Chapter Eight

	"And it is written that there were two comrades in arms, fighting the forces of darkness that threatened to overwhelm the land in the Fifteenth Incursion: Praxis and Urten were their names, and many a battle fought they, each the shield and boon companion of the other. In form they differed: Praxis was human, and of the old breed of Kings, born with hair of lustrous greying silver like to new-cut lead, and Urten was of Newblood stock, tall and lithe, grey-furred and horn-crowned in memory of his first ancestors who had been stags in the wild free days when all lived as first the Greater Gods had planned.
	"It is written that on a brief time of peace, they returned to their home village as weary heroes, and for a time they rested. But not for long. For there dwelt Arela, a fair human maid who had come of age in the time they were away, and they did both court her until their long-forged trust became bitter rivalry. First did Praxis show her record of his family's illustrious name, yea unto the twentieth generation, and of their valiant deeds and lordly bearing. And then did Urten show her the fair and wild woods as no human can know them, being half-deaf and nose-blind, upon that fairest day in Springtime.
	And then did Praxis shew of his wide estates, and the wealth to which he would come in time, and that she would be the mistress of. Then did Urten show her much of his prowess in running and martial valour, and Arela did choose to learn much of other aspects of the Newblood for which Dhoreen their first Mother had chosen for their inheritance.
	Wroth was Praxis when Arela made her choice known: that she would take as husband that which had been venison for the ancestors of his rival: and bear if she chose and Dhoreen granted, the purest of Newbloods in the likeness that she loved.
	Wroth was Praxis. Far into the woods strode he, to that place where many a revel was held in the fair eves of Summer, and to which a certain Goddess was wont to linger over fondly. "OI! Dhoreen ! No !" Did his voice ring out into the empty skies "I tell you, This is NOT ON ! You that claim to guard what is fairest in the world - how can this be ? Not that she should choose another, that is hers to choose - but that her line should vanish in all its beauty from the earth, as surely as had she been slain. For with her furred child, her form and face will be seen no more amongst us."
	And the goddess Dhoreen looked down at him as he stood there glowering, and saw the lost love beginning to spoil into hatred. Then out of that night stepped a fair young Newblood doe, soft and gentle of eye and of such a form that Praxis was heartstruck, and thought no more of Arela.
	"For," as Dhoreen did make herself known to the local Priestess at the double wedding that year "As those who made the Law, so keep we the balance - and fair exchange is no robbery."

	(From "The birds, bees, and lots of pollen gone Everywhere", said to be a sacred text in the cult of Dhoreen. Very probably mistranslated, if not entirely faked, by K.Leclerc).  

	Suzuko Hohki lay flat out on her back, basking on the sun-warmed stone top of the Tower. Although it was hardly showing the first breath of Spring in this land, still the occasional warm day spilled its blessings on the Twisted zone. Eyes closed, she was glad of her natural coat of cream and russet fur - to a human, it would be chilly indeed for sunbathing.
	She opened her eyes, blinking in the clear light. I hate to say this, she told herself, one ear dipping wryly, but this time I think Kazuko's got the right idea. There's absolutely nothing for me to DO here - just lie back and get my strength back.....
	Sharp teeth glinted in the bright sunshine as she licked the clean pink line of her injured forearm, grooming the wound and the fur with a slim, delicate tongue. It was healing nicely, she reminded herself - thanks to Mangana's sorcery, and Beauvette's speed in saving her.
	She shivered at the memory. "I should have gone with them, even so." Eyes turned to the distant horizon, where jagged white peaks raked the furthest skyline some hundred and thirty kilometres away as the bird flew - and many weary strides further for her friends picking their way across the Twisted Zone.
	"Sad suki. Yes ?" Came a voice from the tight-curved spiral stairway behind her.
	Suzuko whirled round, catching herself as she recognised the voice. 	
	"Riord," she gasped in relief, fluffed chest heaving as she faced the ex-paladin. "You startled me." Her gaze took in Riord's wide, innocent face, and then she tentatively smiled. "Yes - I was thinking about Mangana and the rest. They're out there, and we're stuck here lazing around."
	Riord stood looking puzzled for a moment at the flagstones next to her, and slowly sat down, watching carefully how her legs bent.
	Suzuko looked on in sympathy. She supposed that in some ways, having a bipedal body could be troublesome. "Like the story of the stranded millepede", she muttered to herself "soon as someone asked him just how he got his legs in sync, he tried to work it out rather than just Doing it......"
	"Are you - happy, like that ?" A vixen snout wrinkled in worry. "You might be stuck with it for nearly a year. "
	Riord gently blew out through her nose. "Better feel. Not run fast - but Understand. Know things - things come out of head. See things, know what do. And can Think About them !" Her face lit up like a happy child, and she tossed her long hair in the keen winds and sunshine. "Remember like before - see things, food, foes, just DO. Now see things, Know." 
	They both turned at a sound behind them, to see Shakarna standing at the top of the tower staircase. The sorceress looked tired and grim; evidently the efforts of discovering Suzuko's secret foe the previous day were still lying heavy on her.
	"Suzuko. And Riord, There you are." She gave a brief flash of a smile. "I had no idea you were up here."
	Suzuko dipped an ear in puzzlement. "Mrs Kohaki - didn't Kazuko tell me once, you knew Everything that happens in here ?" In this case, walls truly did have ears - the ensorcelled fabric of the building was arcanely linked with its creator, serving as protection, storage battery and sensor rolled into one.	
	"That's interesting." An eyebrow raised. "I can tell there's a living being here, but not that she's human. " The other eyebrow joined its twin. "That's VERY interesting, Suzuko. She's what you'd call Stealthy, to mage-sight - nobody's going to detect her with most of the useful spells." She looked at the vixen and the ex-paladin appraisingly, as if weighing them up. "And that could be very useful. Let's talk about this over some lunch - some problems, we've got to get working on.
	Suzuko followed her down the spiral stairs to the upper lab, a hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach. The meals were excellent here - but right now, she had lost her appetite.

