A Day in the Life of Starshield

by Starshield Writers Group

An anthology of the Starshield Universe written by eleven national and international writers. Please read and review.

12. The Crossing Guard

__________________________12____________________________

The Crossing Guard
by Lowell Boston

Sector H
August Empire of Archaen
2nd World Resso's Question

The Old Vicky

It was a clear kite flier's day.

The sky was a cool, deep blue that rested over the dusty, terra-cotta roofs of the town, and the amber brushed dunes beyond, stretching endlessly
to the Sandy Mountains. To a child, that long expanse of blue would fall just short of forever. And if that same child were to turn, just on the outskirts
of the town, he would catch the heavens reflected in the Provincial reservoir, Resso's Pond.

By definition, the title of 'Pond' was woefully exceeded by the ten mile body of water, but every year the Selectmen of Fallon decided to keep the
name simply for nostalgia's sake. Outlying towns like Fallon weren't apt to change, and would always fight it tooth and nail.

Arthur Tyson brushed the dust off of his Crossing Guard's sash with care. He blinked his eyes in the direction of the morning light and hefted his
'STOP' sign. Across the sandy intersection a hovering vehicle stopped. He turned to the right and gave the go ahead for the gathering school children.
Many of them waved and smiled as they passed by on foot and aero-scooters. Some of their grandfathers had served with him, and a few of their
fathers had even been his students. Arthur returned their smiles. When the last had crossed he lowered the sign and okayed the waiting vehicle to move.

Gravity coils thrusted to life, kicking up a cloud of dust and gravel. The vehicle, an old Victoria, accelerated across the intersection at twice the town's
ordinance. Arthur covered his face against the oncoming cloud, but not enough so that he couldn't see. At first he thought it was Tom Lopitk's old Vicky,
but Tom was dead and it was thought that his old hauler had been lost years ago in a sandstorm way up in the High Desert.

Dirty faces were behind the dirty windows, but he could see the driver. He wore smoke colored glasses under a fielder's cap. The man's head turned
toward Arthur, and as he passed he crossed his fingers and shoved them in his direction. It was an Archaic obscene gesture that literally meant 'Get bent!'.
Arthur, putting on his best 'dumb gaffer' look, smiled back, but his eyes were cool and observant. They took in the driver's bloodstained nails, and the
callouses on his index finger - shooting callouses. His hair was hidden under his fielder's cap, but his eyebrows, just visible above his glasses, were a dead
giveaway. They were jet black. No one who had been on the Question for any length of time had black hair. The sun made sure of that. The man was a
foreigner. It was the last item Arthur spotted that got his thoughts racing.

An obsidian signet ring - Red Klan insignia.

The Vicky shot by, and Arthur continued to watch, his suspicion rising. There were many Red Klan pockets on 2nd World Resso's Question. That
was undisputably true on many of the 2nd Worlds of the Empire, but few Red Klanners ever came to Fallon. Were they seeking work? As far as he
knew the nano factory wasn't hiring, and if it was, work call had been two full cycles ago. Their presence in Fallon was venturing into that category
he commonly called 'Other'. If the driver was a Professional, then Arthur had to believe that the signet ring was meant to be seen. Did he know who
he was? Was he calling him out? The retired assassin rested his full weight on his cane and began to think.

"Grandpa?"

Arthur turned and smiled at his Granddaughter Kelly. She was dressed in her school uniform, complete with her own Crossing Guard sash.

"Sorry dear, I was wool gathering."

Kelly crossed her arms and pouted, an expression that reminded him of her father.

"Grandpa, you never wool gather."

She tracked his gaze down the road to the Victoria.

"Strangers in town," she said in a stern voice so like his own that Arthur had to laugh in spite of himself.

"They're probably just passing through, dear. Come on, we have work to do."

His hand rested on her shoulder and turned her back to the intersection of Rose and 4th. His eyes were forward, but his ears continued to track the
Old Vicky. The hauler raced down the street, then suddenly stopped. His ears caught the change in engine pitch, even more as the gravity conveyor
began to slowly and evenly back up.

Arthur waved on Akhim's feed truck, undoubtedly on its way to the Reedmont Ranch, before he turned around and saw the reason for the vehicle's
reversal. Caitlyn Lane and her two schoolmates were strolling down the avenue walkway. They were dressed in their prep school uniforms. Arthur didn't
know whether the uniform skirts were getting shorter each year, or Caitlyn's thighs longer. Whatever the cause, it was enough to stop traffic andget his
heart racing.

*Looks like I'm gettin' an eye for the thigh,* he chided himself, wondering if being a 'dirty old man' was a genetic inevitable, or just a downside of
being retired.

The Vicky backed up past Caitlyn and her friends, and stopped. A man got out on the passenger side. Not the driver, he noted, but someone big, and
by the looks of him, a native Quizzer. His hair was a sun bleached sandy brown with leathery, suntanned skin on his neck, forearms and hands. His long
overcoat had been poorly re-sewn where it had ripped, but it was what it was possibly concealing that had Arthur more concerned. The man stood on the
walkway several paces in front of Cait and her friends. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a hand rolled cigarette. Lit it.

"Kelly," said Arthur, his eyes never leaving the man.

"Yes, Grandpa?"

"Take over for a spell." He passed her his small 'STOP' sign, and ambled down the street on his cane.

To a casual observer Arthur Tyson looked like a well kept man in his mid-fifties with pepper gray hair at his temples. He had an athletic build and a set
of toned arm muscles most men any age would envy. In reality he was seventy-two, (with a Mindage of one hundred and eighty) and in perfect physical
shape, earned from years of fencing, swimming, and rowing, among other 'activities'. His lame leg slowed him down, and he had to admit his reflexes were
a far cry from what they used to be, but he wasn't going to let that stop him.

The man was now about a hundred feet away, well out of earshot, but Arthur gathered he had already spoken to the girls. Caitlyn and her friends had
stopped. Her eyes were wide with admiration, and a slight bit of fear. The big man stepped closer, threw his cigarette in the gutter and hooked his head in
the direction of the Victoria.

Caitlyn's face turned pale white.

*Welcome to the real world, Cait. You just got propositioned,* thought Arthur.

Caitlyn began to back up. Her head emphatically shaking back and forth. Her friends scooted back a good ten feet, seemingly ready to run at the next
sign of trouble.

Trouble came. The man moved to her side as quick as a lash. He was fast. One hand hooked around her trim waist, the other stretched out once more in
the direction of the Vicky. Caitlyn resisted. Tears came to her eyes as she hugged her book to her chest for protection. Arthur was closer now, close enough
to see more men in the old hauler. Close enough to see that they hadn't seen him - yet - and for that he was thankful. He moved in and could finally hear the
man speaking.

"Come on, be a good birdie. We'll even make it worth your while."

His sunburned hand reached into his pocket and pulled out a palomac. The ring coin hung on his index finger like a dirty washer.

"Appreciate it if you'd let Miss Lane and her friends get to school, friend," said Arthur.

The man froze. Arthur had gotten the drop on him. He turned around slowly. His face was young and tough. Hard, with a deep, flaking tan and a scruffy
five o'clock shadow. A scar ran across his top lip and faded past his left nostril, and his eyes were watery and yellow from a bad case of sun-eye. He looked
Arthur over, literally moving his head up and down, then grinned.

"Or what, old coot?"

Arthur pleasantly smiled back and rested both his hands on his steel tipped cane.

"Now friend, I don't think either one of us wants to find out what 'Or what' is... do we?"

Arthur and the man locked eyes. Arthur's face was back to his best old gaffer's look, but there was something in his stare, something the man didn't like.

"Piss off, ya old goat. Miss ...", he looked back at Caitlyn with a lecherous smirk, "...Lane and I have ourselves a date. Ain't dat right?"

Before Caitlyn could respond the man cupped her face with both his hands and turned her towards him. His flaked, bleached lips parted, showing dirty
teeth with spaces between them. Their lips touched.

Arthur lifted his cane with an index finger and thumb and lanced it forward, striking the man behind the knee along a cluster of nerve bundles. The man's
leg jerked out in an involuntary kick, yanking him off his feet for one full second before his skull struck the cobblestone pavement with a loud, sickening crack
that could be heard up and down the avenue. To any bystander it looked as if Arthur had simply knocked him down with a poke of his cane.

The man clutched his leg in a fetal position, his eyes wide with tearing pain.

"My leg! Damnit, whaddaya do ta my leg?!"

Arthur stood over the man and ignored his cries.

"Cait, you all right?" he asked. She didn't answer, and he allowed himself a quick look. Her lips were trembling.

"Caitlyn!"

Her eyes blinked several times before she looked and found him.

"Yes...yes Mr. Tyson. I'm... I'm fine, thank you."

"All right then, run home, child. You and your friends."

The young Senior didn't need to be told twice. She turned and bolted down the avenue with her schoolmates.

The doors to the Victoria opened behind him. Hard boots on gravel, foot steps moving his way. They stopped, followed by the sound of an overcoat
being thrown aside. Arthur looked back down at the fallen man, his back still to his new, unseen enemy.

"Tell your friend back there he'd best stop whatever he's planning. We're that much closer to 'Or what'."

Arthur's face no longer held his old gaffer look. It was hard, serious and professional.

The man on the ground realized now that he was looking at the real Arthur Tyson, retired Imperial Assassin-Guardian.

"He's... he's crazy! Tommy, shoot the bastard!" screamed the fallen man.

Arthur turned to face Tommy. He was about the same size as his friend, only with a chubbier frame and a face with unwashed jowls undoubtedly built
by cheap graf and fatty foods.

"Now Tommy, do I look crazy? Hell, I haven't even lost my temper... yet."
The 'Sin-Guardian let the word hang in the air until he could see Tommy had absorbed it, and was bitten by its meaning.

"But... it'd be only fair to warn you NOT to do whatever you're planning."

Tommy looked Arthur dead in the eye. His lips quivered. His right hand hovered near his right thigh where a high caliber wounder pistol was holstered.

"Last warning, Tommy." said Arthur calmly.

Tommy drew. A quick move, fluid and relaxed. In an eighth of a second the business end of his pistol was leveled at Arthur's heart.

Whack-Crack!

Tommy's gun was jerked from his hand. He howled in pain and fell to one knee, clutching his swollen trigger finger. In the street, fifty feet behind him,
stood Kelly. Sling shot in hand, bands drawn back. Her dark eyes were serious. Her left cheek bulged with a lumpy mass. Clenched between her teeth was
a single agate marble. In the sling of her weapon was another. Tommy turned to face her. His jaw dropped open in incredulous disbelief, followed by a quick
burning anger.

"You little sh..." He reached for his pistol, four feet away.

Whack-Crack!

The gun was knocked six feet away before Tommy could reach it. Kelly dropped another marble into the sling and drew aim all in half a heart beat.
She arched an eyebrow.

"Kelly, quite fooling around. If he moves again, put the next shot through his eye."

"Yes, grandpa."

Tommy's jaw dropped open again. A single drop of spittle hung from his lip.

He didn't like what he saw in the little girl's eyes. Years ago, he had once seen the same thing in the eyes of a 'Sin-Guardian who had been jumped by
six Red Klan members. Four of them had never walked again. The other two never got up. He saw a little of that in the girl whose sling shot was aimed
for his left eye socket.

Arthur turned back to the fallen man. One hand gingerly held the back of his knee, while the other was palm flat on the ground, bracing his weight.
Arthur lifted his cane and lowed the tip onto the middle finger of the man's bracing hand, just above the base of his first knuckle. He pushed down and
the man wailed in pain.

"On yer feet!" sneered the former assassin. "Nothing fancy or I'll snap your finger in two."

