye could see was empty and silent. If it had not been so before Rostov approached, big rifle rocking gently at the crook of his arm, it rapidly became so when he strode past.

I watched him go until he disappeared down the road. I couldn’t tell, from where I sat, whether he made it into the city or not, but Rostov being Rostov, I supposed he had. The soldiers at the gates were bored, perfunctory and slightly confused; all traits which contributed neatly to the general lassitude. People who could not assess the level of threats within the local populace and so, on the one hand, were likely to dismiss any and all weapons but guns as unimportant, and on other others would simply be relieved to see a person who looked, and spoke, like they did.

I hoisted myself up slowly, grinding the point of my umbrella into the packed dirt, and returned back to the camp. .

“Did Rostov make it?” Garent inquired.

“I didn’t think it was necessary to look. Especially since we’re in a bit of a hurry.”

“Not that much of a hurry,” Lorenzo said wryly, pointing to the east, where Rostov had disappeared just a few minutes ago. “Look.”

A tall, dark shape in Fifth Column uniform, totting a rifle, was approaching rapidly, almost running down the slope. Its helmet was off.

Rostov’s hair was in disarray from the running around, and he was breathing hard. For someone in his condition to react in such a manner, he would have had to run all the way from the city. Considering the time that had elapsed since I saw him last – perhaps twenty minutes, in all, considering my own plodding return to the camp – he practically had.

All three of us were on our feet faster than we could inhale. Lorenzo moved instantly, not bothering with his cane, lunging forward to meet Rostov halfway, drawing his gun as he went. I stopped only long enough to grab Garent’s hand, practically twirl him around, and the two of us started off together at a lurching run, my umbrella scraping and tapping on gravel and dirt.

“Kushan!” Lorenzo called out. “What happened?”

“No helmets!” Rostov came to a panting halt, and tossed his own useless helmet down in frustration. “No helmets, dammit. Not the guards at the gate. Not the patrols around it.”

That stopped us cold. The entire plan hinged on the simple assumption that Rostov could pass unrecognized inside the city and gain entrance to the temple. It wasn’t a sophisticated plan, but it was quite solid. Under a helmet, Rostov’s tall frame and heavyset build would merge into the crowd, and he was entirely capable of passing himself for one of the many young, belligerent, xenophobic bigots who sought employment with the Fifth. He had no gaps in his knowledge that they could exploit; most of Auer’s men were American, and, in the words of the man himself, about as competent with German as Rostov.

Now we had to come up with something else that would not get all of us killed.

“We were too late,” Lorenzo grimaced. “Auer must have finally gotten the reports about the missing outpost, and the dead patrol. With his sighting of Madam Rabinovich in the city, it would only stand to reason that he would consider the disappearing uniforms.”

“That’s very nice,” Garent wiped his face exasperatedly, rubbing at his eyes with a tired, annoyed swipe of the back of his hand, “but that doesn’t help us come up with something new.”

“We can still get into the city,” Rostov pointed out. “However it was you were gonna do that when I was out.”

“Into the city, perhaps,” Lorenzo frowned, “but not into the temple. Our purpose is the gem, and the gate to the future. And that is inside the temple. What use would the city be to us, aside from a death-trap?”

“Nothing,” Garent shrugged. “So looks like we’re back where we were, taking Fifth out one by one, and trying not to die.”

“No way,” Rostov clenched and unclenched his fist. If he were anybody else, he would be pounding it. “Auer knows we’re here. If he’s not gonna make Vic pay for every soldier we kill he’s a lot stupider than he’s acted till now. No… If we don’t come up with anything else, I’m gonna try for a commando op tonight, as soon as it gets dark.”

“No,” Lorenzo and I spoke together. This was the first thing I’d said in the conversation; the plans and possibilities were washing over me like waves, and like in waves, I was drowning in them. Apparently my swimming ability in frustrated dialogue is an approximate equivalent of my swimming ability in real water. But that one hit me like a soaked life-preserver. Rostov was right, though: everything we do out here would come out of his brother’s skin. We needed to get into that temple fast.

I clutched Garent’s arm.

“All we need is to get into the temple, right?”

“I think so, madam,” Lorenzo looked at me, his eyes moving slowly as though he were shifting gears for a surprise turn on the road. “What makes you bring it up?”

“Just the temple. Not the city, nor the soldiers in it?” I insisted. “We don’t care about the end of the universe or a temporal paradox; we just want the temple?”

“Anshar is about to be destroyed, at some point in the next fifty years, perhaps as much as a hundred. All evidence or anachronisms will be wiped out. Nothing that happens inside the city should have minimal affect on history in the long run.”

“So, just the temple.”

“Yes, Sofia!” Garent snapped impatiently, the stress and frustration coming through momentarily in his temper. We were all, I reminded myself, wound too tight with fuses grown far too short. “What’s wrong with you today?”

“You tell me,” I said, still not letting go of his wrist. I was leaving pressure marks on his arm but, just for the moment, I didn’t really care. “What’s the fastest way to get into that temple?”

“Well,” he snickered, reaching out to loosen my hand. “I guess we could just walk up and knock on the door and get caught. But that’s just—“

I turned to him, smiling widely with a manic, crooked grin. “Exactly, Garent. Exactly.”

((Still on a weekly schedule, the box invasion continues.We shall resume more frequent posts once the armies of boxes have been defeated.

-The Authors))

Chapter LXII
In Which Alcohol Leads to Nothing Conducive, and Amounts to Notions of Necessary Haste

“I beg your pardon, madam?”

Everybody was peering at me from around the fire. Reactions differed; Garent was confused, Rostov smirking, Lorenzo bemused. Though, in his face, the bemusement slowly was replaced by enlightenment.

“Your coat pockets contain all sort of useless items these days,” I added helpfully. “But only one thing which might be of real use.”

“I don’t see…” Lorenzo frowned. “That is, I see what you are aiming at, but I don’t see how it is relevant.”

“Neither do I,” I admitted rapidly, inscribing a thoughtful semi-circle in the dirt with my thumb. “But the point of the matter is that I don’t know it’s not, either. We never looked. It seems to me that if we were to try and find something inside the temple of Anshar – like a passage entrance – writings from within the temple of Anshar would be a good place to begin.”

“You think they hung a map of the temple on the wall?” Rostov inquired ironically between small sips, “with a big arrow saying ‘you are here’ in cuneiform?”

"And it just so happened to be in that pile?" Lorenzo added with thinly veiled skepticism.

“I think there might be anything there,” I told reasonably, to the no less reasonably inebriated men. “Inscriptions detailing the means to return to the present. An explanation of this absence of magic. Maybe even a recipe for better carp.”

