Eighth day after Sun's Height, 30016 DC

Ensa woke early, excited and anticipating the day ahead. If her calculations were correct, she could arrive at Loremaster Eladrissinel's house today and she might even have time to examine the building and grounds before the sun set if she hurried.

She had spent the night in an uninspired but reasonably clean inn overlooking the east gate of Northport, and as she glanced out of the window she could see two soldiers, dressed in the livery of the city guards, unbarring the gates and swinging them wide open so that the morning sun streamed through onto the cobbled street. Ensa grinned. Those were the gates that she was going to be walking out of in half an hour, and that dusty road, with ruts and dips where cobblestones were missing, was the one that was going to take her to the Sage of Northisle's house. Despite the early hour she could hear a street vendor outside shouting, and the sound mixed with the tread of the guards' mailed feet, floating up to the pale blue sky. It looked like it was going to be another lovely day.

Ensa had felt Star jolt into alertness as soon as she herself moved, and as the half-orc checked that the flaps of her bag were securely tied down and picked up her battered staff her familiar emerged from her nest of blankets, sniffing the air with quick twitching motions and scanning the room with her bright dark eyes.

'C'mon,' Ensa said, extending her hand to the rat. 'Let's go and find something to eat, then we can go.'

Emlyn yawned as he clattered down the stairs and into the inn's common room. It had been quite late before the performance had finished the night before, and he'd slept only fitfully, woken from time to time by the torchlight that flickered outside the windows. By the time he'd finally fallen properly asleep the sky was already beginning to pale. And he'd had the weirdest dream – if it had been a dream – where he thought he'd woken up and seen Shadow armouring up and slipping out of the room. Tynan had still been asleep. Emlyn had been too sleepy to react, but in the clear light of morning he was considering the incident again. If it wasn't just a dream… what could it mean? What was Shadow up too?

The common room looked different in the daylight. Clear of the crowds and the smoke it seemed much larger, with stained and dirty plaster walls and a beamed ceiling. With the shutters thrown open to the morning sun the room seemed quite bright and cheerful.

In the centre of the room, Tynan was sitting with his back to Emlyn. He was sharing a table with a tall, grey-haired human and a small, vivacious gnome girl, talking to them easily. Emlyn blinked, swallowed, and hurried across to join them, forgetting Shadow completely. He was suddenly acutely aware of the racket he made in his clattering mail.

''Morning, Tynan. Hello.' He smiled tentatively at the two bards. The young gnome grinned back, white teeth flashing.

'Hey there. You must be Emlyn. I'm Jilly.' Her voice was just as sweet and smooth when she spoke as when she sang, Emlyn noticed, and he knew he'd never forget it. She extended a hand across the table and he clasped it briefly within his own much larger palm. He felt suddenly overlarge and clumsy.

The young fighter felt himself beginning to blush, and to cover it looked up at Jilly's companion, who was dreamily fingering the strings of the harp still cradled in the crook of his arm. The older bard met Emlyn's gaze immediately. Not as absent-minded as he looks, Emlyn thought.

'I'm Markiss Greythorn. Gods be with you.'

'And you,' Emlyn said, respectfully, then turned to his cousin. 'Tynan, why didn't you wake me?'

The ranger smiled at him. 'Good morning to you as well, Emlyn. We aren't in any hurry and you looked like you needed the sleep.' Tynan glanced across the table and said with mock reproach. 'You two kept us up late, you know.'

Jilly laughed. 'Oh, I'm sorry. Next time we'll be sure to make the show shorter.'

'Oh, no.' Emlyn was startled into a response, and everybody looked at him. He blushed and reached out to drag a chair over from another table to give him an excuse to turn away. 'I mean… it was brilliant. You shouldn't cut it. That would be… I mean, it would be less complete. It'd be a shame.'

'Thank you,' said Jilly, graciously. 'I'm glad you liked it… no, really.' That was to Tynan, who had raised his eyebrows slightly. 'After all, if people don't like the music, how're we ever going to get them to pay us?' She grinned, and Markiss said vaguely:

'The money's not important.'

