B.T.V. -- Session 01 Epilogue: Dragons Gather

Bamboo has been trying for some hours to describe his Master’s mood, and the word he finally decided on was “exasperated.”


The Lyorn cub had felt his Master Asher Zi’s happiness when Lyra had come to his room to inform him his friend Selidor of Law had finally awoken from a two-week sleep, caused seemingly by mental exhaustion from overuse of decanting. His Master had spent the two weeks dividing his time between watching over the Law Lord, as had Selidor’s desired mate, Lyra, a Stig sergeant, and making treks around Adhrilanka, finding the variety of ghosts the city hosted and cataloguing them, which was his Master’s way of describing making a list. Too much time spent with a learned friend like Selidor seemed to give his Master aspirations of sounding smarter than he was. Bamboo knew Asher had spent some time in the past studying “vocabulary,” a needlessly fancy name for words, to prepare for a disguise, and that he had reasons for his current pose, but he hadn’t shared them yet with either Finndo, who had a wonderful cape full of interesting scents that Bamboo liked to chew on, and Selidor, who did not. The Law Lord seemed to only ever smell of soap, a sour odour to Bamboo’s nose. He’d commented on that to Master one day.


“Yeah, like his shit don’t stink,” Master had answered with a sarcastic, but not begrudging, tone.


Lyra had come to Master’s room to report on Selidor, where Finndo, the Law Lord’s cousin, and Feddex, the Jhereg who in theory owned the Carriage Crashed Inn, happened to be assembled.


Finndo had asked if Selidor was back to his old self, and Lyra said that seemed to be the case. Master had seemed both happy and a little disappointed at the same time. Finndo left to check on Selidor, and Lyra left the inn, saying she would return the next day if not sooner to check on her suitor. Feddex, meanwhile, went for drinks. Bamboo thought about asking Master for meatballs, but had eaten not long again, and Asher had warned him too much of the treat wouldn’t be good for him. Bamboo knew this couldn’t be true but humoured his master.


Before she left, Lyra said they had to consider the Empress’s lady in waiting, who had disappeared from the Emperor’s Progress locacobra as Master, Selidor and Finndo had rescued the Empress from the clutches of Colonel Jade and the Jhereg Lord Uilverforce. Bamboo shuddered at the memory of the Jenoine. They’d smelled very odd indeed, he recalled.


Bamboo followed Asher to Selidor’s room, finding him awake. Asher asked if the Law Lord remembered everything from his two weeks asleep.


“I would imagine I should do so when we are all gathered,” Selidor said, and proceeded to do so after Finndo arrived, along with Feddex, who had brought a tray of drinks. But no meatballs.


“You’re looking pretty well,” Finndo told his cousin. “The mind can be like that.” Master explained how Finndo had been helping him along, with what he called “training” and what Bamboo thought of as “play.” He wished he could play along with them, but decided he’d really have to wait for his horn to come in before doing so.


“Who’s for some food?” Feddex asked, and Bamboo had hopes of meatballs, but no. Instead the tray held some kind of bread with honey on it, a honey pot, a bowl of strawberries and a clear broth, the last the only one smelling of some kind of meat. “One must admit to a certain hunger,” Selidor allowed before tearing into the breakfast. Bamboo had asked master why Selidor spoke like that, instead of saying “I” and “me,” but he hadn’t been sure. He’d thought at first it was just pretentious, but now he believed it might some kind of “defence mechanism,” whatever that might be. Bamboo knew some animals shit on predators when caught. Maybe it was like that.


Bamboo has asked Asher, who always seemed a little irritated by the way Selidor spoke, why they were friends. Master had told him it was a mark of friendship that you put up with the other’s irritating traits, and he was sure Finndo and Selidor felt the same way about some of Asher’s habits. Master admitted he sometimes played up those habits just to annoy his friends. Finndo thought he used too many big words, so Asher just used more. Bamboo thought doing that might be a bad idea, but kept that to himself.


Selidor had asked for news, things that had happened while he’d been asleep. He could tell Master and Finndo were a little astonished by the volume that came out of Feddex. The Jhereg, who Master had decided to trust for now, had been “most public in doing things.”


Barricades had been erected on locacobra lines coming into the city, Feddex said, and Uilverforce had been removed from potentially sitting someday on the Jhereg council. Master had been surprised, not realizing the Empress could decide that, given the Jhereg tendency to ignore laws they didn’t agree with. Maybe a decree from the Empress overrode that.