Garent, face contorted into a grimace of distaste, put down my cup, which he had by accident swapped with his – just a fraction out of his current reach, I noted and shifted it closer – added wistfully, “Or better beer.”

“I’ll get it,” I said abruptly, and rose before Lorenzo could get up and strain his knee, or Rostov could fall face first into the fire. No that he looked drunk .it was not nearly far enough along into the night yet. I wondered for a moment whether he remembered that, at this time, he should be wary f drinking the copious amounts of alcohol which affected him not at all in the present.

“And get that whisky bottle, while you’re there!” Rostov shouted behind my back.

I sought the packet of folded papers in the deep outer pocket of Lorenzo’s trenchcoat, rummaging in the dark by touch. Finally, my hands encountered the carefully folded papers. Considering for how long, and how thoroughly, we all forgot about them, it was a wonder they survived and didn’t get thrown out during a tumble, or splashed on by water, or destroyed in any other way. The packet was thick, sturdy and hefty, and I was very curious about its contents.

I considered the whisky. It would have been almost too convenient to refuse Rostov. I have the reputation of a prude, and, in many ways, I live up to it without regrets…

I grimaced and tucked the bottle under an arm.

Prudishness aside, alcohol was some people’s reprieve and, though I’ve never seen Rostov drunk, I certainly saw him drink. If the drink was what took his mind off of foolish notions, or helped him pass the night, well, who was I to stop him? I wasn’t anyone’s mother – not even Garent’s – no matter how often I had to remind myself of that little fact – and I was not anybody’s conscience, either.

I returned to the fire, holding the papers in one hand, and the bottle in the other. The bottle I handed straight to Rostov. Lorenzo held out his hand for the papers and I handed these over as well, with some reluctance. Admittedly, though, my curiousity would be satisfied in due time and I couldn’t read cuneiform. He ruffled through the papers thoughtfully. “And what would you suggest we look for, madam?”

“Anything at all that seems like a plan.”

The sides of his mouth quirked in an odd little smile. "Excuse me while I try and remember the Akkadian for 'step one'."

I settled down again with my knees drawn up against my chest and my face away from the fire. After a few seconds of awkward shuffling, I drew Garent around until his back rested on my knees, and my hand was on his shoulder, allowing him to listen in conveniently. On the whole, I avoid physical contact, but under the circumstances I found the small touch comfortable – even comforting. Comfort was that much harder to come by in the slowly descending silence, with the night growing deeper and deeper around us and the sounds of animals in the distance. I felt very small.

I didn’t know how the others felt. Garent was mostly thoughtful; Lorenzo was occupied with the deciphering of faint rubbings, squinting in the dim glow. Rostov drank steadily.

He poured his first glass without even thinking, and simply inhaled it in one breath. He drank, I thought privately but refrained from commenting even to Garent, like a desperate man. The second time around he was more inclined to share.

“Anyone else want one?”

Garent and I both shook our heads for a pass. I was already feeling slightly lightheaded, and just a touch giddy. Not in the airy, pleasant way that comes with a good mood, but with a sort of hollow heaviness, as though a large, iron sphere in my mind was filled with helium, and leaking - a giddiness that would lead to hysteria and tears, more than laughter. It was a good place to stop.

“I hope you’re not going to do something silly after drinking all this stuff,” Garent observed, voicing, for who knows what time, the thoughts we were too reticent to say out loud. “Run off and try to blow the city up, or something.”

“Nah,” Rostov reached for the bottle again. “That’s stupid. The two things that you definitely can’t be when going on a military op are angry, and sad. And I’m both right now.”

“Heh,” said Garent, a touch uncomfortably.

“Actually, the third thing you’re not supposed to be is drunk. But I can’t get drunk. And anyway, I’ve not nearly drunk enough yet.” Rostov raised his cup, staring at it thoughtfully as if he were about to find answers to the eternal questions of the universe in them, “Bottoms up.”

From the other end of the fire, Lorenzo raised his half-empty cup in a silent salute.

He had been staring at the papers in his hands for a while unobtrusively, and occasionally frowning, but in all the elapsed time had not joined into the conversation, looking up only occasionally to reach for food or sip from what Rostov gulped.

“Anything interesting in there?” I inquired, jerking my chin slightly at the papers.

“Nothing… conducive.” In the dictionary I’ve compiled for Mr. Mondavi, this read something like: ‘nothing that I care to comment about either due to overabundance of people or due to my inability to pretend to know everything’. I had to stop myself from commenting on that, which meant I was probably more affected by the drink than I cared to admit, even to myself.

“Too bad. The more we know, the faster we act. And in our case, the faster the better.”

“Is it?” Lorenzo looked up from the papers, and slowly finished off his glass. “It seems to me that time and guerilla warfare is on our side. Auer and his people are, perforce, spread thin. We’ve eliminated, what. Eight so far?”

“Sh—Seven.” Rostov slurred. I blinked at him and quirked my mouth.

“Seven, then. Surely he would run out of people before all is said and done.”

“And we’ll run out of Victor, hehe.” Rostov toasted an invisible foe with a perfunctory sort of salute, somewhere in the vicinity of his nose.

“I think we’d better take that bottle away from him,” Garent grinned, deciphering the slurring and the slightly glazed look from my mental commentary which I, for once, chose not to block.

“Wha’ bottle?” Rostov’s hand patted the ground by his side, and there was the clinking of vacant glass.

“That bottle,” I said dryly. “Are you drunk enough now?”

“Nuh uh… The drunk keeps me from getting demoned. I mean…” Rostov stopped, and frowned in oddly intense concentration. “The demon keeps me from getting drunk. Kept me...?" He stared at the glass for a few moments as the reality of the situation sunk in. I don't know what he expected; he wouldn't make his Faustian deal for another five millennia, so it wouldn't be watching him now, and whatever curse it put on him was probably blocked with everything else.

"I mean… we gotta hostage situation, right? So we don’t jus’ siddown and wait for th’basterds to kill the hostage… We go and…liberate… a couple more bottles of thi’stuff. Damn, this feels good,” he said, almost clearly, the drunken slur subsumed under a momentary exertion of customary, almost second nature control. Then he closed his eyes and lay back, basking in the fire and the sensation of alcohol-induced release. "Been years."

For the second time that night, there was an atypical, oppressive silence. I stared at the fire, thinking.

Rostov was right, of course; the only way to deal with a hostage situation was rapidly, and decisively, but he was not nailing the most frightening possibilities and the most profound imperatives why we should move fast. Rostov, no matter his cautious nature, was not a normal man living in a normal world. He didn’t fear the things that haunted the life of every normal person, day and night. He didn’t fear the little accidents that end in disaster, and the random incidents that culminate in profound loss.