The man nodded repeatedly. Placing both his feet under him he stood in an awkward squat with his right hand pinned to the ground.

"Chin up, please," ordered Arthur.

The man obeyed as his forehead beaded with sweat. Quickly, Arthur switched the tip of his cane from the man's hand to the soft skin of his neck just
above the adam's apple, and leaned on it.

"Now stand, nice and slow, arms wide out."

He did so. Up and down the avenue shopkeepers stood in their doorways. Some held scatter guns and wounder rifles.

"Let's see what ya got under the coat... slowly now, pinkies only."

The man parted the flaps of his jacket with his smallest fingers. Tyson saw the gun holstered on his right leg. His face was cool, but his heart skipped
a beat. It was a Torpedo Blaster. Imperial Marine issue, well oiled, without a scratch. The weapon was illegal for civilians to own.

"Fancy," said the Crossing Guard. "Unbuckle it, and drop the iron."

For the first time the man's face registered a look of protest. He looked over Arthur's shoulder in the direction of the Victoria.

"Before any help comes for you, friend, I'll lance this stick down your throat. Now drop the gun!"

The man did so as his face mixed undisguised humiliation and rage. Arthur twisted the cane's steel tip just to show him who was boss.

"Tommy! Doak! Get back in the hauler. We're leaving!"

The voice came from the open door of the Victoria, and Arthur's head nearly jerked in its direction. The interior was dark, but the old 'Sin-Guardian
didn't need to see the owner to know who it came from. It was the driver. He stepped back from the man named Doak and lowered his cane. The thug
sucked in a deep breath and rubbed his throat. Arthur spoke without looking over his shoulder.

Kelly... it's all right. You can let him go."

Kelly lowered her aim slightly, but still held her bands drawn tight. Tommy rose to his feet, still clutching his swollen finger. He looked at his gun,
then back to Kelly. Her eyebrows rose, and her eyes twinkled as if saying 'try it!'.

He didn't. Instead he walked back over to the gravity hauler and with one last look back at Tyson's granddaughter, climbed in.

Doak was slower in leaving. He hobbled past Arthur, never turning his back to the former assassin. When he reached the Victoria he finally found
the courage to speak.

"This isn't over, old man. Not by a long shot. You'll get what's coming to ya... see if I'm wrong!"

Doak went in and the door closed behind him. Gravity coils flared to life, raising the Vicky a full meter off the ground. It vectored off the curve and
sped out of town with a noise like a strong wind.

Kelly came to her grandfather's side. She was holding Tommy's gun, safely, as her father had shown her for most firearms. She looked up at her
Grandfather, and this time her eyes had her mother's strength and concern.

"Grandpa, what are you going to do?"

There was no fear in her voice. Simply a need for reassurance. Arthur placed an arm on her shoulder, and smiled at her.

"What's the first thing I taught you to do when you're faced with new opponents?"

Kelly looked away from her Grandfather far into the distance where the dust cloud of the Victoria was finally settling.

"Study them," she said.

Arthur scooped the tip of his cane through the trigger guard of Doak's Blaster and picked it up. He examined the weapon carefully, without touching it.

"Exactly," he said. "Study them."

__________________________2_____________________________

The Fellas

The noon day sun was a dazzle of soft focus flecks on the pond's dark waters.

Arthur moored the kayak to the dock, picked up the bundle, his cane, and climbed up the ladder. Mara was there waiting for him with a mug
of tur'kesh coffee in her hand. She looked at her time piece and raised a playful eyebrow.

"You know... you're gettin' slower everyday," she remarked.

"And you're gettin' prettier," he added.

She smiled. They had said the same thing to each other for the past four years.

Mara Del Winston was an attractive woman in her mid forties with sandy blonde hair, and dark brown eyes. She was blessed with a tall,
swimmer's build, not surprising, when one considered that she was the head coach of Fallon's Senior Prep Girl's Swim Team. The old dock
creaked under Arthur's weight as he stepped onto its hand cut planks. Mara shifted her weight, and looked at the bundle in his arms.

"Is that... what I think it is??" she asked with a nervous tone.

"Ah-yup," answered Arthur, playfully patting the burlap package.

She nodded, her expression still serious as she passed him his coffee, and took the bundle off his hands.

"You better let me have that then. The Fellas are waitin', Jord too."

Arthur stopped, and looked at her. "Jord? You're kiddin'."

Mara shook her head, bouncing her hair in a way that the old 'Sin-Guardian liked.

"Not at-tall. He said you'd be needin' him."

The retired 'Sin-Guardian smirked as he threw his arm around her waist.

"Son... of a gun," he said to himself. How the old Elf always knew when his talents would be needed was a mystery to him. Together, Arthur
and Mara walked into the simple A-frame building at the end of the mooring. A hand painted sign set high above an oak wood door creaked
in the desert wind. It read:

RESSO'S POND MARINE CHATEAU

Fallon was a dry town (in more ways than one). A town ordinance had made it so going nearly back to its early prospecting days. The Club, as most
natives referred to it, was a one-hundred and eighty year old building built of quary stone and wood (an expensive commodity on the Question), just
outside of the town's northern border. Behind the grand establishment ran a row of bungalows and off the back lay a half completed sauna, nearly built,
for winter guest. No one knew who had built the Club. Some said it was an Imperial Marine, dead nearly two centuries ago, and buried in the town's
bone yard, on the east side of the lake.

Mara's father had run the Club, as his father had before him, along with his best friend Ned Mason. When her father had died two years ago, she
inherited his half. Ned, now in his eighties, still virtually ran the place, while she did the books, and served as innkeeper for any overnight guest.

Over the generations every tavernkeeper had kept the original owner's commitment - the Club would be a place for family and gentlemen travelers.
Everyone from as far south as Buckeye to as far north as Last Hell knew of Fallon and the Club, and even more knew of the 'Fellas' who stayed
there. For that reason alone the place was always safe. No Red Klan member nor rustler, nor pirate, had ever set foot within its doors... and come
out alive.

The fresh smell of ham and sandalwood greeted Arthur as he opened the door for Mara. Along one side of the tavern's long mahogany bar old
Ned stood cleaning a tall, clear pitcher and several shot glasses. The barkeeper and 'Sin-Guardian regarded each other with friendly nods, and the
older man made his way back to the kitchen to get his friend's lunch.

On the other side of the bar was Arthur's best friend and drinking buddy, Elwood Yourn. The tall, skinny man seemed to be straining a mug of coffee
through his thick, sagebrush mustache. He turned with a gleam in his poker face eyes and silently walked over on hard soled boots.

"I heard. You all right?" he asked in his direct and to the point manner.

"Never better," answered Arthur.

Elwood nodded at that, with the finality of a closed book, then noted the bundle under Mara's arm. He blinked twice, two more books slamming shut,
before hooking his chin over his shoulder.

"All right then, better come along, the Fellas want in on it."

He led the way.

The Fellowship was the name of their formal pact, but in outlying towns like Fallon no one stood on ceremony. The Fellowship became simply
known as... the Fellas.

The Fellas were seven individuals, retired 'Sin-Guardians from across the Empire who had settled on 2nd World Resso's Question for various reasons
of their own. Some had dark pasts, while others were running from theirs. They were rogue 'Sin-Guardians with no home and no master to protect.
Dangerous men, past their prime. They had come to the Question for sanctuary by taking an Oath of Fealty to the ruling Duke:

"Never touch a firearm as long as you stay, and life on the Question is yours."

The Fellas were sitting at a round table with a sheepskin cloth. Arthur looked down upon the group and smiled. They were the best friends a man
could ask for.

There was Kincaid, the one-armed 'Sin-Guardian.

He was dressed in a clean tweed vest over a blue denim shirt buttoned to the top. His empty right sleeve was folded thrice and neatly pinned to his
right shoulder. He lowered his Gods Damned playing cards and glanced up at Arthur. His face was clean shaven, save for his stark black goatee and
eyebrows. His hair was snow white and closely cropped. He pushed out an empty chair from under the table.

"Have a seat, Art. We've been waitin' to hear it."

Next came Tyler.

The youngest of the group at fifty-four (though he didn't look a day over thirty-five), and the quietest. Tyler mostly kept to himself nowadays, roaming
the High Desert and checking on the prospectors of the Wayland Range. It was rumored that his current lover was a prospector's daughter, but that was
none of Arthur's business. The former assassin must have come up recently, riding hard on his steed, Firebrant. His dirty brown hair, usually neatly tied in
a pony-tail was a tangled mess, and his hair, ears and neck were caked with dry desert dust and sweat, along with his sharp mustache and van dyke beard.
His Longsaw leaned against the wall next to him.

To his side was Montoya.

Montoya the Gambler, Montoya the fox, Montoya the Immortal. His rich, chocolate brown skin and long pepper gray hair highlighted his light brown
eyes. He was the joker of the group, and the oldest at ninety, though you could hardly tell by looking at him. He was probably the craziest man Arthur
had ever met, and the merriest - quick with a joke and a laugh.

Every Skyday he would play cards and drink till midnight, enough to get even an Asgardian knee walking drunk, then regale the group (and all present
in the tavern ) with tales of all the men he had fought, all the women he had slept with, and all the Hunns he had killed. His Sabersaw hung by its strap on
the strut of his ladder back chair. It was the same saber that had given him the wrinkled scar across his forehead. The same saber that had removed his left
ear. It's original owner was no more among the living.

Next in the circle was Don.

The Don, as the towns people called him. Don the Gentleman. He was undoubtedly the handsomest of the group. At sixty-four he still had his thick
blonde hair, and dark blue eyes that could melt a woman from across a room. He wore a black vest over a tan denim shirt, denim trousers and hard riding
boots. His great Cirrillian hunting knife was laid on the table next to his growing pile of chips. His eyes caught Mara's as he flashed her a flirtatious wink and
a boyish grin.

To his side sat his twin sister Kay.

In better days, far and wide across the Question, she was known as Lady Kay. Those days had been several years ago, when she and her brother were a
carnival act, traveling across the planet as 'Lady Kay and the Don'. The carnival fell to a tragic end, a dark past that Kay and her brother never spoke
of, but which eventually brought them to Fallon.

Kay was beautiful, but in many ways the exact opposite of her brother. Where Don would talk, she would listen. Where he would joke, she would laugh.
She had the eyes of a hawk and the ears of a rabbit. None among the Fellas had better skills in trail-craft than her. She was a female 'Sin-Guardian, a rarity
in the Order, and the men loved her like a sister. None more so than Kincaid himself. He never showed his feeling openly, but they were there. He was
in love with her.

Jord came next to complete the ring. He was the newest addition to the group, but far from being treated as an outsider.

Five years ago the remains of an ancient Asgardian dragon bone yard was found in the High Desert, before Wayland Pass. It was estimated that they
contained the remains of nearly a hundred dragons. Word quickly spread around the Empire, and eventually to the greater Tri-sector area itself, and
attracting the attention of one Jord Runewood, Asgardian Archeologist, and High Elf of the House of Runewood.

Like many Asgardians Jord was a talented mage, however, he used his arcane skills for science through the use of Divination spells. Complicated
enchantments, mastered by few, Jord's spells allowed him to channel the psychic impressions imprinted on artifacts, relics, and even centuries old
deceased remains. Discovering the secrets of the Archaen Dragons was to be the crowning achievemt of his illustrious career.

Unfortunately, magic didn't work in the Archaen Quantum Zone, at least not with predictable results.