Because of the barricades, trade between cities had essentially halted, Feddex said. Asher thought that must only be over land, because the airships and sea ships of the Orca wouldn’t be hindered by the locacobras being stymied for now. The Jenoine who had been involved in the attempt to abduct the Empress while stealing the Emperor’s Progress had seemingly vanished, and the crimes were under investigation.





A Yendi, by which Feddex meant Bamboo’s first Master, the Lyorn realized, was still wandering around Adhrilanka, but only occasionally was seen, once in Barrowcleft and most recently between Yarddocks and Charhollow. Master told Bamboo he still wanted to track down First Master, when he had a chance, and the Lyorn was happy about that. Duke Elric, as Mythic the ancient Dragon know wanted to be known—Bamboo knew Master changed names from time to time, so why not others—had been recognized by the Empress as a Duke of the House of the Dragon, which had made some other Dragonlords unhappy.


Feddex said Master and his friends had been talking about things Easterners shouldn’t, but now everybody seemed to believe that the Cycle might be about to change, with a new Emperor or Empress taking power. The Dragon Duke of Stiketto was coming to Adhrilanka because of that, and the Dragon Duke of Aeglesnakt was interested. A delegation from Stikketo was due shortly, via the Veinous Sea.


Finndo and Selidor seemed astonished by how much Feddex knew, but Master figured he knew a spy when he saw one from the start. The interesting part would be finding out if he was working for someone else, or just trying to follow his fortune for now with the Easterners, since the Jhereg, from Karrion, was also new to the capital city.


“I didn’t know you were that good a spy,” Finndo told Feddex with more than a hint of suspicion. “Keep it up.”


Feddex had replied, “I do what I can.”


Finndo asked about the other Duchies of the Empire, but Feddex said he hadn’t heard anything about those yet. The Jhereg added, with a hint of amusement, that the scarlet coach stolen from the emissary of the Fenarian king had been found, and it was being driven around by a Verdosau.


“What of Harata and his death?” Selidor asked. He’d killed that Lyorn duke in a duel aboard the Emperor’s Progress.


“You have killed a duke?” Feddex asked.


“We Easterners get up to all sort of deviltry,” Finndo answered lightly. Feddex didn’t like that, and Master said he was reminded how little his new friends knew about Draegerans.


Finndo noted the duke had been accompanied by his three sisters.

“Ah, yes,” Feddex replied. “They are known for their predations.”


That seemed to perk Finndo’s interest, and Bamboo smelled an excited scent from him. Asher reminded Selidor, “I did tell you he was likely to be revivified.”


Selidor asked if Harata would have to come to Adhrilanka for that, but Feddex said the duke was likely to have his own resources, and that Spirit Wardens would travel outside the city, though not always for just anyone.


A small cadre of the Wardens was in Karrion, he noted, but they weren’t as dominant as they were in Adhrilanka. Elsewhere, they were available in only limited numbers. “May I raise a matter of inconvenience?” Selidor asked. “I speak of the only Jhereg in the room.”


Bamboo saw Master and Finndo shoot odd looks at the Law Lord.


Selidor, not taking the hint, said he understood Jheregs to be untrustworthy. “You loyalty I find to be undecided.”


Bamboo was happy he was with Master, who rewarded him with meatballs, rather than Selidor, who seemed to offer only suspicion to Feddex. The lyorn knew Master as suspicious of everyone as well, but tried not to show it so openly.


“I?” Feddex asked, dramatically. “The owner of the Carriage Crashed Inn?”


His tone seemed light, but Bamboo could smell a sour odour coming from the Jhereg. He didn’t know if Feddex was offended, or just unhappy to be suspected and that Selidor was right.


Selidor asked what the differences were between Karrion and Adhrilanka. Many Jhereg had tried to kill Master and his friends in the capital.

Feddex said Karrion had more Easterners, wasn’t as prosperous as Adhrilanka and was “more unsavory,” with more bodies in the streets.


Selidor said, “My cousin is far more worldly than myself.” He asked if “matters of confidence” should be discussed in front of Feddex.


Feddex, admitting, “I have yet to prove my value to you,” left the room instead of waiting on Finndo. “I will go to collect more information for you.”


Master told Bamboo that he found Selidor’s direct approach odd, but often useful. Selidor asked for forgiveness if he spoke to openly, but added, “The air must be cleared.”