I realized, at that moment, that the way we behaved, evrythign that happened, was because of a very simple reason; I was not braver than anyone, nor more determined, nor more prepared. I simply lived with the fears of normalcy like a fish lives with water. I was afraid of broken bones, and snakebites, and a bullet that went just that little bit too close. I was terrified of dysentery and plague and rabid bites and mutated influenza and smallpox. Every day we spent here increased our risk for something – not even the Fifth, but some accident of fate, one of the many hazards of the past – could just as easily end it all for us.

“Is he asleep?” Garent blinked his eyes several times in confusion. “Sofia? Sofia?”

“Hm? Sorry,” I shook myself out of some almost preternatural stupour a combination of lassitude and depression which was almost chemically paralyzing. “Perhaps he is. Perhaps he’s just pretending. Don’t disturb him, either way. In fact, we should all follow his good example.”

“We should.” Garent concealed a yawn with the back of his hand. “I’m pretty tired. And we have a long day tomorrow, though I’m sort of surprised that you were also in favour of hurrying up. Is it because of Vic?”

I smiled grimly. “I can think of worse reasons than Vic.”

“Like what?”

“Nothing conducive.” I lurched to my feet, feeling the pins and needles, and held out a hand to him. “Come on. Let’s think of rest.”

((The Authors apologize for the delay, and blame the box invasion from outer space.

Thank you.))

Chapter LXI
In Which Carp Is A Dish best Served Cold

The air was syrupy and cold, and the fire we made, in the purplish darkness, was a little too red and eerie. Damp logs crackled occasionally with an ominous crunch and a shower of sparks decorated the night sky like fireworks, or flash grenades.

By this point, we had a routine almost as set in stone as the cuneiform of the time – it held so long as the sky was clear and no rain was imminent – in which we were all involved in dinner to our best ability. Rostov cooked, Lorenzo helped out, and Garent kept us all company. As for me…

“Sofia,” Rostov’s voice cut through my musings sharply. “You’re not watching that pot.”

I returned my attention to the wooden flat stick which I used instead of a spoon, and the crockery dish glowing suspiciously amid the open flames. “Relax. I have it on the best authority that you cannot ruin lentils.”

“Go on, walk away from there for twenty minutes, and then I’m gonna make you eat that soup. All of it,” Rostov threatened from where he was rummaging in my basket and what was left of our packs. I sighed, stuck my makeshift spoon into the pot and stirred dutifully, not really taking my eyes off of the tall mercenary’s back.

If he were anyone else, he would be hurling blunt – or perhaps sharp – objects at something, or smacking his open fist – or perhaps closed – at rocks. If he were someone else, more inclined to the expression of feelings and opinions as many men these days tend to be, he would be fuming, or sunken into a deep, helpless depression. It would not be surprising, for the reception of ill news and poor luck seldom travels through a person’s mind without a reaction of some kind. It is almost never received placidly. Always, there is an element of response; anger, silence, shock, tears.

Since this was Rostov, however, not a single one of these occurred. One would have thought – could have thought, if it weren’t me – that he was simply overhearing the reading of a rather poor, clichéd narrative, in which the characters are doing the expected deeds, taking the expected steps and, insofar as the reader is concerned, thinking the expected thoughts.

Since I am who I am, though, I was not entirely fooled. It was difficult to gauge Rostov’s reaction throughout my telling, but from the abruptness of his motions as he threw new wood on the fire, I could read some of the skillfully pent-up anger.

“You can’t burn lentils,” I informed the interested onlookers stubbornly.

“You just never tried to burn lentils,” said Rostov emphatically. “Vic can burn anything, and he doesn’t even need to set it on fire special. He thinks that a meal that takes fifteen minutes to cook is way too slow to bother with, so he decides to go do something else…”

We all – even Garent, whose knowledge of food and its preparation came entirely from television – groaned.

“He burned eggs,” concluded Rostov morosely.

There was a momentary, uncomfortable silence, during which we each prudently returned to our business; I, to adding some precious, modern salt to the soup, Lorenzo and Garent to putting away bits of cannibalized armour and Rostov to rummaging in my purchases.

“Hey. What’s that?”

Ah. Rostov discovered the beer.

I decided on the purchase after a brief contemplation and, really, for the same reason that the natives drank the stuff; the water of the period harboured its own dangers, and water filters other than charcoal or sand were somewhere in the distant future, together with germ theory and antibiotics. I did carry around a small amount of water disinfection pills – throw a pill into a bucket or crock of water and, soon enough, you get a pail of flat and unappealing liquid which tastes like chlorine but would not, presumably, kill you – but the packet in my bag was growing smaller and smaller.

Haunted by visions of anything from crippling dysentery to Plague, I finally decided that, under the circumstances, alcohol was our best solution to the problem.

“I looked for wine,” I said apologetically, “but this seems to be the season of no wine in the marketplaces. The natives must be stocked. I realize this probably isn't the best option out there...”

“Is it made of boot soles, madam?” Lorenzo sniffed at the gourd Rostov brought around experimentally.

“Barley, I think. Or maybe hair,” I added judiciously after a moment of cautious consideration and measured inhaling, “I could've misinterpreted it.”

“Then you have nothing to worry about.” He gave us a small smile and added, "I've drunk worse."

“Does it have alcohol in it?” Rostov's face was almost eager.

“It's a beer, Rostov,” I said in exasperation, and winced as he selected a large... container (calling it a glass would have imposed diminutive proportions on a truly remarkable girth).

“Then I don't really care what's it made of.”

That seemed to be the general consensus. Lorenzo and Rostov didn’t care what it was made of; they were going to drink it. Garent, from his end, displayed an equal lack of concern for the organic makeup of the beverage; he wouldn’t touch it, no matter what.

Dinner worked out. That, I thought as I nibbled at the food, was saying something, since the amount of sheer inventiveness and improvisation required in its preparation was approximately similar to that employed by NASA engineers during a crisis in orbit. We had no spoons or pots or pans or containers or forks or plates or any of a thousand little things without which the assembly and serving of a meal, even in the most primitive circumstances, was deemed impossible.

The feat was made all the more impressive because, for a change, we ate well. Our diet of the previous days largely consisted of scraps, leftovers, scrounged greens and water. Compared to the modern man, our caloric intake was rather on the slim side, and our activity had not lessened for it. We were all beginning to look a little gray around the edges without even considering disease, tiredness or combat wear.

But I could not allow such gloomy, somber thoughts to intrude upon the fish.

I reminded myself to remind Garent to be careful of the little bones – carp, as a river fish, is bony and tends to cause little Heimlich-necessitating accidents – and poked at my own crisp, leaf-wrapped half of a spectacular specimen. My mind decided that it had had enough seriousness for the day, and the olfactory centers took over for awhile.