For any Enchanter practicing within the Archaen Q-dex the outcome was always chaotic, sometimes even fatal. A mage trying to use a simple
Illumination spell could cause the lights to go out in a room, or his teeth to glow. The results were never predictable. Some believed it had to do
with the shifting alignment of the stars. Others, an energy field feedback from the reality's Quantum essence itself. Even the so called experts of the
Flynch-HalpertQuantum Index had failed to give a plausible answer, only stating that it was the result of using the dregs of one reality in another.
Whatever the reasons, the direct divination of the Dragon remains would be an impossible task.

Or... so it seemed.

Over the years, Jord and his team of student archologists worked to painstakingly worked to unearthed the Dragon remains, as he learned to adjust
his arcane talents to yeild somewhat more predictable results. His first test came five years ago, when he attempted to place a weather pocket over the
site of the dig to control the humidity of the dig. A point five earthquake resulted that cracked the water tower on the Reedmont Ranch and spoiled the
first monthly meeting of the Women's Auxiliary Luncheon. From that day on one of the Fellas was always around to keep an eye on him.

Jord's next test was a full year later when he attempted to make his first Divination spell on a dragon skeleton. Ten seconds after his new enchantment
his skin turned pickle green.

Arthur, who had been around that day to keep an eye on him, remembered the moment precisely. He laughed so hard he fell off his horse. Jord, who
was not amused, turned to the laughing 'Sin-Guardian. Ten seconds later Arthur's skin was green as well. It was two months before both had their regular
color back. The two had been fast friends ever since. A friendship that lead to the secret of Archaen magic.

"No Liam?" asked Arthur looking around.

Jord, holding his cards close to his tunic, shook his head in a exasperated way and sighed.

"I sent him on a dig in the site's northern quadrant... then slipped out as soon as I could,"

Kincaid tossed a cobalt blue chip onto the table's growing pile.

"You don't really think that lad will find anything... do you?"

"Heh! ..That boy couldn't find crap in a bull's ass!, even with two hands and a flashlight," said Montoyo, adding his own bet.

Liam was Legatee-Baron Liam Wimpole III of House DeFrancesco, Jord's graduate assistant. His father, Baron Lathom Wimpole II, was the archeological
dig's biggest supporter. Liam came from a family of means, however, that birthright was no assurance of intelligence. Anyone who ever met Liam was quick
to discover that. How he was even accepted into Archada University was still a wonder to Jord and the rest of the Fellas. One thing was clear, Liam's so
called 'Independent Study' with Dr. Runewood was just a ploy to have him escape the rigors of a traditional academic environment.

Jord studied his cards.

"As long as he's out of my hair, I'm content."

"Arthur..." began Kay, and the raising of her tacit voice was enough to nearly startle the group. She was staring at Arthur's troubled expression.

"Is there anything wrong?"

All eyes fell upon the old 'Sin-Guardian, who's eyes were clouded in deep reflection.

*Ishtar,* he thought. *I'm losing my edge. Now I'm wool-gathering in front of the Fellas.*

He blinked once, and pursed his lips.

"Sorry... I was just thinking... I guess we've all had our own... problematic students."

Heads nodded in agreement.

In their younger days many of the Fellas had been instructors in the Assassin-Guardian Order. Elwood's youngest son, Cougar Yourn, was now
the Imperial Assassin-Guardian to Prince Alestare Farfel Marcello, heir apparent to the Archaen Throne and holder of an Ephorate seat in the Galactic
Union. Kincaid and Montoya had trained several 'Sin-Guardians who now served in the Archaen Diplomatic Corp, including Jan Church and Luer Pell.

Arthur Tyson had them all beat.

His greatest student was none other then Coleman Waryip himself, Master 'Sin-Guardian to his Majesty, Emperor Shadrach Farfel Marcello VI.
Coleman was the Hand and Shield of the Emperor, and quite possibly the deadliest 'Sin-Guardian alive.

Mara cleared her throat, and all eyes shifted her way as she hefted her burlap package.

"Gentlemen... at your leisure," she said.

"Our apology, Honor-Mara," said Don with a courtly nod. He turned to the group. "Call."

Montoya laid down his hand. "HA! Three Imps," he exclaimed with triumphiant glee.

"Damn," issued Kay, followed by her brother.

"Odin... thought he was bluffing," said Jord.

"I suspected as much," followed Tyler, laying down his weaker hand. All heads turned to Kincaid. The one armed 'Sin-Guradian grinned and
showed his cards.

"Three Demons," he said.

Montoya's eyes went as wide as saucers. His mouth opened, shut, and opened again like the mouth of a vase, then issued a deep, belly-aching laugh,
so hard it wrinkled the corners of his eyes.

"Take them! Take them, my one-armed bandit!" said the older assassin, pushing the pile towards his friend and shaking his head with laughter.
Moments later the table was cleared and Mara placed the heavy parcel onto the sheepskin cloth. Elwood and Arthur took their seats and she
pressed Arthur's temple with two soft lips.

"I'll tell Ned to keep your food warm," she said and left through the bat-wing doors of the kitchen.

The Fellas were alone.

Sand pebbles pecked at the tavern widows as Arthur removed the burlap folds and revealed the things inside. The Fellas stared in silence for several
moments before Elwood spoke.

"Let's hear it," he said.

Five minutes later they had the story.

"Sheriff Gains scanned everything for bioprints and uploaded the data to the Central Palace," said Arthur "He's not expecting
them to find a criminal record match, and neither am I. So... he asked us to inspect these clues for him."

"Red Klan?" asked Jord looking at the faces of his friends.

"Only one way to find out," said Tyler.

The Fellowship joined hands, forming an interlocking circle.

In the early days of their friendship Jord and Arthur unwittingly discovered the secret to Archaen magic. It began when both men had an unsettling
feeling after Jords flawed enchanted test that their new green skin might be a permanent feature of their appearance.

Arthur had no problem with the condition. He had already busted the jaw of a Militia Captain who had made a snide remark while passing through
Fallon with a squad of troops. Since then no one had mentioned his jade hue.

Jord, on the other hand, was a different story. He was quickly losing the respect of his fellow students.

One day a knocked came at the door of Arthur's home. The retired 'Sin-Guardian greeted Jord at the front entrance with a startled look. His friend's
hair was the color of a bright carrot and in the shape of a dozen cat tails. He had tried another spell.

"Right," he said walking past Arthur. "We put an end to this here and now. I think I've discovered a way to reverse the magic."

"Sure... come on in," said the Archaen, and closed the door behind him.

The secret was in willpower.

Magic in the Archaen Atomic Zone was too chaotic for one individual to wield. But, individuals pooling their wills together had a much better chance.
Contact and concentration was all that was required. Jord and Arthur sat down in his home's parlor, and after Jord explained, the two grapsed hands, as
if in greeting, and concentrated. Jord's Reverse Spell did the rest. Thirty seconds later his hair was normal. One minute later the skin of both men had
grown lighter. By the end of the month not only had Arthur recovered, but he now had the skin and complexion of a younger man, and the turned head
of one Mara Del Winston.

That was four years ago.

Jord removed Tommy's gun from the burlap wrappings.

Not sworn under the Duke's Oath, he was the only one allowed to touch the weapon. Carefully, holding only the tip of the gun's muzzle, he place it on
the table in front of him. His left hand held Kay's, who in turn held her brother's. Around the table the hand chain linked, ending in Arthur who placed his
own right hand upon Jord's, now placed gently over the gun. 'Sin-Guardians and the mage began to concentrate, pooling thier wills into a single collective.
An arcane hush began...

The chateau doors flew open, and a wire-thin scarecrow rushed into the tavern.

"Dr. Runewood!... I heard! I heard you were..."

All the heads in the room swung like weather vanes in a pre-storm gale, facing the young man who had just entered. Their expressions were far from
happy, and Liam Wimpole III froze in his tracks.

"Liam ..." and there was exasperation in the word, "I left you in charge of the northern site..." began Jord.

The young student, no more than twenty four by the looks of him, stepped closer to the group.

"I know. I let Quin take over. I heard about the trouble and..."

"Boy!... if you don't shut up and sit down right NOW I'm gonna skin ya ta the bone!"

Elwood was half out of his seat with his right hand clamped over his Combat dagger.

Liam turned white as chalk. Jord sighed.

"My... apologies Honor-Archaens," said the Elf. He turned to his student.

"Laim, sit down and be silent. This is a private affair, that's why you weren't invited."

And another sigh was issued by the archeologist, before saying,

"So be it then, you're here, but... if I so much as hear you breath... you'll be on the first off-world shuttle tomorrow."

The scarecrow deflated, becoming impossibly thinner.

"But... but you promised my father to teach me..."

The sound of Elwood's drawn steel sent the youth scrambling for a stool. He whimpered,

"... Magic... is all I'm saying."

The circle stared at him for a few immesurable seconds.

"Screw the oath, I'll shoot him myself," growled Montoya.

"Get in line," said the Don.

Arthur wondered if Liam realized just how close to death he actually was.

"He ain't worth the lead, fellas," said Kincaid ruling the matter done.

Elwood resheathed his blade and sat down.

"Or his weight in sh..."

"Easy El," said Arthur, knowing that Elwood had the shortest temper out of all the group.

Turning, he locked eyes with the Lagatee-Baron. The scorning look leveled back at him wasn't surprising. In the time Arthur had know the student
he had seen it many times. Laim didn't like Arthur. That much was true.

"Liam, can we trust you to keep what you're about to see?" asked the retired 'Sin-Guardian.

The young noble's eyes widen with a covetous look.

"Then you're are going to do it! You're having a Séance?"

His grin was over eager, nearly lustful.

"Aye that. Me and the Fellas are about to do some spirit-rapping,
though... what you may see might not be that pleasant."

"I'm no child, Mr. Tyson," answered the student, nearly in a disparaging tone. Arthur could feel Elwood tense next to him.

"No one said you were son. Your word."

Liam crossed his lanky arms over his chest. "Truth!" he oathed, flashing a satisfied smirk. It faltered under the measuring stares of the
gathered 'Sin-Guardians.

Arthur suspected that he knew the opinions of his friends. Elwood, Tyler, Kincaid, and Don couldn't stand the sight of the lad. Sometimes he
wondered what they would do if the youth ever crossed their paths in shadow. Montoya and Jord considered him a nuisance. He suspected Kay,
like himself, thought of the boy in a different way.

Like a stray hound that had been kicked too many times, Liam Wimpole III was trouble waiting to explode.

__________________________3_____________________________

Spirit-rapping

Be careful what you wish for.

The old saying began to worm itself forward from the back of Liam's mind. The first sign was Ned turning off nearly all the lights in the tavern,
followed by the closing of a second solid door behind the galley's ornate bat-wings with a sound of finality. The Legatee-Baron shifted uneasily on
his stool as if he realized he had an exclusive front row seat to something horrible.

The second sign was worse.

The Fellowship had rejoined their hands in an interlocking circle. Their eyes were shut in tight concentration, and more, so he could feel the heat
of their wills flowing off of them like a high fever. Jord began to speak, not in the the clear majestic tenor that he invoked in his normal spell casting.
This time there was a woeful edge to his voice, the way one sounds when burdened with sad news, or the loss of a loved one. The room grew colder
and Liam could feel his flesh goosebump and pucker. The hair on the back of his neck tightened. The few glow lamps left on began to dim, as if their
very atomic substance had diminished. That's when Liam saw it. Something he would never reveal to another living soul, and only relive in the moments
of his worse nightmares.

Tendrils of smoke began to drift off from the tavern's furniture, wafting high into the room's 'A' frame ceiling. The animal head trophies mounted
high around the walls of the chateau smouldered next, only the plumes coming off of them were a dark swamp green, with animated undulating curls.
Curls that took shape.