Selidor noted he had a clear memory of escorting the Empress’s handmaiden to her ruler before leaving again on the locacobra.


Finndo said he’d been talking to the Empress, which triggered a fair bit of astonishment from Master, and that the handmaiden had gone to another chamber in the carriage occupied by Zerika the Fourth. Selidor’s cousin speculated that Colonel Jade and the Jenoine, or two Jhereg who had escaped toward the rear of the train from Selidor’s slaughter in the dining car, had abducted the woman.


The investigation was now in the hands of Third Floor Relic, a group of individuals sometimes call on by the Empress for special missions. This again was known to Master, but only as a deep secret of the Empire. The Empress seemed to be sharing a lot with Finndo. On consideration, Master decided that shouldn’t be as surprising as he had thought.


Selidor then explained his experience over the last two weeks, saying he had fallen into a trap in his Ziggurat, whatever that was, by Vaxus, who turned out to be his previously unknown twin brother.


“I’ve heard that name,” Finndo confessed. Master hadn’t.

Selidor said he had as well, but only in certain prophetic writings of Law which predicted a being would rise out of shadow to become the commander or general of the forces of Darkness.


“He is a being counter to myself in many ways,” Selidor continued. While he was a child of Law and Amber, Vaxus was somehow the product of Light and Darkness, but tended toward the latter.


Bamboo yawned. No one noticed but Master, who shared his sympathies.


The conversation, Selidor remarked, “was contemptuous in tone, as if I was expected to apologize for a crime I was unaware of.”


He noted his father, Gerard of Amber, had come to the Ziggurat to try to explain, and Vaxus had vanished when he had. Gerard confirmed Vaxus’s claim to be Selidor’s brother, though. Before he had departed, Vaxus had spoken to Gerard as if a hurt child to a parent.


Finndo said that Gerard had also visited Adhrilanka recently, having left only just before Selidor awoke.


Selidor speculated that Gerard could do so, without being reconstituted via Splinters, because of the Jewel of Judgment he wore, and Finndo agreed.


Finndo added that Gerard had related how he had alluded to the Jewel’s power to force someone to tell the truth, and only then had Vaxus disappeared.


Selidor said he’d been left alone with his father, but their conversation focused on how the Law Lord would escape the trap set by Vaxus. That wouldn’t have been the case had they met in body rather than just spirit.


Part of finding a course out of the Ziggurat had involved a gift from his father of “Portal Armour,” allowing him to better navigate the paths within. In doing so, Selidor said he’d come across a “Shard” of great significance that would allow him to reconstitute someone or something from as little as one or two Splinters, rather than four or five. This Shard was “A piece of the Unicorn,” he said, and Finndo sank into a chair in apparent shock.


Selidor’s cousin, after a few moments, then mentioned Gerard had been concerned Vaxus might use the absence of Selidor’s mind and spirit to occupy the Law Lord’s body.


“Perhaps that was the nature of the traps,” Selidor answered.


He went on to say his experienced has raised concerns about his “thaumaturgy,” a fancy word for decanting, Bamboo noted after Master questioned the meaning of it. Selidor had calculated that a portal requiring four to seven steps resulted in only a 43.9 percent chance of succeeding. That wasn’t good enough for him, which surprised Master not at all.


Selidor said he would seek other ways to work his portal decanting.


Finndo admitted that this reminded him that Selidor was of the same generation of Amber he was, and in some ways in advance of him.


Selidor pointed out the “current situation” might have brought him to Axildusk less powerful than he had been, and perhaps the Law Lord could find a way to correct that. Master certainly thought Finndo was already powerful, and wondered how much greater Finndo might have been, Bamboo realized.


Master then turned over a Splinter he had found during his journeys through Adhrilanka in the last week, and Selidor said he would investigate when he had recovered his strength.


Master became puzzled right after that, and stayed that way for several hours, as Selidor said his first artist had to be to commission a portrait of Lyra.


Asher warned doing that could get the Stig sergeant into trouble, since she was a Draegeran and Selidor was an Easterner—or at least looked like one, Master said in an aside to Bamboo.


All three then talked about the possibility of taking over a human kingdom as more of Selidor’s family arrived. Master tried to steer them away from Arylle. They decided they needed Random’s advice before choosing one, and Selidor claimed two or three of his other relatives could usurp or conquer a nation within a week.


Finndo asked what Selidor would do if he reconstituted Oberon, the first king of Amber who Gerard now sought to replace on that throne.