The evening seemed to be more or less destined for a sort of denial-induced reprieve. I was not altogether certain that I approved, but a small part of my brain, tired and frustrated to the bone, was altogether pleased with the solution. I should have been worried about that; I was, on the whole, as disinclined as anyone to attempt unproductive denial. Sadly, or perhaps luckily, circumstances considered, Lorenzo had never been a man for small talk, or denial.

“You don’t think,” He said carefully, “that Vcitor’s cooperating with the Fifth is a safety concern for us?”

My mood plunged from delighted contemplation of the inherent fallacy of nihilism in the face of well-prepared fish, back to the confines of the present – or is it the past? – and the concerns therein. I took a bite.

“Hey, he’s my brother, okay? Not this Auer’s.” Rostov was unphased, at least on the face of it, as he slowly drained his container of beer and poured himself a new dose. “He can wear that damn uniform, and say the damn words, and he can do it for twenty years, but if after twenty years I show up and say ‘Hey Vic, time to go’ he’s gonna punch that sucker in the face and walk out.”

Family loyalty is a Kushan thing. Always been a Kushan thing. It was, as I recalled, on the bloody family motto. Rostov had every right to be adamant.

That didn’t mean that the rest of us should not be concerned.

It was not merely concern for Victor’s loyalty; it was also, quite obviously, concern for his health. I glanced at Lorenzo, who was unobtrusively playing with his fedora, and saw the same worry there. If Auer becomes too concerned, or feels we might be closing in on him, it would be all too likely that he would use Victor for the purpose for which he must have trapped him.

If Vic became a real hostage, what would Rostov do?

“What we need,” said Lorenzo, turning his own cup thoughtfully between his fingers, “is a plan.”

“Are you going to pull one out of your hat for us?” Garent smirked.

“Alas, Mr. Ward, my hat lacks such convenient capabilities.” He took a sip to hide a smirk. “It would not even fit a rabbit, much less a plan.”

Rostov gulped his drink down again, and reached for the beer. “But it’s such a nice hat.”

“We all have our limitations, Mr. Kushan,” said Lorenzo sadly.

I frowned. Something was nagging at the back of my brain. Something about pulling rabbits out of hats. My memory is excellent – not Lorenzo’s eidetic ability, but near enough to suit my everyday needs – but it was human and thus associative. Even the best of memories tend to have an occasional problem calling up the right facts at the right time. So what was it about hats?

I stared at the bearer of the hat, eyes unfocused, nibbling gently on a somewhat dirty nail, and allowed my associative thinking to kick in. I always thought the hat and coat attire was… I blinked.

“If your hat can’t provide us with a plan,” I said in a faintly-mocking faintly-reproachful toe, “could your coat try?”

The answer to your question is "Mu".

It's Mu for two reasons:
-Firstly posting a question like this on the boards will, as a rule, generate considerably more agreement with the OP than disagreement. And because going by what is, essentially, vox populo in these matters is irrelevant.
-Secondly because to an extent it depends on circumstances, understandings and agreements.

If you ask for my opinion regarding a created name, I would have to set myself somewhere between Heroid and the "relinquished is abandoned". There is a concept in Jewish law, dealing with losses, which is rather similar to what you have here. By law, if you find an object in the street, you are supposed to attempt to return it to its owners. Not returning it constitutes theft. There are two exceptions, however; if you cannot identify the owner of the object, that is, if it bears no identifying marks, then you cannot be expected to pull out a miracle out of your sleeve. So, to give an example, money constitutes an object which cannot be identified and thus should not be returned, because all money is the same, but a wallet with a sum of money is already identifiable, and can be returned to its proper owner. In addition, there is the concept of 'abandoned'.

Abandonment happens in two ways; either you have attempted to return the object by posting notes in the street, inquiring around, and so on for a prolonged period of time(by prolonged we mean quite lengthy; the precise duration varies but several moths seems to be the general consensus), or the person who lost the object said, explicitly, with his mouth, that he abandons it. Now, as a curious point, you did not need to have heard it; he could have said it to himself in his room. Nonetheless, abandoned it is. Once an object had been explicitly abandoned, it cannot be reclaimed.

I apply the concept to the issue of names with some judicious modifications.

Names in the game are objects of some value. They are a limited resource, which involves sometimes a substantial amount of effort. That, I think, is undisputed, because otherwise we would not need the Name Watch thread in the first place. It is also quite clear that initially a name belongs to its creator/owner. Just as clearly, since this case came up, we cannot think of the Name Watch thread as automatic abandonment.

Since they are objects of value, putting them out to the public should not automatically constitute abandonment. Just as no one would be insane enough to simply give up on a large sum of money and cards, so would one not wish to simply let a name fly merely because at present they cannot use it. If you "return" a name, which is clearly identifiable (uniquely so) it's only right that its original owner should claim it before abandonment occurs. If you do not remember who presented you with the name, it is possible to put up a note saying "I intend to re-release a name, its previous owner can receive it by signs."

The answer to your actual question, that is to your case (since I don't really believe in generalities) is:
*How long have you used the name, and how long has it been out of use?
*Has the person ever said, to you or elsewhere, that they no longer want the name?
*Did you have an agreement of what was to be done with the name in case you did not use it?
*Do you know who gave you the name, and can easily get in touch with them, or do you no longer remember?

In short, without knowing the details of your case but looking merely at generalities, since a name is the result of a creative process of significance and has value, caution should be exercised in what you do with it, if only for the sake of courtesy.

Chapter LX
In Which A Return Journey Takes an Unexpected Detour, and Reaches an Unexpected Conclusion

They say that one cannot ever know another person until one walked a mile in their shoes. Walking several miles in another woman’s shoes – well, sandals – made me think rather little of the Akkadians, as a whole.

By the time I had returned back to our little camp, the sun was heavily edging west, and its slant sent painful light into my eyes. I squinted against the still-too-bright sunlight, and stumbled along the main road almost in a daze. My feet, I felt certain, would not carry me any more. The only thing keeping me more or less upright was sheer determination. The heavy basket which I still held – now full almost to capacity – strapped to my back, did little to alleviate my tiredness.

I would have been home an hour or perhaps more ago, but it seemed as though some secret cauldron had boiled over, and the Fifth had spilled out of it en masse, bubbling and excited. I was dodging horse and foot patrols most afternoon, diverting my route to little paths and scrambling through brambles of thorns – of which the Middle East has a not-insignificant abundance – and palm trees.

Once, while I was resting, breathless and aching, by the side of the road in the shade of a rock, a Fifth patrol galloped on lathered horses right over my head. I scuttled back into the brush, not even needing to fake the fear and astonishment on my face as the horses’ hooves racketed and thudded in the very spot which my body had occupied moments before. I cringed and huddled over my basket protectively, and relaxed a little only after a smug, sneering soldier told his comrades they had no ammunition to spare on natives that day.