Liam saw a Cirrillian Bull bellowing in the wanning moment of its death throes. A blood covered Longsaw was lanced between its shoulders.

He saw a Mountain Cat dying from the six slugs in its chest. It opened its long fang toothed mouth and issued a morbid, piercing wail, so loud Liam
clamped his hands over his ears as his heart jackhammered in his ribs.

He saw an arrow puncturing the heart of a Gray Condor, and the near lifeless bird falling over and over, seemingly hundreds of feet to its death.

Liam didn't know how he knew these thing - the exact moment and method of the animal's deaths... but he did. As much as he knew his own name
and his face in the mirror. He shivered, and closed his eyes.

The third sign came next.

It began as a clawing whisper at his ears. A familiar sound. Liam opened his eyes and found the room heavy with a thick fog and translucent figures
ambling about as if in a daze. They were mumbling. Scratching caws that congealed into a low white noise, something that was just above a whisper, but
lower than a gurgle. The figures were the regular patrons of the bar while others, were town regulars.

He saw Andy Sumkin and was shocked at his reflexive urge to say hello to the shade. Andy was killed last year when his horse had died in the High
Desert and he had tried to walk home. He had been descended upon by a flock of Wind Spiders. There wasn't much left of him for the funeral. His shade
walked past Liam and the Legatee-Baron felt as if someone had limped across his grave.

He saw the Widow Aphelia who had passed away in her sleep two months ago at the astounding age of one hundred and sixteen. He saw small
children, and married couples and old maids, and drifters who had passed through town, all walking with vacant eyes and hushed voices. Liam realized
now that Dr. Runewood hadn't evoked his normal Divination spell. This was something far, far different and far darker than his teacher had ever revealed.

Jord raised his voice and Liam nearly jumped out of his skin. The shades dissolved like mirages in a wave of simmering heat along the alkaline dunes
near the horizon. Their forms disapated along with their dwindling voices. The room was now quiet, with a temperature so low the Lagetee-Baron could
see the frost from his own breath. Jord raised his head, with his eyes knit shut, and evoked the second stanza of his spell.

A small spherical cloud began to appear over the Fella's table, and for the first time Liam realized that he couldn't see all the contents in the burlap
wrappings. He didn't really know what Dr. Runewood and the Fellas were divining. Before the thought of moving closer came to him an aperture opened
in the center of the cloud, like an eye - the eye of a cyclone, growing exponentially larger. Images began to form in the hole. Dim at first, but building to
an out of focus landscape with the tone of a late evening day hanging in the sky. The cloud's edge expanded along with the image, growing, and nearly
touching the walls of the tavern, until, with one final surge, the room bleached white...

_______________________________________________________________

Liam was someplace different.

The core of his mind begged for it to be an illusion, one no different form the effects of a good Holo story. But his
suspension of disbelief was heightened, more so because he wasn't seeing things through his own eyes, but through the
eyes of another person. Somehow he knew he was 'in' the mind of someone elses body, and in contact with all of their
sensory perceptions. He could feel the heat of the desert sun on his lower back, the smell of dry grass in the air with
the hint of moisture, and the sound of a weapon being pulled from its holster. And most of all, the weight of it in his hand.

The gun came swung into view, and Liam felt even more disembodied as he saw a hand (not his own) holding it. A second
hand entered and loaded high-caliber wounder shells into the weapon's barrel. Somehow Liam could feel the crawl of the
owner's thoughts commanding its hand, like the movement of worms through a thin bag. The hand did work independent of
his own (Liam's) thoughts, slammed the barrel shut and cocked back the hammer. His view panned and swirled to the right
and other men came into view. They were all dressed in black with thick black hoods over their heads despite the sweltering
heat. One of the men nodded and Liam experienced a first-person-point-of- view of a flat out run. The concussive up and down
staccato of the runner's foot falls were nearly nauseating. Up ahead somehow Liam discern the other hooded figures, a structure,
and a sign posted on a high quarry stone fence. It read:

Provincial Militia Armory

The two men in front took point positions on either side of the fence, and the man who's thoughts Liam was riding ran
through the open gate. He felt the crawling command to raise the gun arm before he saw a Militia guard's turning, startled
face. The gun arm fired, and Liam wanted to scream, but couldn't. The bullet struck the guard square in the head and a hole
puckered his skull like a third eye. The hand fired again as the guard fell to the clay colored ground and Liam's view pushed
in closer as the gun arm emptied it's weapon completely into the man's body. Liam felt the bile rise in his throat at the cruelty
of the act, but instead a voice issued out. A voice not his own.

"Dat good enough, boss?" said the voice, and somehow Liam knew the circle of Fellas had spoken the same words as a chorus.

The view panned left.

A man stood examining the body. He too was dressed in black with a similar hood, but there was something oddly familiar
about him that Liam didn't like. The hooded figure simply looked at the body, and the smoke drifiting out of it's gunshot wounds,
and nodded.

"Put your gun away," he said, and the Fellas echoed his words.

_______________________________________________________________

Liam's eyes snapped open.

His whole body was covered in sweat that caused his thin, denim shirt to stick too him like a wet sheet. He was back in the tavern with the rest
of the Fellas who broke their circle of concentration. Jord looked exhausted, while the rest had pushed expressions on their faces. The lights dialed
up in the room and the door to the kitchen opened. Ned rushed out with a full tray of shot glasses and Noe Brandy wine.

"Interesting..." said Elwood as he stroked his thick mustache.

"That looked to be Fort Brom in the Vast," said Arthur.

"That's north of here, the same direction you said the Vicky came into town," followed Kay.

Heads nodded. Ned set the glasses and uncorked the bottle. Kincaid began to pour the rounds.

"Is that all? Is that it," called Liam in a voice more faltering than he would have like.

Kincaid halted in the act of pouring the last glass. He said, "You hear somethin'?"

Liam froze and bit his lip.

"Most likely a mouse fart," said Elwood as he threw down his drink, followed by the others.

Ned picked up the tray, passed by the young Legatee-Baron, stopped and handded him his flask. Liam didn't know if he read pity in the old
bartender's face, or resentment.

"Drink, and keep your mouth shut," he whispered.

Liam did both, and passed the decanter back. The bar keeper headed back to the kitchen, tray clipped under his arm, and slammed the door
down behind him. The lights faded, and Jord took out the second item from the parcel. It was Doak's gun and this time Liam caught the gun metal
gleam of the Imperial Torpedo Blaster. The Fellowship joined hands and Jord placed his hand over the second weapon.

The world bleached white...

_______________________________________________________________

He was punched in the gut.

A shocking pain that knocked all the air out of his lungs, followed by the vertical rush of falling. He crashed onto a hard,
wooden floor as he fought back tears and the taste of cooper in his mouth. In the back of his mind Liam knew it wasn't 'him'
that had actually been punched, but whoever's mind he had been osmoised into through the trappings of Jord's Divination spell.
He was now experiencing things through the mind of the person who had last held the Torpedo Blaster. A peson who was being
beaten up.

Liam heard slurred curses all around him. His view revealed that he was inside a building. He could glimpse a ceilings and a
wall and noted the reinforced structure of the chamber and the rows of crates and container compartments. The word armory
seemed to press itself against whatever gossamer viel separated his thoughts from that of the mind he was sharing, and that
had been the only rational thought to press through. The rest were laced with a deep, dreaded fear, like a dark coda of knowledge
that ices the mind with the foreknowledge of death. The man whose mind Liam was now was sharing. feared that he was going
to die.

Liam knew he was a Milita Guard, not the one he saw killed, but someone different. Through the man's eyes he could see
hooded figures came into view and picked him up off the floor. A larger man in a hooded mask was the closest to him. He was
the one whose mind he had been in before - the one who had emptied a full clip of bullets into the first Militia Guard. The
same man now wrapped his hands around the wrist of the guard he had just punched, and the view panned. Liam saw a Torpedo
Blaster in his (the guard's) hand, enveloped by Doak's (that was the man's name he was in before! and the knowledge blew over
the student's mind like windsand) larger one. Liam could feel Doak twist the guard's hand, gun and all behind his back, and violently
turn him.

"Let him go," said a voice, eerily familiar. A voice devoid of any slang, accent or brogue.

It was the voice of the man Doak had called 'boss'. The hooded man stood before him now, no more then twenty paces across
the room. He threw aside a heavy black cloak to reveal a pair of dusty dark trousers and a white shirt. Belted to his right hip and
thigh was the scabbard of a Combat-dagger, and a blade about twenty centimeters in length with a ornate handle that caught glints
of light. Liam could feel Doak back away from the man. His arms were free now.

"Your arm against mine, my friend. Blaster against blade. Kill me, and you live." said the hooded man called 'boss'.

A fetid silence filled the room, and Liam could feel the man breathing.

"Klan scum!" The man's voice was like thunder in Liam's head, then the young student could feel the liquid pouring of the guard's
thoughts as his gun arm came up, tendons tensing down his forearm and wrist, finger squeezing the trigger.

The hooded man was faster.

He moved with speed that the Legatee-Baron didn't believe was possible. One moment the man was perfectly still. The next he
was in the telling pose of a knife thrower, only the dagger wasn't in his hand, wasn't in the scabbard. Liam barely caught the faint
glint of flying steel before the blade struck.

Struck the guard dead in the throat.

_______________________________________________________________

Arthur fell to the floor. His Jaw split wide in a rictus of pain as he clutched his upper right thigh - his bad leg.

Liam woke up and saw the old 'Sin-Guardian cradling his limb on the floor and the pool of blood welling between his fingers. That was enough.
The Legatee-Baron jumped to his feet, turned and ran out of the Resso's Pond Marine Chateau as fast as he could. It was several minutes before he
realized the screaming voice that he was hearing was his own.

No one saw him ever again. No one... save Arthur.

__________________________4_____________________________

Arthur's Confession

"Three men walked into the tavern with all the integrity of thrift store sheets. I turned to face them from the bar,
taking their piercing stares like straight whiskey. Their clothes and faces were musky, caked with the alkaline dust of
the High Desert, and the sweaty smell of oil.

"Grinding the heels of my palm against the bar, I pushed myself away, and stood with my gun arm casually resting
against the holster on my leg, and the weight it held. They looked at me, a broken down old man standing to face them
like they had seen worse than me in a mouse's litter.

"Draw, I said..."

Arthur Tyson rose his free hand with a lopsided grin. In his other he held his youngest Granddaughter, Rose.

"First of all... broken down old man?" And he arched his eyebrows ans furrowed his brow. "And second... it didn't happen that way."

"I know, gramps ...it's just," began Justin Tyson lowering his dictation pad. "Well... it's all over town. Caitlyn says
you beat up six men with one hand! An' Milly Wilson says you just stared at them, real mean like... like the way
you do!"

The fourteen year old stood with his own furrowed brow and piercing stare - a dead on impression of his Grandfather. Laughter erupted from
the kitchen, forcing Arthur to suppress his own.

"... And they just drove out of town!"

The young, aspiring writer lowered his head in a heavy solemn way, and shrugged.

"It's just... no one's giving me a straight story, Gramps." Then he looked up with the bright and innocent eyes that only a fourteen year old could muster.

"Can you tell me what really happened?"

Arthur stood up form his reading chair, a slow and stiff movement hampered by the tight new bandage around his upper thigh. Satisfied with the limits
of his strict mobility he looked at his three month old granddaughter held in the crook of his arm. The two beamed at each other with crystal blue eyes as
he tickled her feet.

"There's not much to tell, Jus. I just chased them out of town, that's all."

The retired assassin shrugged.

"Aw... come on Gramps! You never tell me any of your stories! Your adventures on the Dreamworld VI,
the Hunn Wars, your duel with Grundy Broadshoulders... nothing!"