“I found Oberon to be kingly and of reasonable nature,” Selidor answered. “One has already pledged one’s allegiance in this to one’s father.”


Master mentioned that “one’s” could be either Gerard, or the father of any of the other of the Amberites, though Selidor clarified he planned to reconstitute his father as soon as possible.


“If only Oberon had a son who would be willing to do such a thing for him,” Finndo said, somewhat wistfully. “I am struck all of a sudden by the fact you are a sorcerer. As there was in the beginning with the Dwarf Dworkin, and he brought many things to fruition in Amber.


“We do not know how Oberon and Gerard came into being.”


Selidor said he also had to bring some of the Lords of Law to Axildusk. Lucifer was already here, he revealed, and Bamboo recalled a faint sulfurous aroma. “Lucifer is about. He is active. He has come to Axildusk.


“One has pledged to bring another Lord of Law, and one will seek to bring Donblas.”



Finndo asked how the pledge had been made to, and Selidor revealed if was someone named Quelch. Bamboo thought that sounded like a boot going into a puddle.


Selidor also promised Finndo he would search for every member of their family he could, except for Brand, who was a “supplicant of Chaos.”


“One is not crafted of affection, brother,” he told Finndo. “One has biases. It is a disgust, a palpable regurgitation of the foulest of products.”


However, he allowed, “It would be good to have a sister,” and Fiona might be the next Amberite to join them.


Asked about his plans, Master said he would go to the Glassworks to order more Pentaglobes, since five of his six were full. Then he would seek out Noxster, the Jhereg assassin who had first tried to kill him and then engaged in other activities with him in his room. Finndo suggested Selidor go along for the exercise, and Master agreed it was a good idea.


Selidor and Master find three Jhereg bravoes outside the inn staring at its sign with some hostility, Bamboo thought, but they took no action, maybe because Staffy was at the entrance, guarding it. Master took Selidor past the cliff below a slaughterhouse, a slope full of wondrous smells, but Bamboo stuck with Asher despite the temptation. Selidor seemed to take objection to the aromas, but the lyorn didn’t know why.


Soon they came to the Glassworks, where Master planned to order more Pentaglobes, but first they encountered a Dragon soldier dressed in black, who accosted them and demanded to know where they were going.


Master explained they were from the inn and were going to the manufactory to retrieve some glasses that had been ordered, which was sort of true. The soldier made no effort to hide his dislike for them, and Bamboo could smell the animosity in the air, but he let them pass.


Inside the Glassworks, the owner revealed another Drifter was in the city and was staying at the White Lantern Inn, not far aware. Bamboo could sense Master’s interest in that. But then Asher realized he didn’t have the Imperials on him to pay for what he needed, and neither did Selidor, so they left again.


Outside the door they almost ran into the same soldier and a Dragon noble he was speaking to.


“Here’s one of them now,” Bamboo heard the soldier saying about Selidor, in that Master had made a sharp turn and headed away from the scene.


“You are an Easterner of some distinction?” the noble inquired.


“Are you an Draegeran of some distinction?” Selidor answered, to the soldier’s aggravation.


“I make allowances for Easterners,” the noble stated. “Is your uniform indicative of your kingdom?”


Master had stopped, realizing Selidor hadn’t followed him, and started to return to his friend.


“The Kingdom of Law,” Selidor answered.


The noble, who they’d later discover was a member of the Dragon lineage of Avernus, said, “I am a traveler. I am from Stikketo. You interest me, Easterner.”


Master realized this noble was probably part of the expected Duke’s retinue. “Did you obtain these garments somewhere in the city?” the noble asked next. When Selidor indicated he had not, the noble continued, “I was not aware of new kingdoms being formed.


“Give him some Imperials,” he instructed the soldier, and the noble walked away. “It is wise to keep a civil tongue in your head,” the soldier instructed Selidor, who in response held out his open hand in anticipation of the promised coins. The soldier turns and walks away, but the Law Lord kicks a pebble between the Dragon’s legs, and he immediately stalks back.


“What’s the idea?” he demanded.


“One is still awaiting. He said to give me coinage for the aid I presented.”



This was when Master started to wonder about how well his friend had recovered from his two weeks of slumber.


“Kicking a pebble doesn’t seem at all like Selidor,” he told Bamboo.


Meanwhile, the soldier was telling Selidor, “We certainly have our words in order today, don’t we?”