Jilly elbowed him in the ribs. 'Says you.' She flashed another smile across the table at the cousins and said, 'He eats barely anything and he doesn't mind sleeping in hedgerows.' She glanced down at her own immaculate figure and tugged her tunic collar so that it hung straighter. It was a different garment to the one she'd worn last night, Emlyn noticed, a two-toned blue weave with flared sleeves and scalloped edging. By contrast, Markiss – like Tynan, and Emlyn himself – looked as though he could have been wearing his current clothing for at least a week or so.

Tynan smiled. 'Look, we should really get something to eat. Care to join us?'

Jilly shrugged and smiled again. 'Why not? Does this place do breakfasts?'

'Doesn't look like it. Guess we have to go out and look for something.'

Emlyn frowned, suddenly remembering his peculiar night-time experience. 'Tynan, where's Shadow?'

'He's here.'

Emlyn glanced around, but completely failed to see anyone until a patch of shadows by the doorway unfolded itself into the elf. 'Oh. Hello.'

Shadow gave him a sarcastic smile, and favoured the bards with an impartial nod. 'There's plenty of places to eat out in the town,' he said, coolly.

Emlyn scowled. The elf's collected, superior voice grated on his nerves.

In the end they bought hot fried fish from a street vendor and wandered down to the harbour as they ate them, licking scorched fingers and throwing the multitude of tiny bones into the water. Emlyn could feel the juice running down his chin and knew he must look undignified, but he didn't care. He was starving and the fish was the best food he'd had in… he couldn't remember how long. But it was good.

Jilly was chatting to Tynan about places she'd been to. Emlyn listened silently, somewhat overawed. The young gnome surely couldn't be much older than himself – but she'd seen places and things that he'd never even dreamed of.

She and Markiss had travelled down to the islands from the north, it emerged, where they'd spent the first part of the summer. 'And I'd hate to be there in winter.' Jilly laughed. 'Even at this time of year I had to keep singing Sharan songs to try and convince myself I was warm enough! At night, though, that's the worst…' She shuddered. 'I mean, there are some times when you expect to be able to get warm.'

'Nice music, though,' said Markiss, absent-mindedly. 'They have the queerest little melody lines… all in minors and discords that work somehow.'

'That's true. They have these heavy drumbeats, and then they play little bone pipes that sound so eerie, like the wind blowing over the tundra…' Jilly shivered. 'But you don't want to hear the music talk. Have you ever been north?'

'Not up beyond the mountains,' Tynan told her. 'I was born in northern Wayrin – the Wolf Country – and that's been cold enough for me so far.'

'Quite right!' Jilly laughed again. 'You obviously know when you're onto a good thing. I was never so glad to experience a heatwave as when I arrived here.'

'You've been before, though,' Emlyn commented. 'You've got the Island songs down pat.'

'Yeah, sure.' Jilly tossed her fish-head into the harbour, gazing out across the water to where the bulk of Starisle, largest of the Inner Isles, sat like a landed whale. 'Couple of times. They're nice, the Islands. Relaxing. Anyone can be themselves here, as long as they don't try and hurt anyone else. I mean – when you're other places you hear all that stuff about the Islands being 'the land of the free' and all that, and then you come here and it's all true.' She shook her head. 'Amazing. Amazing place, amazing people.'

Emlyn glanced across the harbour to the south-west, where Goldisle was hidden behind the unfurling sail of a merchant ship just slipping loose from her moorings to sail for the south and scowled.

'What's wrong?' asked Markiss. Emlyn jumped. He hadn't realised that anyone was watching him.

'Oh… no. Nothing.' To Jilly, he said, 'They're not all like that, you know. The Island Charter's great – it's a great idea – but it doesn't always work out.'

'Yes, of course –' she began, but was interrupted.

'Jilly, Markiss,' said Tynan, sharply, 'I don't suppose you know what that building is?'

Emlyn snapped his head around to look at his cousin. Shadow had drawn the ranger a little aside from the rest of the group, and both the man and the elf were looking back up the street they'd just come down, back up towards the centre of town. There were a few people out at this time, hastening down to the docks or doing early morning shopping – except around one building, a three-storey stone house about half-way up the street, which had drawn a crowd as thick as storms round Kachal's festival.

As they watched, a contingent of armoured men and women wearing the livery of the city guard hurried out of the building, some still lacing armour or strapping helmets on. A couple stopped to try and marshal the crowd into some sort of order and prevent them following, while the others dashed up the street and then turned into a smaller alley and disappeared from view.