"And you know the answer why?" he replied.

"I know... I know..." The young boy flumped onto the floor in a cross legged fashion and pouted.

"I'm not old enough. How am I suppose to be a great writer if I don't know anything?" he protested, seemingly to the whole world.

Arthur walked past him, a strong stride despite his recent wound, and frazzled his Grandson's hair. He stopped before the parlor's picture window,
lowered the transparent storm shutters, and stared out at the dun colored world beyond. Since coming home he had been casually lowing the shutters
in every room in the stone, twenty room cottage. The parlor was the last one. Now, through the picture window he could see the low eveing sun.
It was like a blood clot over the Great Sandy Mountains.

"All right, Jus, in the genre of roman á clefs you may be pushing things a bit far, but other than that... I like it."

"Yeah?"

Arthur turned to his Grandson with an approving grin.

"Yes."

Rose squealed from tickling fingers.

"Don't work her up, Arthur!" called her mother from the kitchen. "She needs to sleep soon,"

"Wouldn't think of it," he called, and tickled her again then tuned back to Justin.

"The real question is will you be done with it before the Arrival Festival? The White will be here in a week."

"Watch me!" returned the young boy, jumping to his feet. "This is just the beginning, but I'll give my best reading
yet and take first prize!"

But the boys look of enthusiasm faded as he watched his Grandfather deep in thought. The older man turned and stared out the window again.
Quietly, Justin walked to his side.

"Gramps... when the White arrives... will you go aboard?"

The White was the Interstellar Fortress and Palace of the Archaen Empire. A formidable Space City five miles long, three miles wide and two miles
high. It was the home of The Royal Family and two million Archaen citizens. Arthur answered without breaking his stare.

"No."

"It'll be good for your soul."

"I don't have a soul, son," said Arthur.

Justin jerked back in a startled way, opened his mouth, then closed it.

"Jus, go wash up for dinner."

Katrina Tyson stood in the archway of the kitchen, drying her hands on a cotton apron. Her beautiful face was elfin in shape with hard brown eyes
and chestnut colored hair that the Question's sun had hardly faded.

"Yes 'em," answered her son. Turning on heavy feet he headed for the home's single staircase.

"Justin..."

The young boy turned to the sound of his Grandfather's voice and found his fragile stare. He had never seen his Grandfather look so vulnerable.

"I never dueled Grundy Broadshoulders, lad. I just got him drunk."

Both Grandfather and Grandson smiled, and with a quick nodded Justin bounded up the staircase. Katrina came to her Father In-law's side, and
shared his view out the picture window. A few moments past, then,

"You okay?" she asked.

Arthur gently rocked Rose.

"Kat, it's been the choicest of days," he answered.

"So I've heard." She looked at his bandaged leg. "Care to talk about it?"

The retired 'Sin-Guardian turned to her, and she nearly took a step back. Gone was his ever present mask of control and mystery. The face before
her now was tired, and a little sad, she thought.

"Not really... but I will," said Arthur. He gestured towards the parlor's couch and the two sat down. Katrina held back her look of surprise.

"I must say... this... is unusual. You almost never tell us anything concerning you, or the Fellas."

Her Cirrillian brogue showed through, something that only happened when she was excited, or tired. Arthur nodded.

"I want to tell you about how I got this wound on my leg."

Kat looked at his limb again.

"You mean from your Séance?"

Arthur's look was sharp, and Kat smiled.

"Mara told me as much when she brought you over."

The retired 'Sin-Guardian nodded with a sly grin, reserved, Katrina thought, for Mara's indiscretion.

"Actually, I want to tell you about how I originally got crippled."

Now Katrina was openly touched, and perhaps a little frightened. Arthur's crippled leg had been something of a family mystery, and a subject
to be well avoided.

"Arthur, I... why are you bring this up?" she asked, seaching his face for the answer. He tossed his chin, a gesture that seemed to encompass
the entire world.

"Rumor's spread, and the truth is distorted. Such will be the case after what happens... happened today."

Rose yawned and Arthur passed her on to her mother, then contiuned.

"The children won't always have their Grandfather around, and when that day comes... I want them to know
the truth about the kind of man I was."

Kat started to protest, but Arthur cut her off.

"This is important, Kat, something I have to say." Arthur blinked a couple of times, then added, "And maybe because it's easier to tell you than Daniel."

He shrugged. and she noticed that he was clinching and uncliniching his hands. Kat knew her husband, an Imperial Ecologist, would be arriving on the
White by the end of the week. Daniel and his father had always been close, but Katrina now sensed that whatever Arthur was about to say would threaten
that very bound.

"I had once told Daniel that his mother was killed by outlaws near the Empty Ness asteroid region, and that
I... I was wounded in the fight. That was both the truth... and an outright lie."

The old 'Sin-Guardian looked down at his clinching hands. He opened them and laid them on his thighs.

"It happened seventeen years ago when I was the Imperial Taskmaster. The High Teacher of Imperial 'Sin-Guardians
who would one day protect members of the Royal Family. On this particular day... I caught my wife in bed with one
of my greatest students."

Katrina's hand's went to her face.

"Arthur... Genevieve was cheating on you?"

The older man nodded.

"With Coleman Waryip?" she quietly asked. Arthur smiled, and shook his head.

"No, another student. One who I kicked out of the Order when he protested my choice of Coleman as my protégé.
A young man named... Malcom Shaw."

"But...why? You and Genevieve were so in love."

Arthur looked down at his leg as if the answer was there.

"At the time I didn't ask. I simply pulled my Combat blade completely fixed on killing Shaw. Eve threw herself between
us and begged for the bastard's life."

The ticking of the mantle clock was the only sound in the room. Arthur stood up and walked back towards the parlor window.

"Eve was fifteen years younger than me. She was always impulsive... wild, attracted to dangerous men. I think she married
me for who I was...The Imperial Taskmaster, and not for who I am. After we had Daniel I thought she would settle down.
I was wrong."

The retired 'Sin-Guardian turned back to Katrina.

"To this day I don't remember what she said to me... only that she had broken my faith. I lowered my blade because it felt
like a million stones, gave it to her and told Shaw to get the hell out. As I watched him leave I caught her movement in the
corner of my eye, and Ishtar help me... I did nothing. She plunged my dagger into my leg, and through the bone. She and
Shaw left, blade and all. And I... I laid on the floor wanting to bleed to death. Sometimes... I wonder why I didn't."

The retired assassin looked down at his bandaged limb.

"I declined any surgery to fix my leg. I wanted to keep the wound as a reminder of my failure."

Katrina looked at him as if she had never uttered the word. Arthur nodded.

"Eve could have killed me, Kat, but instead she sent me a clear message when she stabbed me - don't follow. So I didn't.
When I could walk again I retired from the Order. A crippled 'Sin-Guardian could never serve as a Taskmaster. I moved
off the White and settled on the Question."

Rose was asleep and Katrina gently put youngest child in her bassinet. Standing, she wrung her hands nervously in her apron.

"Seventeen years is a long time to punish yourself, Arthur, but you're not a failure."

He looked at her and for the first time she realized just how very mortal he was.

"I fail as a husband, Kat. I should have seen it coming. I should have tried harder to make Eve happier."

"No... no, that's not true, you're a wonderful man, Arthur. It was Eve who cheated, not you. She's the one to blame."

"Maybe." Her Father In-law slowly shook his head. "But after years of pondering I can't help but to think that I didn't
try hard enough."

An uncomfortable silence rested between them, broken only by Rose's even breathing.

"Arthur... why haven't you told us this before?"

"Moving to the Question was a clean slate for me, Kat. Especially when you and Daniel moved here and gave me the
family I never had... and with Mara... love I never knew possible. Everything else was just... behind me."

Katrina looked at his injuried limb.

"Then why did the Séance re-opened your wound?"

Arthur frowned.

"We were divining a Torpedo Blaster I took from one of the Klansmen. It belong to a Militia guard who was killed
by a dagger. The same dagger that did this."

He patted his thigh, and Katrina paled.

"The same... blade? But, that means..."

Arthur shrugged.

"That fate's got a twisted sense of humor, Kat. After Eve and Shaw left several rumors began to circulate on their
whereabouts. One turned out to be true. Eve and Shaw tried to sell the blade to the Red Klan to secure passage to
the K'tan Empire. Personal 'Sin-Guardian weapons were like trophies to the Klan. On the black-market they can go
as high as a ten thousand Omnium."

Kat pursed her lips. "But... you said that they tried to sell it."

"Tried and were killed. Eve's body was returned to me. Shaw's was badly burned, but genetic scans proved it was him.
His remains were returned to his family. Over the years I never gave much thought to my blade. I guess it's just a freak
coincidence that it end up here."

Katrina crossed her arms.

"Arthur Tyson, there isn't a 'Sin-Guardian alive who believes in coincidence. This sounds like someone set you up. Like
you were meant to divine that gun just to get hurt."

"Maybe, but I'm in no position to prove it."

She beamed him a questioning look, and he answered.

"We learned from the Séance that the Klan had robbed an armory of weapons and enough explosives to level a small mountain.
The rest of the Fellas have gone after them."

"After them! But... it could be a trap!"

Katrina stepped closer to her Father In-law, but Arthur pressed her with a sly look.

"I think they know that," he said, then held up his hand before she could continue.

"Katrina, the Fellas have nearly a combined Mindage of a full millennium. They may be old, but they're smart. They know what
they're doing. We just have to trust them and let this game play through."

She wrung her hands. "Ishtar's love..." she whispered staring over his shoulder and out the window.

" ...till the stars die out," he finished. Arthur turned and they looked over the far reaching dunes knowing that friends and enemies were out there
in the dying light. Finally, he said,

"Kat, I don't know about you, but I'm pretty hungry. How about that dinner?"

She looked up and shared his warm smile before turning for the kitchen.

"All right, I'll warm up the soup. See if Kelly's coming from school, then we'll eat."

"She's not home?" Both the intersity of the question and his expression startled her.

"No... she called saying she would be a little late. With your injury she was doing a double shift as a Crossing ..."

Arthur moved past her, picked up his cane, rushed through the kitchen and out the back door.

The Tyson home was built at the base of a small hill topped by a tall Heath tree. Years ago Arthur's son hung a swing from a strong low laying
branch, and since then it had always been Kelly's favorite place to play after school. Arthur leaned on his cane and began hiking up the high incline.
On the other side of the Hill was a small trail that on early school day mornings Arthur and Kelly took to town for their Crossing Guard duties,
then and back again when the day was done. Reaching the top he hoped against hope to to see her coming down the trail in the distance.

The path was empty.

Instantly his senses came alive and he began down the other side of the hill when suddenly he stopped. The tree swing swayed in a fragile wind,
and Arthur felt something harden in his chest, like a lump of lead.

On the swing was a single object - Kelly's slingshot. Walking over he he picked it up before noticing the scrawl written in the ground. Three words
that cut like a knife and chilled him to the bone.

NANO MILL - ALONE

Suddenly, the world around him overexposed to a brilliant white, bleaching ever shadow for miles around. A mind-splitting sound wave hit his ears
and shattered every widow in the town of Fallon, throwing the retired assassin to the ground with the concussive force of a hurricane. His ears rang with
a high pitched sound as he struggled to his feet and looked over his home, over the expanse of the desert to the horizon in the direction the Fellas had gone.

The nuclear mushroom cloud rose slowly towards the heavens, as if the very gates of hell had been flunging open themselves. Already he could smell
the acrid ordor of ozone. It was like brimstone.

"Damn..." he whispered.