“Order is certainly the word of the day.”


“He didn’t say how much to pay you, so….”


Selidor said he presumed the noble thought the soldier intelligent enough to set the amount, though perhaps he wasn’t.


“You’re fortunate I didn’t expose you for the charlatan you are,” the soldier retorted. He knew there was no Kingdom of Law on Axildusk, he pretended. “Lying to one of the Dragons is not a good way to stay alive.”


Selidor admitted the soldier was correct when it came to the word, “Kingdom.”


“It is a council.”


The soldier, pretending he had no more time to waste, disappeared in a teleport. Master knew that involved some effort, and that Draegerans didn’t do lightly, so he led Selidor along the route the noble had gone to Derrick Street, and then saw two Dragon soldiers running south toward the Night Market. They followed, and those two joined two more on the cobblestones outside Nul Lane, where that dreadful Great Weapon stood, its tip buried in a crack in the pavement.


The soldiers went into the lane, between two buildings, and Master hurried on, followed by Selidor.


Arriving at the lane, they saw the recently-encountered Avernus noble grasping the hilt of the sword, writhing in pain, and two soldiers trying to wrestle him away from the blade. They were joined by the soldier Selidor had had words with, while the fourth held back.


“Help him,” this last soldier ordered, but Master and Selidor just shrugged. Then a female noble, dressed as an officer, appeared on the scene, and admitted their delegation had been advised not to go near it.


Asher pointed out earlier adventures who had tried to take the Great Weapon had disappeared, and the noble and three soldiers promptly did so.


The woman, taking an interest in them that Master wasn’t so happy with, asked after a tavern that would welcome both Draegerans and Easterners.


Master said the White Lantern was nearby, and had the better reputation, but that he preferred the Carriage Crashed Inn.


She has a soldier give Master five Imperials, and then goes toward the night market, saying she will report to her father, who Master assumes must be the Duke of Stikketo. Master again follows toward the Night Market, meaning to speak to their acquaintance Inspector Paulonia. Instead, they find him already talking to two of the Duke’s soldiers. “I’m getting used to the sword’s teleporting habits,” he assured the anxious soldiers, who seemed unhappy with his bland responses. “These gentlemen have had a fair bit to do with the sword,” he added, indicating Master and Selidor, mentioning they had slain a Jenoine at the same spot.


“Stikketo has had its own encounters with Jenoine,” a soldier replied.


“It is not often we get visitors from Stikketo,” the inspector said in turn. “You’re something of a breath of fresh air.”


He added, in response to questions, that while he was with the Imperial army, he was also detached from it, to their confusion.


“Detached,” one countered. “You don’t seem interested at all.”


The two soldiers go inside the Night Market.


The inspector then confided that all of the Avernus line had arrived in the city, and that the younger brother of the duke, Authra rela’Avernus, was inside the market, as was the female officer they had met shortly before.


“She of the interesting ears,” the inspector described her.


Inspecting Master’s new garb, he added, “You have something of the Dragon about you.”


A team of giant goats drawing a giant carriage, or was it a wagon, taller than it was wise rushed down the street, coming to a halt just before the three men. A soldier jumps off and comes stalking over to the inspector.


“I have the Discreet in the coach,” he asserted.


Paulonia related that an attendant to the Duke of Stikketo had been teleported somewhere by Nul, and the soldier was displeased.


“The duke will be displeased,” the soldier observed, then returned to the coach and stuck his head inside. In response, a man almost seven feet tall and white of hair, appearing old for a Draegeran, emerged with his ornate staff of office.


\“Is he an advisor to the Duke?” Selidor asked.


“More a counselor than an advisor,” Master answered, and the Discreet in question, initially appearing irritated by the exchange, became less so in apparent agreement with the description.


As the Discreet, Civienrele of Avernus, strode toward them, the solider ordered, “Make way for the Discreet of Stiketto.”


No one made to move, and the inspector observed, “It is a large entrance.”


“What’s wrong with this city?” the soldier demanded in frustration.


The Discreet seemed more interested in where the duke’s attendant had disappeared from, and the inspector replied it was just a few buildings up Derrick Street.


“Don’t touch it,” he added in warning.


“There should be walls built around it!” the soldier declared, but the inspector just shrugged.


“These are the ways of Adhrilanka,” the Discreet advised the solider. “We are victims of our own circumstances.”


He then went into the Night Market, the soldier scurrying to precede him.