The dread that the patrols aroused in me was, frankly, downright disproportionate. The frightening notion that the three men might’ve been picked up, taken prisoner, shot, and that I was left alone to wait practically inevitable capture made me hurry along even though I really couldn’t have. So I was striding down the road to our campsite as rapidly as I could, barely looking to the sides, when a tall, male, gun toting figure sprung out at me from behind a stretch of bushes.

I threw a hand up in warning, and quickly drew down the cloth that covered my hair. The sun reflected conveniently off the light colour, and the gun barrel promptly dropped.

“Hey, Sofia!” Rostov waves at me with his free hand. “What took you so long?”

“Shopping,” I informed him blandly, and swung the heavy basket off my shoulder, stretching relieved and almost paralyzed muscles. “Here. You can carry the groceries.”

He picked up my basket with no visible effort and peered inside. “Ah, dinner. Next time, go to a supermarket, Sofia. We were getting a little edgy. We have a timetable, you know.”

I didn’t, but I would not be altogether surprised if Rostov has devised one of his own while we weren’t watching, with little taglines like ‘acceptable time without a shower’ in it. “I’ve been dodging Fifth Columnists,” I said sourly, pointing back the way I came. “They multiplied along the roads as though someone used bug spray on them. Almost got trampled by a horse. I might have the hoofprints to show for it.”

We cleared the trees and, for a moment, I felt relief flood over my gloomy mood and hover in a thin layer, like oil on water. The scene was downright domestic; Lorenzo was wiping away specks of something on his sword, and Garent was holding the sheaf on his knees while sorting by touch through a pile of cloth and plastic. There was a subtle undertone of tension there, like a coiled spring hoarding elastic energy. At the sound of Riostov and my shoes crunching through the brush they both looked up from their tasks, and I thought I saw momentary relief flash across both faces.

Garent was the slightly more obvious one; his relief, I suspected, had as much to do with his discomfort at being dependent on the two men for information about the world around him as with the fact of my safe return. I did not begrudge him the touch of egotism, though, for a moment, I felt an almost overwhelming wave of tiredness and depression. My head was not a pretty place to be in. I clamped down on the events of the day, as well as the present momentary weakness, shoving them back all the way into my subconscious, where no amount of telepathy could get at them and dig them out. Then I went over to say my hellos.

“Sofia!” Garent practically bounded up with the closest thing to excitement I’ve ever seen out of the phlegmatic temperament he naturally possessed. I caught his hand to steady him over the rough ground, and literally felt the heavy focus of his psionic concentration shift back in my direction.

“Madam,” Lorenzo dropped the cloth he was using, and I thought I could see his brows draw down as a small measure of tension left his face and rigid posture. “I hope you have good news for us.”

“I’ve got some.”

He slumped slightly. In the rapidly fading light, he seemed suddenly very tired, and beaten. In fact, now that I looked more closely at him rather than at Garent – as was my first, automatic inclination – I noticed the bruises and the scratches and the long, angry red band around his neck.

“I saw—“ I closed my mouth with a snap and dropped to peer more closely. “My God. What happened to you?”

“We had a small ambush,” he smiled wryly.

“We were the small ambush,” Garent countered stoutly, feeling around for the sword sheaf he dropped.

“My God,” I repeated again, quite unnecessarily. “And Rostov?”

“Just a few bullet grazes and the like,” he shook his head thoughtfully. “We cannot afford serious injuries of any kind.”

I shuddered. We could not. The thought of treating a serious wound or sickness all on my own with limited supplies made my face bathe in cold sweat. This anticipation of bad luck – of which we seemed to have plenty – was chilling in ad of itself. It would suffice for one of us to be off their feet, and we would all be as good as dead.

“What about you?” I spun Garent around lightly, looking for concealed signs of assault and battery, but, for once, there were none. “At least they were not stupid enough to get you embroiled in this.”

“Oh, I was along. Lorenzo took care of it,” Garent’s face registered a momentary bleakness, and he fumbled slightly, lacing his fingers together, then prying them apart with an effort of will. The gesture was small enough to be almost unnoticeable, yet it conveyed nervousness and frustration all at once. I had a feeling it was not meant to be noticed; Garent, as is sometimes the case, was losing a small part of his ability to assess what other people could and could not detect. I wondered at the details of the day, eyeing the raw, purple bruise on Lorenzo’s neck. “It seemed to be okay. Lorenzo didn’t tell me he was hurt, though.”

I shook my head at the obvious response that followed and his ‘it was nothing worth mentioning’ got somewhat stuck in his throat. In no small amount, I suspected, because the throat hurt considerably after being used for a choke-hold.

“Stay here. I’ll get my things. And get Rostov to sit in one place as well.”

Buoyed by these firm instructions, I managed to work my way to where my bag was sitting, abandoned and forlorn, rather innocuously. When I returned, the fire was slowly taking from Rostov’s flint, and my basket was busily unpacked by three enthusiastic and hungry males. Even Garent displayed more than his usual share of excitement when contemplating a meal. I sorted through my equipment, coming out with the almost completely empty bottle of ethyl alcohol and bandages, as well as a non-regulation spool of catgut and needles. As an EMT I was not supposed to sew up wounds; I was supposed to bandage them and get the patient to a hospital where more professional people than I would stick needles into them under anesthesia, but I was prone to finding myself in circumstances where that was simply not practical.

I had been in the business of fixing people up for a long time. By now, I suppose, I have the experience of several ER physicians, and the skills of at least a paramedic. If I were ever inclined to spend two years of my life getting a certificate I’d never need or use, I could easily re-qualify. But I didn’t, and I hadn’t. Instead I simply got into the habit of being successful enough never to warrant attention – or a lawsuit.

“What happened in Shubat Anshar?”

I bit off a small piece of thin line and threaded it through my needle. “Which news do you want first, the good or the bad?”

“We could all use a break from the routine,” Lorenzo said wryly.

“All right. The good news is that Shubat Anshar seems mostly undisturbed. Except for one rather public, well-staged execution, we are not dealing with a reign of terror.”

“Auer is smarter than that,” Lorenzo commented mildly as I examined the bullet graze on Rostov’s shin. It was more of a burn than a wound, for his luck, except in one spot where the ricochet sent a piece of sharp rock surprisingly deep into the leg. The small piece did not embed itself in the muscle, but under Rostov’s hastily wrapped bandage the wound was surprisingly jagged and penetrating.

I dabbed cloth in alcohol, narrowing my eyes at it in the firelight. “That was precisely my thought. Do you need an anesthetic?”

“Nah,” Rostov shrugged his shoulders with discomfort under the detailed attention lavished on a minor wound. “It’s all blocked out.”