__________________________5_____________________________

Kelly's Fate

The water tower on the far side of town was the first to lose the evening sun.

Arthur watched the the last of the wagon transports leave town as he brushed the ash from his Crossing Guard sash. A useless gesture.
It would be raining ash for months to come. The nuclear detonation had occurred an hour ago, though no signs of radiation or fallout had
reached the town yet (and for that he was thankful). There were other, more disruptive effects. All power and communications had been cut
off for nearly a hundred square miles, perhaps more, as far as Sheriff Gains was concern. Many of Fallon's retire vets whispered the possibility
of a Quantum Nuke, a weapon that could temporary unravel the very fabric of a Q-dex. If true, all levels of technical machinery would be inoperable
for nearly a week... or longer.

Ned Mason came to Arthur's side. Like him, he too was a town Emergency Volunteer, though the only emergencies that normally hit the town
were seasonal sandstorms, and those weren't due for months to come. Ned was as pale as a sheet with ruddy, bloodshot eyes. He'd been drinking,
but Arthur didn't blame him.

"Is that the last of 'em?' he asked. Arthur nodded and said,

"Everyone should be in Westmont by morning."

"Goddess, who would have thought... carrying a nuke in that
Vicky! A nuke! If they had detonated while in town..."

The bartender shivered.

"We wouldn't be having this conversation," said Arthur, though his voice sounded absent and distant. Ned turned to him.

"Art... I'm sorry 'bout the Fellas. Who would have guessed... I mean Goddess an honest nuclear warhead right here in Fallon!"

"It's the age we live in, Ned. We'll count bodies and mourn later. You should get going."

Ned looked around at the town as if it were the last time he would see it. He nodded and Arthur wondered if the man was blinking back tears or dust.

"Aye that. You need a ride?" asked his friend.

The retired 'Sin-Guardian shook his head.

"Kat's waiting for me with the kids at home. Tell Mara
I'll see her tomorrow."

"That I will. Goddesspeed, Art."

Arthur watched Ned head for his own ox rig, regretting in his heart the lie he had just said, as much as his other lie to Katrina.

After the blast he quickly order Kat to take Rose and Justin to the storm shelters in Westmont. Then he lied, something he had never done to
his Daughter In-law. He told her Kelly was still at school. Katrina was nearly in a panic, and for a long, uncertain moment Arthur didn't think he
could convince her to go and let him find her instead. She knew he would have to stay and help evacuate the town and if she had tried to look for
her it would only contribute to the the town's growing panic.

"Kel's probably directing the evac even as we speak." he joked.

Somehow it worked. Katrina's weak smile spoke volumes as he watched her drive away in the first horse caravan from the Reedmont ranch.
Rose was in her arms and Justin by her side.

That too was an hour ago.

Arthur turned and cane walked in the direction of his home, crunching countless shards of broken glass and debris in Fallon's empty cobblestone
streets. He waved to Ned as he drove by and when his rig was out of sight, Arthur stopped and quickly crossed the deserted street to a small alley.
He scanned his surrounding area, and when satisfied he was alone he bent over his satchel hidden in the dark. Taking his sash off he quickly stashed
it inside the shoulder bag, then and double checked the other items he had removed from his War Chest. Items he hadn't used in nearly two decades.

With a sense of reverence he put on his Sensor-glove and a black leather arm sheath with three long stiletto like darts. He removed two more items,
hooked them to the back of his belt and was satisfied. Zipping up the satchel he stood and began the fifteen minute walk to the Nano-mill on the other
side of town. Injury, or no injury the walk would loosen him up. He would need to be. Tonight there would be killing.

Tonight, Arthur Tyson was coming out of retirement.

_______________________________________________________________

The figure pounded on the doors of the Nano-mill, knocking dust from the fabricated seams of the modern factory. The factory was a large,
foreboding structure whose prolife looked more like a fortress than a manufacturing plant. It was built on the towns tallest plane, a solid knot of
basalt that was more mesa than hill. It was also the only structure in town who's foundation wasn't cracked by the nuclear blast.

"You can't do this to me! You promised! You promised!" screamed the figure at the top of his lungs, still hammering at the Cirrillian steel doors.

"My father will have your heads! I..."

Liam Wimpole III suddenly stopped. He heard something. He whirled in the direction of the setting sun as if expecting to be descended upon
by a flock of Wind Spiders.

The barren hill was empty (as empty as the lightless town of Fallon at its base) and the powerless forms of security droids and silica haulers looked
like grotesque pre-historic creatures in the sun's silhouette. Liam breathed easy, and nearly turned away when he caught something in the corner of his
eye. A shadow detached itself from the landscape. It rose and walked with the cadence of a cane, a steady movement directly towards him with strict,
direct purpose. Liam felt his blood drop colder than the coming desert night. His breath drew thin as Arthur Tyson pushed closer, his face, foretelling
only one thing.

Death.

"I... I didn't hurt her! I swear to Ishtar the drug was fast acting! She's... she's inside."

The 'Sin-Guardian's right hand reached behind his back, and Liam nearly soiled himself. Arthur pulled out a small, black disc about as thick and
wide as his palm, then stopped five even paces from the young man. Liam looked at the explosive puck charge in Arthur's hand, and silently prayed
for his life.

"She's... she's right inside," he announced again with a whimper.
"They promised they wouldn't hurt..."

"Leave," ordered the 'Sin-Guardian.

"What?" stammered Liam.

"Leave, or I swear to Ishtar I won't leave enough of you for a DNA scan!"

The words were clipped with a razor sharp edge, but it was 'Sin-Guardian's piercing stare that seemed to impale the Legatee-Baron. Arthur watched
as the young boy seemed to collapse upon himself. As if the clarity of what he had done had suddenly crippled him with the freight of a terrible guilt.
He ran, on spindly legs, not for the cobblestone streets of Fallon, but in the other direction. Liam's scarecrow form dashed for the sterile alluvials of
the High Desert until he was nothing more than a shadow lost amoung the dunes. Arthur ignored him as he went about his work.

He had no time for cowards.

_______________________________________________________________

"Damn... don't hear him anymore," said Tommy pressing his ear against the cold, Cirrillian steel door.

"Couldn't have gotten far," said Doak as he finished cleaning his hand-cannon by lamp light. "I can still shoot 'em from here."

The tall thug slapped the barrel in place, rose from his chair at the factory's foyer desk, and stepped over the dead body of the sixteen
year old receptionist.

The two Klansmen had been guarding the entrance to the Nano factory for the past two hours. Boredom had set in ten minutes after
they had killed the factorys entire office staff. Then Liam arrived with Kelly's drugged body. They had allowed the boy to stay until the
nuke detonated, then summarily kicked him out. Somehow he had found the courage to come back and demand his payment for the job.

"Easy Doak... remember the boss wants the doors kept..."

Something hard and metallic connected itself to the door outside. Both men tensed and turned to look at each other with bewildering looks.
Doak pulled back the hammer of his gun, and Tommy found the frame of mind to pull his ...

The front door exploded, knocking both men clear across the room along with the lobby's ten foot steel door, and one meter of wall on either
side of the entrance.

Smoke and dust choked the tiny chamber as Daok and Tommy regained their senses. Countless nicks and cuts covered their bodies, stinging
them as they struggled to their feet. That's when they noticed the man standing before them. A man whose face was far from pleasant.

"Old coot!..." slurred Doak as he wiped his bleeding lips. "You got a life time of misery coming your..."

The stiletto dart was stuck in the Klansman's chest. Doak looked at it, confused both by the blinding movement of Arthur's wrist and the
growing circle of numbness emanating from the wound. In the corner of his eye he saw a similar dart in Tommy's thigh. Both men tried to
move, but the darts fast acting narcotic had paralyzed them both. For the first time in their outlawed lives Doak and Tommy realized they
were now in serious, serious trouble.

Arthur looked down at the body of Sally Gains, then swung back a harden look that branded both men. Sally had been Sheriff Gains's
youngest niece. A nice girl who Justin had a fierce crush on. The 'Sin-Guardian stepped closer, close enough to see the cheese colored
symptoms of Doak's Sun-eye and the miasma of heliograph burns floating in them. Close enough to smell the outlaws haggard, labored breath.

"Inbred maggots like you are only born by something that eats on all fours."

His voice pronounced over them like an angel of death. He stepped closer.

"Disease like you don't even belong in this world, especially when you have the audacity to murder innocent children..."

Closer still, and both men could feel their bowels tighten. It was the only movement they could muster.

"... and to touch my Granddaughter."

Arthur lifted his cane before them and silently pulled the long, Cirrillian steel Razor-epee hidden in its shaft. It glinted in the lamp light like a surgical scaple

"For that alone... I'm gonna make you both wish... you were never born."

_______________________________________________________________

Kelly's eyes slowly opened like the petals of a desert flower, drinking in the room's waning light. Somewhere in a dream she had heard thunder.
Her stomach felt nauseous, and her mouth was dry like it had been stuffed with cotton. She sat up a little, resting her weight on one hand as she rubbed
her eyes with her other.

She had rounded a corner in the path on her way home from school when she saw Liam Wimpole standing there... as if waiting for her. That was
all she could remember. Now she seemed to be in a spacious chamber, one lit only by the purple and blue colors of the setting sun shafted through tall,
arrow slit windows.

*The Nano-mill...* she thought.

She had been to the plant once on a school trip a few years back. It was a modern facility, alive with men, and labor droids, but it smelled of ozone
and sulfur. She didn't care for it.

All around her it was silent, save for its telling odor. She looked around. She was on a steel crate, no more then a meter off the ground. All around
her were similar crates forming rows, like hedges, while others were stacked so high they were lost in the rooms high ceiling darkness.

She was in the mill's warehouse.

She sensed another light source behind her, but before she could turn to investigate her eyes were attracted to a mass of deformed shapes scattered
on the floor. The ten year old's muscles grew taunt.

They were bodies.

An icy hand clamped itself over her mouth as a muffled voice found her ear.

"Move and I will slit your throat like a fatten calf," it said.

Kelly obeyed. She couldn't tell who the person was behind her, but she could feel the rough fabric of coarse cotton brushing against her ear and the
base of her neck. The person behind her was wearing a hood. Her heart began beating so loud she almost missed the distant sounds of men screaming.
The hand at her mouth lightened its grip and the owner's voice found her ear once more.

"Your Grandfather is looking for you. I will remove my hand and you will call for him."

The hand did as promised and Kelly screamed, nearly for a full minute until her voice became horse. Another hand, this one as cold as a gravediggers,
circle her waist, lifted her off the crate and onto the warehouse floor. Almost on instinct she stopped screaming. The man (as she guessed him now to be,
and certainly not Liam) spoke once more without trace of an accent, or cultured inflection, but with machine like punctuation.

"Remain still. Remain silent and I won't hurt you."

Kelly obeyed again, somehow thinking that the word 'hurt' was just a substitution for the word 'kill'. She looked forward and realized the man had
pointed her in the direction of the warehouse entrance. Somewhere in the distance she heard a familiar sound - the click step echo of her Grandfather's
cane walk. Louder it grew until the warehouse's ten meter doors slide aside on their rails, revealing deep darkness beyond.

Click-step

A smudging octave of shade faded down to black at her Grandfather's feet as he stepped into the room. His face and clothes were flecked with blood,
fresh blood, but it was the look on his face that terrorized Kelly even more. She had never seen such human fury, and never on her Grandfather's face.

Arthur's eyes bored into the man behind her.

"You and I have some words to chew over," said the 'Sin-Guardian. "Then I'm gonna kill ya."

__________________________6_____________________________

First to Draw, Last to Let Fly

The room was nearly dark.