“Now that coach is a problem,” the inspector states, noting it was too tall for the city’s traffic regulations. He proceeded to write a summons for the offence.


Just after that, a Jhereg steps out of the market and begs help from Master and Selidor. “One hundred Imperials,” he offers, and then, after a short silence, “each?”


His mistress needs a diversion so she can get out of the market without being seen by the members of the delegation from Stikketo.


“She is not a member of my house,” he assures the uncertain Master and Selidor, and Asher agrees to the arrangement.


“I’ll just pretend there might be a ghost in the market, and move the delegation off that way,” Master confided to Bamboo, but Selidor, as it turned out, had his own plans. He heads directly to the female officer, who is standing with the Discreet, and offers them the opportunity to see his great weapon, and its use.


Master snickers in his mind for some reason, and Bamboo gets the joke a moment later. They agree and move to a more open area, and a raven-haired Dragon appears from a stall and hurries past Master, saying as she passed, “Excellently done.” She flees the market, and the Jhereg hands Master two bags full of Imperials, but for some reason takes Asher’s purse and its nine Imperials with him. Master shrugs, still happy with the exchange.


“I’ll just hang onto Selidor’s money,” he tells Bamboo. “He’s in no fit state to be spending coins.”


Bamboo sent a wordless query, and Master replies, “Taking a commission from a Jhereg, even in a good cause, and we don’t know this is one, seems odd for our friend.” Meanwhile, Selidor had drawn Massartu and gone through a series of exercises, to the seeming gratification of the woman.


“The Lady Iiya thanks you for this display,” the Discreet informed Selidor.


“It is well you carry this weapon, the Lady Iiya added. “It is unknown to us.”


“It is Massartu, the Vigilant Guard,” Selidor stated. “Welcome to Adhrilanka, my lady.”


“We are here to speak to the Phoenix Empress,” Iiya confided. “At least, my father is here to do so.”


“Have you seen the Empress?” the Discreet asked, putting Master on alert.


“Why would he ask that of an Easterner, unless he already knew,” Master explained to Bamboo.


Selidor admitted he had, two weeks earlier.


“I will know your name, Easterner,” Iiya demanded, and the soldiers around her gasped, though quietly.


“I am Selidor of Law.”


“We are pleased to make your acquaintance,” the Discreet says as the lady departs, saying he would suggested she mention Selidor to his duke.


As Master and Selidor leave the market, they see the inspector still outside, putting papers on the wagon. A soldier is angry, demanding to know how he can move the wagon given it had somehow suddenly acquired a damaged wheel.


The inspector, who Master suspected had something to do with the vandalism, at least in looking the other way, suggested that didn’t matter. If the wagon was not moved in a quarter of an hour, another summons would be issued.


“Might one suggest a palanquin?” Selidor suggested to the soldier, and the inspector smiled at that.


They return toward their inn along Derrick Street, but Master plans to stop at the glassworks on the way and use his money, as well as some “borrowed” from Selidor, to pay for the new Pentaglobes, but then they see the dark-haired Dragon and her Jhereg servant ahead, on the near side of the Ruby Red Bridge. The lady departs, crossing the bridge, followed by the longing gaze of her servant.



Selidor said to him, “Might one offer small sustenance to the heart? Rank are as subjects to passions as any other.”


The Jhereg makes no secret of his affection for his mistress, but insists any relationship between them is impossible due to Draegeran mores.


“It can never be,” he states emphatically. “She is far greater than I. I have others I can dally with. These are the strictures of my society. Otherwise it would be chaos.”



Master sees no reaction to Selidor’s least-favourite word, and again wonders.


“You were particularly useful,” the Jhereg tells Selidor and, pointing to his sword, asks, “Does it speak to you?”


Selidor admits it has not, and Master suggests, “It is not yet wakened, then.”


The servant then asked Master if he is with the other Drifter from up the street, and Asher allows he is not, but is interested in meeting this colleague.


The Jhereg said the Drifter was planning to free one of the derricks along the street of three ghosts, and should get a rich reward as a result.


Master told Bamboo, “I know what it is like to face three at once. I think I will offer my help to this Drifter, but not today, since I’m concerned about Selidor. I don’t want to leave him alone in this condition.”


“What condition is that, Master?”


“I’m still deciding,” Master answered.


Selidor then inquires after portrait artists, and the Jhereg replied he could take the Law Lord to one he knew.


“That seems convenient,” Master confided to Bamboo.