“Boys and their toys,” I commented dryly, satisfied. Rostov’s cybernetics and modifications were not particularly extensive compared to the large amount displayed by some super soldiers or mad scientists, but they were certainly convenient. I had not inquired into the mechanics of his pain blocker so long as it served its purpose. “The other two pieces of good news I have are that, firstly, the Fifth appear to be wearing their helmets in town as well as on patrol. At least they were when I last saw them. And, secondly, there is a rather neat side-entrance into the central temple.”

“What’s this, now?” Rostov’s lazy voice became suddenly considerably more alert. His military penchant for planning, and responsibility as the group’s strategists, were now fully engaged. He poked the fire with a stick several times, and stared down at me.

“A semi-secret passage leading, so I figure, from the back of the temple. It’s not guarded.”

“How convenient,” Rostov drawled sarcastically, then hissed as I splashed alcohol on his raw wound.

“Um… Why isn’t it guarded?” Garent reached his hands out to the fire cautiously. He must have been listening in through Lorenzo’s ears while I was working and constantly out of range and out of reach.

“An excellent question.” I took a hold of my needle and drew three neat, straight stitches through Rostov’s leg, holding the flaps of the wound together with the tips of my fingers. I yanked on the needlework in one swift motion, drawing it together and tying it off before Rostov could move, or even flinch reflexively. “And so I come to my bad news. Sadly, the passage appears to be opened only from the inside.”

“What use is it to us, then?”

“We still have the Fifth Column uniforms we acquired,” Lorenzo pointed out, “And Mr. Kushan still fits them. If we plan it right, we should be able to wait for him at the right place when he opens the tunnel from inside. That is not in the nature of bad news, madam. It’s merely a small inconvenience.”

“There’s more,” I moved down along the campfire while Rostov, now deemed as healthy as he could be, returned to rummaging among the supplies. “I think – in fact, I am fairly certain – that I was seen.”

“How?”

I told them about the execution-spectacle, and about the Warwolf, omitting for some reason I couldn’t really explain the part about my escape. Perhaps it was Garent’s presence which inhibited me. He knew I was not a good person… yet, sometimes, I was reluctant to expose him to a callous reality. He was – still is – an idealist in a vast measure about everyone, most of all himself.

“So how did you get away?” Garent asked curiously.

“Luck, I suppose,” I said evenly, avoiding looking in his direction under the convenient pretext of spreading a disinfecting and anesthetic cream on Lorenzo’s neck. In a way it was; my good luck, another person’s bad luck. “And one last thing…”

I think perhaps only Lorenzo caught the small, almost inaudible note in my voice which was a warning sign for something truly unpleasant. We were, both of us, the sort of people who delivered the most unpleasant news in a voice very similar to that in which we ordered our coffee and croissant. “What thing is that?” He asked cautiously.

I looked directly at Rostov who was busy slicing up an onion with his machete.

“I saw Victor.”

Well, I and my husband are on European time(GMT +2) and we play with quite a few people whose schedule tends toward late night... but we are already running an SG/VG combination, and with our limitatinos on playtime joining another would not be feasible.

Feel free to look us up for RP, though.

Chapter LVIV
In Which The Inescapable Looms, and Tears Are Aided By An Onion

I dodged into an alley. The crowds dispersed behind my back, and trickled off while I stood, catching my breath from the brief but difficult sprint, and considered my options.

Not running. The short span I attempted was an apt demonstration of my disability. The long day on my feet without any support was already making me wobble and lean on walls for balance; right now, it was all I could do not to sit where I stood. Either way, even if I were my old, middle-aged academic self, I couldn’t hope to outrun a Warwolf.

No, what I needed was a plan. The Warwolf would track me from where I stood, by scent as much as sight.

I stared down at my shawl and skirt, then darted out into a wider alley.

There were people walking along the road. Some of them carrying baskets, some of them pulling donkeys or small carts on rough, circular wheels. Men carrying wide loads on their backs, and women with bags strapped on their chest. I exhaled. Sumer had not yet reached the stage in human history when the gender inequality had become such that women were practically never seen on the street. They were, of course, the property of their men, but they were permitted to walk the streets on their own.

I hunted for a woman about my size. That was more difficult to find than one would think; many of the women running busily around barely reached my shoulder. I was in a hurry, but if I were to make a sloppy job of it, the results would be just as bad as if I hadn’t tried at all. I needed a woman who would not be too small, yet not so large that she would have the advantage of me. I passed on a tall, thin woman with a donkey; the fate of anything I took with me, or left behind me, would be sordid. There was no reason to condemn the animal for life in the wild or collateral death.

Then I spotted a taller, slightly broader woman, carrying a large oval woven basket strapped to her back. The basket was full of something, and she leaned forward under the considerable weight.

I grinned to myself, looking about. Then I snatched a rock from the unpaved ground, and followed.

For a few minutes, she and I dodged each other in the crowds. That was fine; the Warwolf and his nose would be somewhat confused by the odours of people, dirt, vegetables and strong smell of fish. Then she swerved a corner, and I hurried after her.

I saw where she was going; a small, tight little passageway between houses. The place was perfect. I hid my hands under my poncho, one holding on to the rock, and the other reaching for the small knife at my waist. Then I quickened my steps to reach the place before my quarry did.

She was much steadier on her feet, but I had no load of a heavy basket to carry.

I dodged between a large man and a pottery urn, and a nearby wall, when I saw my woman leaning on the corner of a house, resting before hefting the basket onto her back again. She leaned forward, eyes downcast, and I darted inside and away in a swirl of ridiculous skirts.

The alley was just narrow enough for two people to hedge forward, breast to breast. I leapt a small pool of rank water and raced toward the bright rectangle of its other end. I spun around dangerously on my heel, grabbed a clay wall for support, and turned around just as the woman walled in. She hefted her large basket with one hand, keeping it away from the walls. I nodded to her courteously from the other end, and she made a vague motion of a hand – a sort of perfunctory wave – at me from the other. Two women, taking a shortcut, greeting each other from a distance, blinded by the light.

We drew abreast. In the narrow passage, we were practically pressed against each other. My foot went sideways. There was a loud squawk and a thump as the woman was sent face down onto the ground. The basket dropped from her back and rolled open, spilling round items across the dirt. She stirred, and started to rise. I whipped out my hand with the knife, and pressed it against the back of her neck. The woman froze. I pursed my lips, and drew out my other hand.

“I’m sorry,” I said with all the sincerity I possess. Then I hit her over the head.

There was a tiny sound, almost like a kitten, and then she passed out. I tossed the rock away, laid down the knife, and began stripping her with slightly shaking hands, with nervous glances at the entrance to the alley. From this spot, I could have no way of knowing where the Warwolf was, and how close to me he had gotten. I was not very far from the place where I had been seen – and apparently, recognized – and he could be on us at any moment.