The lonely light of a glow-lamp burned somewhere in the rear of the chamber. A dim aura that mixed with the strained shades of purple
shafting through the room's arrow slit windows as perhaps the last dozen minutes of the day.

The figure behind Kelly seemed to be wearing a cloak of darkness, one darker than the crude hood he wore to hide his face. Despite his
obscure form Arthur knew he was the same man he saw in the Séance. The same man who Doak and Tommy (when they were alive) had
called 'boss', and the same man who flipped Arthur the Archaen obscene gesture of 'Get bent'.

Only this time the man wasn't wearing the vestments of a Red Klan member, or smoked glasses and a fielder's cap. The man before him
wore the black and silver robes of a Kelshran Assassin, the elite warlords of the K'tan Empire.

The Kelshran reached into the folds of his robe and took out a holstered weapon. An Imperial Torpedo blaster. He tossed it to Arthur's feet.

"The time for talk is over," he said. "Pick it up."

Arthur feigned a casual pose. "I think not."

"I am calling you out, 'Sin-Guardian! I will shoot you where you stand, even if you object to breaking your Duke's oath!"

Arthur said nothing, but simply stared. Kelly could feel the man behind her grow taunt. The air thicken with an almost palpable tension,
as if she were standing between two resonating power nodes. Her scalp began to tingle.

"Pick it up! I will not ask again!" spat the assassin, but the 'Sin-Guardian was unmoved.

"Let's cut the dramatics, shall we," said Arthur. "What is it that you really want... Shaw?"

Kelly flinched at the word, not because she knew it, or the man behind her, but because her Grandfather did. The man named Shaw lightly
chuckled to himself, then reached up and removed his black hood. Kelly chanced a look behind her. The man holding her prisoner had a handsome,
chiseled cut face with dark black hair, and soulless black eyes. Their eyes met and his grin seemed to fall down upon her like flour from a sifter.
Kelly shivered. Shaw passed his attention back to Arthur.

"Well done, Honor-Tyson. It seems the years haven't dulled your acuity. Tell me... are you surprised to see me?"

Arthur's face remained unchanged.

"Do I look surprised? You're not the first man to fake his own death, Shaw. The Order always suspected that you did,
just not to what end. So again, I asked you... what do you want?"

"Your head," answered the assassin.

The 'Sin-Guardian rose onto the balls of his feet, but the Kelshran waved a hand through the air in a way Arthur found beseeching.

"Oh, this may have all the trappings of a vendetta, but your death is just a simple prelude to something much bigger."

Arthur cocked his head. "Care to school me?"

The Kelshran leveled his stare, and smiled.

"The K'tan invasion of the entire Tri-sector area."

Arthur blinked once, then twice. "You've lost me," he said and his former student's smile widened.

"Tell me... who will your Emperor send to investigate this nuclear detonation?"

Arthur knew the answer almost immediately, though the truth was too incredulous.

"You did all this... just to draw out Coleman Waryip?!"

Shaw's grin stretched more with the curved sharpness of a sickle.

"I'll arrange to meet him at a time and place of my choosing, then throw your head at his feet... as greetings."

Arthur studied his former pupil, wondering if the man was truly in command of all his faculties. Finally, he said,

"Morbid. For an assassin you have all the subtlety of a dull ax. I thought I taught you better."

The Kelshran's grinned vanished into a straight cut, creasing the flesh of his face.

"You taught me how to kill, Honor-Tyson which is what I shall do!"

"To what end?" asked the his former teacher.

"To the fulfillment of the plan. Even as we speak the Kelshran Cadre is flooding the Tri-sector area bent on killing
the elite champions of every Minor Empire. Andorian Sages, Selesthian Aritea warriors, Dr'owe Xin'Arachnia,
Royal Dra'keshi warriors, Traqian Telepaths, Asgardain Valkyrie, and more. By the end of the week the best of
their best shall be dead... then the Minors shall fall."

Arthur nodded his head in a causal manner, and arched his eyebrows.

"So, the K'tan's opening volley will be a pogrom of assassination and psychological warfare. Gosh... I never saw that
coming.You'll have to forgive me if I don't wet myself."

The older assassin turned towards his Granddaughter.

"Kelly, has this coward hurt you?"

Shaw's eyes flared, and quicker then even Arthur would have expected, he yanked Kelly to his side and flashed a knife to her throat. It was the
same knife Arthur had seen in the Séance, the same knife that had maimed his leg. His own Combat dagger.

"You'll watch your words, Arthur Tyson! I fear no man!"

Arthur simple lifted his gaze from his Granddaughter to Shaw with an expression that was somehow neutral and serious.

"I see. My mistake. I beg your pardon."

The older assassin crossed his arms to his chest and courtly bowed. The Kelshran accepted his apology with his own courtesy nod and slowly
lowered his blade. Arthur watched as the tension in Kelly's shoulder's lightened.

"Your Granddaughter has been unharmed. On that you have my word," said the assassin.

"Such as it is," answered Arthur, then added, "So... you wanna run that by me again about how this 'isn't' about revenge?"

Shaw smiled again, something Arthur was beginning to find wholly unpleasant to look at.

"I will admit... your death will be something of a... personal indulgence, but then again, you and I have unfinished business."

Arthur grinned, knowing what he meant.

"Like why I picked Coleman as my protégé... over you?"

Shaw increased his smirk. "Ironic, isn't it? A decision you shall now regret."

To the Kleshan's surpise there was neither shame, nor remorse on Arthur's face, only a stern, harden stare.

"Why should I? Do you think there was some flaw in my logic? That you were judged unfairly?"

The 'Sin-Guardian let the challenging question hang in the air for his former pupil, but the Kelshran said nothing. Finally, Arthur shook his
head with the expression of honest disappointment.

"Ishtar... Shaw, the fact of the matter is you were one of my greatest students. A devastating fencer, an expert
marksman, a cunning tactician and strategist. Coleman was the only one who could hold his own against you,
but he's not the reason why you weren't picked as my protégé... or subsequently kicked out of the Order."

Arthur took another step closer.

"The fact is... you were just to damn brutal."

The Kelshran's face stiffened at the word.

"That... makes no sense at all. I was in training to be an assassin!"

Arthur shook his head.

"You were in training to be an Assassin-Guardian. Even now you forget that."

"I FORGET NOTHING!" spat the Kelshran. Arthur watched as his knife wavered under Kelly's chin.

"Truth!" oathed the 'Sin-Guardian. "Coleman Waryip was chosen because he was the better man."

"LIAR! I was his better! His better in everything!"

Spittle flew from Shaw's lips as his knife puckered into Kelly's skin.

"Except... " said Arthur. "At being humane."

The older man directed his gaze to the blade at his Granddaughter's throat.

"To wit," he added.

Shaw looked at his hand as if it had a life of its own, then lowered the blade. With a sour glare he rose his expression to Arthur .

"You... complicitious bastard! You sent my life through hell all because of some sentimental weakness?!"

Shaw shook his head and rose a single, harden fist. His black eyes leveled at his former teacher like the barrels of a gun.

"The Kelshran were right about you. You and your precious Order. How many years have you cut away
your best people in favor of those who promote your own flawed values. How many?!"

Arthur said nothing and Shaw's leering grin grew.

"In a way, old man, kicking me out of the Order was the best thing to ever happen to me. My fighting skills
flourished in the K'tan gladiatorial pits, and more so in the Kelshran Cadre. I became a far better warrior than
any of your so called... Assassin-Guardians," he sneered

"Bull, and shit," replied Arthur. "All you've done is to squander your life learning to fight dirty, and think big."

The 'Sin-Guardian took another single step forward towards the Kelshran.

"Your mind's gone dull, Shaw. You rely too much on back stabbing, shadow slinking and technology. The problem
with you... you and the K'tan, is that you never learned to fight smart. That's the arena you're in now, kid and quite
frankly... you're outclassed."

The younger assassin's lecherous grin wrinkled his handsome face.

"Really?" he said gesturing with an outstretched hand, overacting a look of wonder. "Then where are all your so called friends?
Your town?"

He turned back to his old teacher, and raised a single eyebrow.

"You're alone, Arthur Tyson, with no one to watch your back."

Arthur rested both his hands on his cane again, and smiled with confidence.

"Oh, the Fellas are alive if that's what you're gettin' at."

Shaw mirrored Arthur's expression and almost laughed.

"I doubt that very much," he answered.

"If you think that trick with the nuke got them, then you're dumber than you look."

The Kelshran's eyes stopped cold, and looked carefully at his former teacher. Arthur flashed his all knowing smile.

"You weave a pretty good scheme, Shaw, I'll grant you that. That play with Tommy and Doak in town, having
them leave their irons for us to divine, then setting us up to go after the Klan... fairly brilliant. Except, you got
sloppy. Tell me... how long has Liam been spying for you?"

The Kelshran's expression was still curious.

"Long enough, and willingly after a few false promises of payment," he answered.

"Yeah? Well he's a gullible simp, that much I can say."

"Oh, he's much smarter than you think. Liam told me the exact moment your Fellas left to pursue my men.
Even more, he provided me with the choicest of intelligence on Dr. Runewood's magical ability."

"Hence, my psycho-wound," said Arthur nodding. Shaw smiled again, and Arthur had to suppress the urge to smash him with his fist.

"I couldn't risk having you killed in a nuclear blast, now could I, and miss our reunion?"

"I'm touched. Regardless, your scheme's failed, Shaw. The Fellas are coming."

"I fail to see how. My men contacted me the moment they saw your pursuing friends. They were no more
than half a kilometer away when I remote detonated the nuke."

Again Shaw was surprised by Arthur's reaction. The older assassin grinned like a fox.

"Sure it was them?" he asked.

Shaw's eyes narrowed with suspicion. Arthur continued.

"The desert can play tricks on the eyes, and do funny things to the mind."

Shaw tensed, and Arthur watched as he consumed his words.

"What I'm saying is... it could have been a mirage."

For a brief flaring moment the Kelshran looked away, as if checking an invisible check list, then,

"No," he answered. "No, the men in the Vicky were all natives of this world. They'd know the difference," he offered defensively, but Arthur
just shrugged.

"Maybe... but only if the mirage were natural. You forget, Jord was with them, and Jord's the only man in this
Q-dex who can use... magic."

Arthur watched the Kelshran shoulders and necked tighten, His knife hand nearly lowered to his side as confusion pecked away at his supreme
confidence. Arthur tried not to smile. Tried.

"NO! Impossible! How... why would he... unless?..."

His eyes grew wide with the specter of fear. Arthur nodded knowing what Shaw had just figured out.

"Unless we knew exactly 'who' we were up against. Like I said Shaw... you got sloppy."

With a cool smile Arthur reached into his shirt pocket, pulled out a small object, and held it up. The Kelshran Assassin looked at it as if the
magnetic poles of his mind had shifted. It was a hand-rolled cigarette butt. The one Doak had thrown into the gutter after getting out of the Vicky.

It was the third item the Fellas had divined.

_______________________________________________________________

It had only been a few minutes after Liam had ran out of the chateau (skin the color of clean, white sheets and scared ten years older). Elwood
had managed to stop the bleeding on Arthur's leg, while Jord, and Mara were at his side.

"Arthur... I'm sorry. That shouldn't have happened. I..." began the Archeologist. The retired assassin held up his hand, clearly in pain, but wishing
to speak.

"It's... all right... I think I know... what happened. Mara, El... help me up."

They did, and the rest of the Fellas sat back down at the round table.

"The blade we saw in the Séance, the one that killed the Marine... was my blade, and the same blade that originally did this."

Arthur laid his hand upon his bloodstained bandaged limb. Jord nodded.