'Guardhouse, it looks like,' Tynan said, quietly. He traded a quick glance with Shadow. Then he set off up the cobbled street in pursuit of the running watchmen.

They knew that they were nearing the scene of the problem when they ran into the back of the crowd. Two guards, an earnest young man and a tired-looking middle-aged woman, were trying to persuade people to move away, back down the street and clear the area, but with little success. People at the front might be listening, but those at the back were still pushing forwards and trying to find out what was going on.

Emlyn craned his neck. He could just about see over the heads of most of the crowd, but not enough to understand what he was seeing. He could pick out a clear space, ringed by guards… the city walls ahead of him, with the East Gate shut and barred and two watchmen with pikes lowered standing in front of it… and a handful of other lone figures – a heavily built man with his back to Emlyn, a guard sergeant, a slim colourful figure. A chunky silhouette in a nondescript brown robe, holding a staff…

'Ensa?'

Tynan felt a sudden space beside him, unexpected in the thick crowd, and glanced round at Emlyn – only to discover that his cousin was not where he'd thought. The young fighter was now several feet away from him, wading forwards, the crowd parting before his bulk like water. Tynan hissed quietly in annoyance, met Shadow's eye for a second, and then turned and plunged after his cousin.

Ensa's mind raced. She tried to keep her face blank, but Star – sheltering out of sight in the space between Ensa's neck and her bulky backpack – was shivering and shifting nervously, a sure indicator of Ensa's dilemma. What could she do?

In front of her, the heavyset man's bald head gleamed in the morning sun, and the light flashed on the long knife he was holding. But Ensa was sure that it wasn't sunshine causing the glitter in the man's eyes – and that was precisely what was worrying her. Was worrying all of them. A little way in front of her the guard sergeant was talking, calmly, reasonably, and only Ensa could see that his hands were tightly knotted into one another behind his back. Like her, he wasn't sure that reasoning with a madman was going to get them anywhere.

Especially when that madman had his knife at a child's throat.

The little boy was too scared to scream, his eyes huge in his white face and his black hair scuffled and dragged up on end. Ensa would have liked to catch his eyes and smile; but she had a realistic assessment of her face's ability to reassure. Instead she swallowed, trying to moisten a dry mouth and looked around her inconspicuosuly, wondering if anyone else might be able to help her.

It didn't look good. Within the enclosing ring of guards there were only five people, aside from the man with the knife: herself; the guard sergeant, his eyes locked on those of the madman as he talked endlessly, trying to persuade the man to let the child go; the boy's mother, held firmly by another guard to prevent her rushing towards her child, her hands scrabbling at each other and reaching out towards her son imploringly; and the slender girl on Ensa's right.

Ensa had no idea how the girl had come to be mixed up in all this. But then she had barely any idea of how she had come to be here herself – she'd been about to leave the town when the whole hullabaloo began and the guards slammed the gate shut just ahead of the running man. He hadn't grabbed the child until after that – when more guards came pounding up the street behind him and he'd realised there was no way he was going to get away. The boy, his mother, Ensa, and this fair-haired girl, dressed in the bright, close-fitting clothes of a street performer, had been the unlucky ones drawn into the action when this stand-off began, stuck within the circle of guards who were too distracted and too busy to get rid of them.

Be that as it may, the girl was the only one at all likely to be able to help her. Ensa twisted her head, slowly and met her eyes.

The girl's straight sandy hair was cut in a ragged crop level with her chin, and her skin was tanned and lightly freckled by the sun. She had pale eyes of an indefinable grey-green colour, fringed with much darker lashes, and they were staring urgently at Ensa. 'Distract him,' the girl mouthed at the half-orc.

Ensa turned her head back with glacial slowness to focus on the man with the knife. The glitter in his eyes seemed to be receding, which was good. But he was focusing on the guard sergeant, and with a strange little smile, which was disturbingly out of place on his broad-featured face, refusing to put down the knife. Which was not good at all.

Ensa swallowed. She hoped the girl across from her knew what she was doing. 'Star,' she whispered. 'Can you help –?'

When Emlyn reached the line of guards, the rattle of his mail and heavy tread of his boots helping to move people aside in front of him, he had to stop. He could now see clearly the man clutching the terrified little boy and the tense, worried figures surrounding him. And he saw, although Ensa's bulky figure masked it from the madman, the little rat shape crawl down Ensa's pack, then drop to the ground and whisk itself away into the crowd.