I switched out her skirt for mine. The woman was apparently taller than the one Rostov and Lorenzo had taken the clothes off of in the first place; her skirt reached down almost to mid-calf, and her poncho, draped over my shirt, covered the palms of my hands. I left my makeshift head-cover in place – it was telltale, but my hair would be doubly so. At least the brown colour could not be detected from afar. Then I dressed the other woman in my castoffs and painstakingly dragged her by the armpits to the entrance into the alley.

I sat her up carefully and shook her by the shoulder. She moaned and stared at me blearily. Out of sheer, reflexive habit, in a gesture that had, objectively, something from the mockery, I glanced at her slightly dilated pupils, searching for signs of concussion. Then I shook myself out of my pathetic delusions, and darted over to where the basket still lay, its contents spilled about.

I knelt to gather up some of the round items. Now that I was looking, I could see what they were. Onions. Perfect.

I sliced up several of the larger onions with my knife, dropping them onto the bottom of the basket. Then followed suit with a fragment of the rest of the load, wincing at the astringent smell and wiping my eyes. Then I picked up the basket, and took a deep breath.

When I strode out into the marketplace again, mere five minutes later, I was collected and serene, carrying my much lighter basket of pungent onions prominently. I strode slowly between the stalls with my bartered purse of copper and silver, gathering up vegetables, fruit and ground flour. I skipped the meat with a shudder of revulsion, doubting anyone else would mind.

The Warwolf loped into the market a few minutes later, carried on a wave of hushed terror.

I had to remind myself forcibly to resume sorting through the lettuce batches I held in my hands. I couldn’t, however, make myself turn away from the sight.

The Warwolf sniffed delicately in the air. It hesitated, looking confused and a little overwhelmed, then started circling the market, its strides purposeful. The large, lupine head occasionally darted down to peer into a stall then withdrew, people scattering and produce overthrown.

I swallowed a bout of fear nausea, and held out the payment for my lettuces, stashing them in my newly acquired basket with hands that felt nerveless.

Then the Warwolf tensed, and darted sideways. Slowly, with a relish of deliberation, the Warwolf followed an invisible trail, coming to a halt at the mouth of the alley. There was an ear-shattering roar and it pivoted, sending a claw into the murk, and coming out with my robbed victim, hanging helplessly in mid air, dizzy and disoriented and confused, the fear turning her face into a white mask.

I clenched my teeth and moved on to a large barrel of fish.

The Warwolf carried the anonymous woman boldly through the marketplace, and the throngs of people opened before it like some macabre red sea. The woman dangled, feet bumping the ground, crying out in pain as they did. Her eyes, for the brief moments that I could see them, were wide and mad and tormented.

The temptation to turn away and disappear into the consolation of carp was tremendous, but I stood completely still, one hand on the top of the cool, wooden barrel, and looked on.

In truth, I was rather pessimistic. If I were Auer – and, it seemed, he and I were not without common traits and modes of thought – I would not for a moment be fooled by the Warwolf’s quarry.

Indeed, no. It would simply tell Auer that his enemies were nearly – or perhaps not even nearly – as ruthless as himself. Would it, I wondered, put him on edge, or would it make him more complacent and comfortable, assured that he can predict our moves merely by calculating his own?

I had no desire to be Auer’s equal.

So I stood there, and refused to turn away, hoping somehow that this alone would make me different from him.

I wasn’t very convinced.

Just in a quick look-see online, I found a collection of American dialects hosted by the Library of Congress here: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/linguistics/

Some British dialects: http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/dialects/

A collection of links: http://www.peevish.co.uk/slang/links.htm

I confess, the notion of scouring the net for dialect resources never occurred to me, even while I was working on them in class (Linguist here). On the whole, I am vaguelly opposed to dialects in RP since the inability to actually render them correctly bugs me.

Howeve, here are a few suggestions for you:

Firstly, if you turn to Rabbi Google and use as your input the specific dialect you are looking for plus the word "dialect" or "Resourse or a combination of the above, you are bound to get significant results. I know there is a Scots Language page. http://www.scotslanguage.com/ And there are bound to be similar resources for Irish, Aussie and a large part of the American local dialects. I saw a handy site or Italian dialects around, as well.

Secondly, there are some general linguistics resources I can suggest which provide a certain amount of phonetic information about a language (if you know how to read these, it's fairly equivalent to putting one's hands on an accent resource) Just reading off of my list of favourites, I can suggest linguistlist.com and the tower of babel at http://starling.rinet.ru/ as well as Ethnologue (which was an invaluable resource for me during my studies) at http://www.ethnologue.com/.

The marked advantage of these sites as compared to layman's knowledge, is that they often also provide syntactic and semantic variations, not merely phonetic ones. Of course, being professional resources, they are much harderto navigate in order to find the specific information you are looking for, as well as significantly more cumbersome to read.

Chapter LVII
In Which A Show Plays Out

I am not altogether certain what drew his attention. Perhaps I forgot to slump, perhaps the light reflected too brightly off of my pale face – compared to the rest of the crowd, mostly suntanned and naturally inclined to a darker skin I was an anomaly – perhaps it was precisely the observation skills of a proficient historian who noticed the appearance and carriage of a lady rising out of a tradeswoman's garb. I am not certain, and I never did find out. I can merely deduce and rationalize his behaviour in accordance to my own. He did almost precisely what I would have done and so, perhaps, had noticed what I had noticed.

I should have looked away. I should have looked horrified, or at least awed. But, in the second or so it took for me and Auer to stare at each other all I could think of was him, and us. Trying to get past the skull and the flesh and the nerves and touch the essence of my enemy's mind, that disembodied no-substance that governed his deeds and thoughts and abilities.

Auer frowned, and I woke up from my daydream. The entire incident was a mere seconds' length, and as ephemeral as the air, yet I was not in a position to expose myself, not even by so minor an infraction as a glance, or a breath. Afraid that Auer will notice the unusual blue of my eyes, or, perhaps worse, read the hidden, simmering anger in them, I lowered my glance first. He blinked, and sought me out, but I was already stepping back into the crowd, concealed by large hairdos and tall hats, by the bodies and faces of other men and women.

I saw Auer shrug slightly, and turn away. Apparently pulling someone from the crowds suddenly was not a part of his theatrical routine, and he was not much for improvisation. So much the better for me. I faded further into the crowds.

The momentary hesitation had not detracted from Auer's performance any. In fact, it gave him a more sinister air s he slowly strode along, and stopped – together with his Warwolf – in front of the line of prisoners. He spoke to them curtly, and most of them, except the woman, straightened up abruptly.