"Then this is a psychosomatic wound," said the Elf.

"Yes," replied Arthur.

"Any idea how the hooded man may have gotten your blade?" asked Tyler.

Arthur looked at the table, thought for a while, then shook his head.

"No, but I have a feeling that if we divine our last clue, we may find out."

He was looking at Doak's cigarette butt on the burlap wrappings.

"No! It's not be safe, it could..." stammered Mara., but Arthur cut her off.

"I'm willing to take that risk," he said with a strained voice. "The blade could be a freak coincidence, but if someone's trying to
hurt me... hurt the ones I love, then I owe it to them... to myself to find out."

Mara started to speak, but she recognized the look on her lover's face. The subject wasn't up for debate.

"Then... then how can I help?" she asked.

"I think we all could use another round of brandywine" said Arthur with a fragile grin.

"That's not what I meant!" said the attarctive tavernkeeper, but then she read deeper into the expression on Arthur and all of the Fellas's faces.

"Oh... all right then, You want to be alone for yor Spirit-rappin' is that it?"

Arthu nodded, and Mara stood.

"Just... be carefull, that's all I'm asking."

"You have our word," said Jord.

Mara looked at Arthur as if it were the last time she would see him, then turned, made her way through the kitchen's bat-wing doors and
slammed the second one shut behind her.

The Fellas joined hands again.

_______________________________________________________________

"Doak must have been rolling his cigarette when you were going over your plans with him and Tommy.
We learned everything. How you used Liam as an informant, the Quantum Nuke, and your plan to sacrifice
the other Klansmen once the Fellas got close enough to their racing Vicky. But most of all we saw it was you,
Shaw, and knew it was a trap from the start."

The Kelshran looked at him complettely speechless.

"What we didn't know was what you were truly planning. The Fellas were gonna do their part to try and stop
the Vicky without detonating the nuke, but mainly to try and chase it far enough from Fallon so it wouldn't do
any real damage. We couldn't risk evacing the town without tipping you off, or even go to Sheriff Gains. The
only thing we knew was that you wanted me left here in town."

Arthur looked around notiicng the bodies of the other dead factory workers as submerged shapes in the rooms darkness. He turned back
to Shaw.

"To be honest, the nuke was our biggest concern, so we decided to foil that, let your plan play out and do what
any good 'Sin-Guardian does best... improvise."

Now it was Arthur's turn to smirk and he watched how it goaded into the younger assassin.

"Congratulations, Shaw. You're probably the first man in history to ever miss seven people with a nuclear bomb."

The 'Sin-Guradian took another final step forward.

"Now this is the part were you and I are done chewin' words. This is the part where I kill you! I'm asking you once
more... let my Granddaughter go."

Shaw snapped a look at Arthur, like a man lost in thought who suddenly heard his name called. His eyes narrowed, eyes as flat and black
as nailheads.

"No," he said. "I... underestimated you and your friends, but that doesn't change anything. Coleman Waryip will
still come... and I still intend to take your head."

"I don't give a rat's ass about what you intend to do. Justice ain't waitin' anymore!"

"Justice?" said Shaw as if he had never hear the word.

"Frontier justice. You killed about a dozen people here today. Town folks and friends I've know for years. You called
me out, you arrogant bastard, so let's get on with it. LET MY GRANDDAUGHTER GO!"

Shaw flinched as if he had been visibly slapped. Slowly his heated face looked down at Kelly as if he suddenly noticed that she was there.

"Go," he ordered, and lowered his blade.

Kelly stepped away from him and ran to her Grandfather's side. Arthur lowered to one knee and hugged her fiercely.

"I knew you'd come!" she said buring her face into the side of his neck.

"Aye," said Arthur. The two held on to each other for a long time. Separting, Arthur held her at arms length.

"I want you to run, Kelly. Run for the Club. The Fellas will be there. Tell them what's happened."

"Grandpa?"

"Some rivers can't be crossed Kelly, but we have to try anyway, that's what it means to be brave."

He passed over his cane.

"Take this for protection. You'll know what to do with it."

She looked at his disguised weapon, then back up to him and nodded. Turning she ran out of the room as fast as her ten year old legs
could take her. Arthur stood up and faced Shaw once more.

"You know I'll have to kill her," said the Kelshan.

"We'll see," said Arhtur.

"Are you going to pick up that gun behind you, or make this easy for me," asked his former student.

"I prefer the weapon you're holding," said Arthur looking at the blade in the assassin's hand. Shaw smiled.

"Interesting..."

Unfastening his robe the Kelshran assassin let it drop to the floor, revealing a holstered hand-cannon on his right thigh. Raising his forearm
he tossed the blade directly at his old teacher. Arthur caught it without looking, and sheathed it against his belt on his left side.

Arthur then fell into a classic En Garde stance - right foot extended, knee slightly bent, left leg spaced behind it, with the foot turned ninety
degrees. His right arm was out, slightly curved in front of him, whle his left arm floated behind him in a classic gunslinger pose.

Shaw nodded at the 'Sin-Guardian's strategy.

"You realize you have absolutely no hope of beating me, old man.
Only the honor of trying."

"Because you're thrity years younger, and thirty years faster?" asked Arthur again with
another sly grinned.

"Maybe. But there's an old saying, Shaw. Something you didn't learn when you were in the Order.
First to draw, last to let fly."

"What?"

"Draw, shithead."

_______________________________________________________________

Kelly stood hidden in the dark recesses of the warhouse entrance trying to contain her rapid breathing, and the frantic beating of her heart.
She had ran as far as she dared hope, until she guessed the receeding sounds of her footsteps would have sounded lost in the distance to the men
back in the warehouse. She then stopped and crept back as quitely as she could.

In the tender moment of her Grandfather's hug he had whispered a single sentence to her.

"... Watch my back, and wait for my signal."

Kelly now knew that his other words, the ones about her being brave were intend for the man named Shaw to hear, but the passing of his cane
and his last sentence ...

"...You'll now what to do with it ..."

... had another secret meaning. Attached to the shaft of the cane, hidden from Shaw's view by a thin film of adhesive tape was Arthur's third
and final stilleto dart. Kelly felt it when it was passed over. Unable to touch firearms, Arthur had taught all of his Grandchildren the finer art of
primitive projectile weapons. The bow and arrow, the sling... and the blowdart.

Kelly had removed Arthur's Razor-epee from his cane and unscrewed its steel tip, reducing it into the a long, hollow shaft. She then loaded
the thin stilleto dart into it and waited for her Grandfather's signal, hopeing that she wasn't too late.

_______________________________________________________________

"Your Blaster against my blade," said Arthur. "Beat me and you live,"

Shaw narrowed his eyes. His showdown with his former teacher had been more than he bargined for. The back of his neck flushed with
anger. He had been embarrased where he had hoped to find victory, but more, his former teacher was far from the broken and beaten man
he had hoped to encounter. Even now, hopelessly outmatched he exuded confidence.

Something wasn't right.

The 'Sin-Guardian's stance was admirable, it not tactically interesting. Both his arms were equally positioned to draw his blade. It was an old trick.
The 'Sin-Guardian was hopeing he would watch one arm, while his other drew the blade. Shaw wasn't impressed. He knew he could still beat him.
Slowly, Arthur's left hand, the one hanging behind him in a gunslinger's pose, curled into a fist. The Kelshan readied himself, the real attack would
come from his ...

Suddenly, his eys shifted back to Arthur's left hand again. That same feeling that something wasn't right screamed in the back of his mind.
Everything the 'Sin-Guardian was doing was text book, but void of his former teacher's sly tricks or graft. If the 'Sin-Guarian's left fist wasn't
a feint, then what was...

Shaw's eyes darted to the warehouse door just as Kelly raised the end of Arthur's blowdart-cane. His eyes flashed to Arthur, then back to Kelly.

Shaw drew.

Arthur drew, and Kelly fired striking the Kelshran just above his left nipple as he snapped off a shot. The slight sting of pain was enough to throw
his aim off. The right pig-tail on Kelly's head was sheared off. Shaw's bullet just missed her skull.

Kelly blinked. She had never seen anyone move so fast. More so she had't even seen her Grandfather move. The knife was gone from his belt.
It was inbedded deep in the assassin's throat. The Kelshran clawed at the blade with his free hand as he gurgled up blood. He fell to one knee
struggling to breath.

"GRANDPA!"

Kelly ran into the room, and Arthur whirled, throwing himslef in front of her.

"KELLY... NO!"

Too late.

Shaw raised a trembling hand, despite the narcotic in his system, he aimed and fired. Kelly watched in horror as her Grandfather's entire body
flinched. A hole ruptured out his backside the size and color of a rose blossom. A curtain of blood began to fall down his back. Arthur fell
to his knees, and with a deep exhausted sigh, fell flat on his face.

_______________________________________________________________

Kelly ran to her Grandfather's side as she heard Shaw gurgle his last labored breath.With trembling hands she touched her Grandfather's shoulders.
The 'Sin-Guardian's arms kicked out, bending at the elbows with his hands flat against the floor. Slowly, with all his remaining strength, Arthur Tyson
rose himself from the ground.

Kelly saw the gunshot wound in his chest. It was near his heart. She want to think it was just above his heart, but it was just too close to tell. His eyes
fell on her with his kind and noble smile.

"Granspa..." she whispered. "I'm sorry... I .."

Arthur just smiled and shook his head. "You did good, Kel. You did real good."

His arms reached out and the two hugged for what seemed like forever.

"Help me... Kel," said Arthur after a while. His voice was just above a whisper.

Somehow she manged to help him to his feet, and together they looked over at Shaw's body as Arthur leaned on Kelly for support. .

"What should we do about him?" asked his Granddaughter.

Shaw's vacant eyes were rolled up in th top of his head as if he were staring up into chamber's inky darkness. Arthur held his lips together and
closed his eyes.

"Leave him," he said. "Flies buzzing over a head of lettuce have more worth than him."

_______________________________________________________________

The two made it as far as the first bend in the road half outside the nano mill. Kelly could feel her Grandfather's body grow colder with
each passing step, and more so, the slosh of his own blood in his boots.

"Put me down here, Kel," said Arthur, gesturing to a small boulder along the side of the road. The older man sat down with the help of
his Granddaughter. Arthur looked long and hard to the silhouette of Fallon in the distance.

"...Too far," he said weakly. "You have... to go yourself, Kelly... and get help."

"No. I won't leave you!" stated his Granddaugher, and Arthur suddenly looked at her because her tone and voice was so much like her
mother's. Arthur looked up at the darken sky. His thoughts seemed to be deep and far away.

"Some rivers can't be crossed..." he began, and fell into a coughing fit.

"... But we have to try anyway," added Kelly. Arthur grinned and wiped the blood form his mouth.

"That's what it means to be brave," he finished.

"You're gonig to die... aren't you?" asked his Granddaughter, and her voice seemed to be the loudest sound in the chilling desert air.

Arthur looked up into the near dark sky again. Over head several points of light had swung into what looked like a planetary alignment.

"See that Kelly," he pointed. "That's a good Omen. If I die, then it was for a
good reason. Ishtar's will. Now go, child."

Kelly looked at the sky for a long time, then lowered her head to her Grandfather looking at the stars. She hugged him once more,
and kissed him on the cheek.

"I Love you..." she whispered.

"Love you, too," said Arthur.

Kelly turned and ran down the road. Ran as hard as the tears running down her face. She made only a hundred yards before she stopped
and turned around. The buring color of dusk married to the desert floor was all she could see, that and her Grandfather's silhouette sitting
on the rock.

In the wanning darkness, Arthur Tyson lowered his head in time with the setting sun.

_______________________________________________________________