He wasn't the only one. Beside him, a stout matron ogling the events gasped and opened her mouth – perhaps to shout or scream. Emlyn never got to find out what she would have done, because a slender hand in a black sleeve reached out to clap itself firmly over her mouth.

Emlyn looked down in astonishment at Shadow, who winked at him and muttered to the woman, 'It's nothing personal, lady, but you wouldn't want to disturb them out there, would you?'

The woman's chest swelled with indignation and she drew herself up, but before she could do anything, three things happened almost at once.

A rat – Star, Emlyn had to assume – ran out from the crowd in between the guard sergeant and the madman, drawing everyone's eyes, and disappeared into the crowd on the far side of the circle, where some people hurriedly shuffled out of its way with a few little gasps and screams. A few seconds after that, before anyone had time to pull themselves together and get back to the situation in hand, a loud crash sounded from the same direction – about thirty yards away, behind the crowd. Everyone jumped, and Emlyn winced, realising what effect a startled movement could have on the madman and the child who he was threatening.

But when he looked back into the circle of guards, the boy had jerked himself away. This was because the only person who hadn't been distracted or frozen in shock was the girl in tumbler's clothes, and as the madman looked round she had hurled her full weight forwards and onto his knife-arm, bearing the blade down and away from the child.

There was a further moment of shock from almost everybody; then the guard sergeant snapped a command and the guards broke their circle, wading into the fray to pinion the madman's arms and snatch his weapon. Many people stayed where they were, watching what was going on, but Emlyn stepped forwards and touched Ensa's arm. 'Are you all right?'

The half-orc jumped again. 'Emlyn? What are you doing here?'

'Sticking our noses in,' said Tynan, who'd followed Emlyn across. 'Where do you come into all this?'

Ensa shrugged. 'Not quite sure.'

'Do you know who that crazy girl is?' Emlyn asked, incredulously. The risk of what he'd just seen happen in front of him was beginning to hit him. 'The chances of her moving faster than him were tiny, even after she got lucky with that noise. She could've easily got herself killed as well as the boy!'

'I didn't, though.' The clear, challenging voice came from behind them, and they all turned to see the fair-haired girl, who had rolled clear of the little melee, where the guards were now manacling the madman, and stood behind them, casually licking a long scratch on her arm. 'I knew I wouldn't. That bang just made things easier, but I could've done it anyway.' Her voice was totally confident.

'Has it struck anyone that the crash was not entirely fortuitous?' Shadow enquired, dryly.

Emlyn would have died before he made himself look stupid in front of Shadow again, but fortunately for him, someone else asked the question. 'Huh? What?' said the girl.

Shadow rolled his eyes and didn't deign to answer. Ensa said quietly, 'That was me too.'

Emlyn grinned at her, and said, 'And Star, right?' but the girl was looking at the half-orc with interest.

'Oh, really? Magic? Kind of fits with the whole rat thing, though. I wouldn't've guessed. I s'pose that's a good disguise.'

Ensa didn't say anything, or appear to react to the girl's words, although Emlyn bristled. 'I suppose you think –' he began, when he was stopped by Tynan's hand on his arm.

The guard sergeant had marched across and was standing in front of them, one hand on his hip. Behind him, his men were hustling the madman away down the street, followed by a hissing and shouting crowd, while the other side of them the two gate guards were once again lifting the bar and swinging the gates open.

'Right,' said the sergeant, not sounding altogether pleased. 'What did you think you were playing at?' The comment was mostly aimed at the fair girl, but it seemed to apply in a general way to any of them.

Emlyn heard a muted but clear musical note, and twisted his head to look at Markiss and Jilly, who had strolled up behind the sergeant. The young fighter could feel his racing mind calm and his muscles relaxed.

'Perhaps we could help, officer?' the young gnome asked, smiling charmingly, while Markiss drew another note out of his instrument, and then a gentle, calming sequence of sounds. Ensa frowned, narrowed her eyes at the instrument and opened her mouth, seemingly about to ask something, when Tynan's hand closed round her and Emlyn's elbows. 'Come on,' the ranger muttered. 'Shall we let them deal with this?' Tynan nodded to Markiss – who smiled and inclined his head in return – and then pulled them away.