The Jhereg led them across several bridges to Charterhall, and then to a small building within that precinct. He told them the artist was within, and then departed.


Inside they found an Orca woman, who confirmed she was the artist in question, and Master started to come to a conclusion. He decided to let this play out for amusement’s sake.


Selidor confided he wished a “private” portrait, and the artist affirmed that was her specialty. She took the Law Lord into a private room, and Master instructed Bamboo to wander over to a place next to the door and lie down as if for a nap, while listening in. “Give me your hand,” the artist instructed. “I wish to get a feeling for you, the commissioner of this portrait.”


Selidor indicated he wished “a discrete painting of a lady who has captured my heart.” The Orca asked, “Where will it be kept? Perhaps below the belt, or on a buttock?”


Bamboo heard Master suppress a snort as he related this part of the conversation. “In my Entombed Treasure Room!” Selidor declared, and Bamboo sensed Master suppressing raucous laughter. “I will keep it there in private.”


The Orca warns him that a portrait in that particular location would be extremely painful, but the lady in question might be complimented by what he was willing to endure in the name of his ardor.


However, if Selidor should ever be with another lover, she might not be best pleased to find another preceding her.


“My heart will never change,” Selidor vowed.


“So she will come in and site while I do the drawing upon your buttock?” the artist asked, innocently enough, though Master thought she must also be playing along with what she now knew to be a joke.


“You mistake me!” Selidor protested. “I wish a proper portraiture upon canvas.”


“I thought you wanted a tattoo,” the artist declared in what seemed to be innocent surprise. “Many men have come back to me and said their lady was very impressed.” “Forgive me for wasting your time,” Selidor apologized.


“You’re sure you don’t want to show me your buttocks?” she asked, and Selidor hurried from the room. Master thought him too discomfited to realize Asher was doing all he could not to erupt in laughter.


Outside, Master’s humour evaporates when he sees two Jhereg obviously waiting for them. Looking around, he saw one on a roof and one on a plank connecting two. Buildings.


“I wonder if you have time to speak to the Demon,” one purred. “We had all but given up hope you would return this way.”


When Master assured them they were happy to accept, the Jhereg expressed disappointment, but began to escort them to Firehand.


As they neared the bridge to the west of Salford Street, a group of Stig appeared, to Master’s relief, and the Jheregs melted away. The Stig leader, who wore a mask about his mouth, offered to give them escort across the bridge, and away from the Jhereg. Master readily agreed.


A Jhereg woman emerged from a nearby building and saucily greeted the Stig officer, but he declined her attentions until after their escort was complete.


“I know you are the one with the Great Weapon,” the woman called to Selidor. “Firehand is looking for you.”


“I am escorting these men to the bridge,” the Stig officer told her, saying he would return after to see if she still needed help.


After the bridge, Master and Selidor see an adult lyorn drawing a wagon full of fabrics towards them. The owner, a merchant, offers them some of the cloth, suggesting a blue-green bolt would make an ideal scarf for Master, who seems to agree. The merchant, who seems an Athyra, offers a metre for eight Imperials, but Master points out he is a poor Eastern. The seller then drops his price to six, and Master counters that perhaps he could part with five.


The Athrya complained he and his wife would have to do without heat in colder months as a result, but Master assures me the merchant probably “took him to the cleaners.” Master decided to take the long way around the reach a gondola dock at the south end of the island, and moments late rues that as a mistake when Selidor spots an art gallery. Master lies, saying he hadn’t noticed it himself, but agrees to follow his friend inside. A snotty Draegeran allowed Selidor, after a demonstration of wealth, might have the resources to commission a portrait, and takes him to a basement vault. Selidor, who vows to obtain the portrait no matter what the cost after a price of 5,000 Imperials is suggested, after looking through several portraits, picks out two as being in favoured styles. The haughty Draegeran—Master thinks he’s probably that way with Draegerans, too, not just Easterners—says one artist lives a great distance away, while another is in the relatively nearby kingdom of Southmoor. Her name is Ravenna, of the lineage of Ysiren in the House of the Chreotha.


She was likely to be at the “Pinch,” the Draegeran offered, referring to a coastline. Selidor resolves to set out for Southmoor as soon as possible, and Master resolves to get him back to the inn as soon as possible to consult with Finndo on his friend’s condition. He seemed much more affected by his slumbering adventures than Master had anticipated.

Transcribed by R.Perry