The warwolf growled lowly, and swiped an eloquent claw in the air. Auer smiled, a thin and unamused smirk. “Patience, my large friend,” he patted the warwolf's arm familiarly. “The niceties must be observed.”

He turned to the audience, spread his hands in a dramatic gesture, and began speaking in a deep, sonorous voice indicative of an experience as an orator, or vocal training. Perhaps also indicative of smartly concealed microphones and amplifiers, though I had no real way of knowing that.

His Akkadian, from what I could tell with my limitations of phonetics and lack of vocabulary, was superb, although I could clearly hear the Germanic accent underneath the Semitic consonants. He spoke just a little too clearly and precisely – a person speaking a foreign language – but I had to admire the man's facility. He was not beginning from zero for, as a collector of antiquities and connoisseur, he might've learned it before, but it is seldom that an adult can learn a language well in a matter of months.

In fact, I only knew of one person who, in similar circumstances, could have done a similar thing; myself.

I tore my eyes away from him, and looked over at the group of people the Column dragged out of the temple and put on display.

I knew what was coming. I had known what was coming from the very beginning. This was no mere social display – Auer had n interest in such – this was both a courtroom and an execution.

I examined the ten or so men and single woman with academic interest. The woman, who drew my attention first, was not remarkable in any way – a fact that made her, and this performance for the public's delectation, quite remarkable. The ornaments that must have been in her graying hair were removed and she looked sallow. But, contrary to my expectations from the vast majority of the Columnists, her clothes were altogether intact; the small rips and tears in them more likely the result of everyday erosion and a spot of rough living than actual manhandling.

The men were all different. It was impossible to tell by sight who and what they were, except for one very large, gloomy fellow with a severed hand. I couldn’t recall offhand any statute of punishment in the Hammurabi Codex (which wasn’t written yet anyway) but handless lunatics tended to have been found guilty of theft.

Immediately next to him was a small, cowering, nervous man who, for al his waxed – now slightly rumpled – Sumerian beard, looked nothing so much as an accountant, or a clerk. The large chain with which the prisoners were connected to each other dangled off of a spindly, thin leg, and almost dragged him down bodily. I snickered, imagining his verdict: executed under the offence of punctilious bookkeeping.

To say that my sympathy towards the prisoners was overwhelming would, frankly, be an exaggeration. To say that I was inclined, even for a moment, to abandon my disguise and rush to their aid would be folly. I could not even – since I didn’t understand Auer's speech – form an opinion as to these people’s innocence or guilt. I did not know these people's sins, but I knew how reigns of terror looked and this was not it.

How inclined would a newly established dictator, in order to appear benevolent, be to at least mix his political opposition in with real criminals? I would. I reflected with a modicum of amusement, that Auer was clearly taking a leaf out of Pratchett’s book – books, actually – on how a tyrant today would ensure his own employment as a tyrant tomorrow.

I narrowed my eyes against the glare of the projector and the sun, and clasped my hands behind my back to watch.

By the end of Auer's speech, the men looked frightened, and the woman was hysterical. He stepped back from the light of the projector and into relative shadow, motioning for the warwolf to advance. I heard him say, quietly, though audibly above the murmur of the crowd, “the woman first.”

I was expecting a firing squad. There were enough men with rifles there to lay waste to the pitiful throng in seconds, but that was not what happened.

The warwolf loped towards the prisoners easily, the remnants of humanity in his face filled with dreadful exhilaration that made me both wary and ill. He extended a large, muscular hand, claws outthrust, and swiped once. Cleanly as an executioner's axe, with the efficiency of a guillotine, the woman's neck was severed. The wolf's claws had gone through flesh and artery and the fragile bones of the spine, emerging in the back, covered completely with rapidly darkening blood.

There was an audible gasp of – appreciation? Fear? Maybe both – from the crowds. The woman’s head rolled and bounced off the cobbles, stopping almost surreally a few centimeters in front of the sandaled toes of the first line.

Blood spurted from the woman’s severed neck, and coloured the cobblestones crimson.

The line of prisoners shuddered. The Warwolf turned, and swiped again. A man’s head rolled off, mouth open to scream in surprise and horror. The silence in the crowd was now profound; I thought, from my spot towards the front, that people had forgotten to even breathe. I wondered at it. Surely brutal executions were part of this ancient culture which barely edged in to what we could call “civilization’. Nonetheless, I supposed, swords were nothing to this particular execution. It was more akin to the drawing and quartering by horses in its feel… But, surely, even the vilest of horses could not display such joy at their work.

Minutes later, it was all over. The small heap of severed heads, eyes open, mouths occasionally gaping grotesquely, piled in front of the line of dead bodies.

Auer turned around abruptly, and gestured. The projector light dimmed, and the square was bathed now only in regular sunlight. The soldiers, impassive underneath their helmets, hefted their rifles expectantly, but nobody made an attempt to move.

“Clean up,” Auer said in a low, brisk voice. “Dispose of the bodies. Find their families or something. Do not bother to put them up on pikes; all we need presently is an outburst of the plague.”

I glanced quickly around, seeking out the small form by the generator. Victor had been whistling something I didn’t recognize to himself before. I didn’t expect for him to do much else; he was, in some ways, the worst kind of innocent – one who didn’t truly process other people’s pain. He was not evil – that definition is much too simplistic and trite to apply to people – but the potential was there. Far greater and more frightening than it had ever been in his mercenary brother, for all his cynical, jaded nature.

He was eyeing the heap of bodies with an expression that was not frightened, but slightly thoughtful. As though they were an illustration to a point that had been made, and was not given good examples.

I turned away reluctantly. There was nothing I could do for him, either.

The crowds were beginning to scatter. Slowly, warily, people on the edges began to drift off to their daily tasks. The center still stood, but there were small waves of movement going inside. I looked round, and started threading my way between several people out to the marketplace. The 5th were pulling workers for body cleanup, and I did not want to be caught in a random work-gang under the spotlight.

The Warwolf, on the other hand, disappeared entirely.

I frowned, pushing out with my elbows, swimming with the tide of people like a sardine neatly packaged into a can, head first and eyes slightly bulging. Shouldn’t the Warwolf be out there, supervising something? Then I saw him; he was moving around the edges of the crowd, bent almost double, nose twitching.

Uh oh.

I’d underestimated Auer’s skills and memory. Apparently, the strange woman he saw continued nagging at him, at least subliminally, and he decided it would be wise to track her down, sending the Warwolf to do just that. By scent, I realized. Perhaps he didn’t quite remember what I’d looked like. With the speed of a desperate eel – the fishy metaphors simply wouldn’t leave my head – I dodged out of my path, and back towards the alleys branching from the square to the seedier parts of the market.

The show was clearly over. It was time to go.