	Ryko and Kazuko were awaiting them at the end of a long table, laden with dishes. Evidently, they has started early on the meal.
	"Suki !" Kazuko enthused, juice running down her furless chin from a meltingly ripe pear she was demolishing. "You want the bad news first, or the good news ?"
	Suzuko sat down heavily, and cast a wary eye at the anime human. "I could use some good news," she ventured. "Let's guess - we're all going home tomorrow ?"
	Kazuko shook her head vigourously, hair and stray drops of juice flying in all directions. "Boooringgggg ! How'd you like to teleport right into this Ayshallah's study and take him right out - and I DON'T mean for dinner ?"
	Russet ears dropped like falling trees.
	"Now, dear," Shakarna chided gently, wagging a finger at her niece. "That's NOT the plan. Not that we've decided a plan yet, but that won't be one of the options."
	"Erk." Suzuko's tail drooped like a wet towel. "What's the good news ?"
	"That WAS it. Neat, eh ?" Huge eyes sparkled, their calibre as wide as the nuclear howitzer mounted on a tracked Smurf Destroyer. "Bad news - we can't wait till Mangana and the rest get back. Oh, and Aunty can only teleport three of us that distance."
	There was a silence. 
	"Well - you Do have rather more of a chance than you might think." Shakarna mused. "All the evidence points to this Ayshalah working on his own - you're going to be up against him, but Not the official justice and military might of Dystope. So, you're going up against a major Mage - ask yourself, what exactly does that Mean ?" She walked to a blackboard, and began to scribble.
	Suzuko flashed Kazuko a less than friendly glance. "It Probably means, he's going to have my hide for a hearth-rug, and turn You into a neutered gerbil."
	Kazuko shrugged. "No geldings on THIS planet. You hadn't noticed ? Dhoreen would sort of ... make you regret you did it. Farmers don't want to breed from an animal, they take it along, and we change its - preferences instead."
	Suzuko tried unsuccessfully not to recall the mixed species herds of livestock she had seen. Mercifully, Shakarna turned to them, and gave a cough.
	"Right. It's fairly sure he knows someone's going to be coming after him. And he'll be expecting one, or both, of two things. A powerful physical force, such as those two barbarians, on its own or backed with a high-level sorcerous assault. He'll be looking out for that, scanning every disturbance of the astral plane. We can't expend sorcerous energy without leaving ... ripples. Like spending gold in a poor village, folk will notice it wasn't there before." She tapped the board with an elegant finger. "So. He'll be concentrating on spotting the strongest attacks - probably." She gave a grim smile. "But if there's one thing I've learned in three centuries, it's never to gamble. He may well be tracking my daughter right now, though the range grows greater every day."
	"You can teleport three people," Suzuko said quietly. "Who're you going to send ?"
	Kazuko tapped herself on the sternum. "I'm going - and Riord says she doesn't want to leave me. Who else ?"
	Suzuko felt a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. She had hoped this would be an end to adventure - and that she could just have the tail-end of the holiday she had hoped for, before diving back into the panic and bustle of Japan. But - she had made a commitment to her new Deity - she had promised to try her best to persuade this world that her patron's newly arriving children, though strange, were nothing to do with Chaos. And she certainly could not do that, sitting at ease in Mrs. Kohaki's tower.
	She shook her head wonderingly. "Looks like I'm stuck with it. Though we haven't a mouse in a cat-show's chance.."
	"More than you think," Shakarna said seriously. "I certainly wouldn't risk sending you unless I thought you had a fair chance of succeeding, and an excellent chance of getting out unhurt. You do know, don't you, that Riord here has retained every skill Meridy ever had ?"
	Suzuko's ears went right up. "But... she couldn't even walk, last week !"
	Kazuko tossed Riord a leather-sheathed training staff from one of the wall displays. "En garde !" She grinned, snatching up one to match it. "Defend yourself !"
	Riord caught the staff with the effortless ease of a frog snapping a dragonfly out of the air. She held it loosely, the end snaking like a living thing, as Kazuko suddenly stopped and thrust.
	"Ha !" Kazuko's stroke hit only empty air, as Riord neatly side-stepped and parried. For the next minute the room rang to the slapping of footsteps and practice canes, as Kazuko put all she had learned of Kendo and sabre fencing to good use.
	"Quite so, dear." Shakarna's foot tapped impatiently. "Riord, be a good mare and finish off, please ?"
	What happened next, happened too fast for even Suzuko's sharp eyes to follow. One second Kazuko was pressing hard on Riord - and the next, with a flick her staff was bouncing off the ceiling, Kazuko wringing her hand and grinning ruefully.
	"She's ... hot stuff, eh ?" Kazuko panted. "Look at 'er - hardly winded. That's what a good and pure life can do for you, eh - I knew it couldn't be ALL bad."
	"You're not bad as a swordswoman yourself," Shakarna smiled at her niece. "But you've got more relevant assets, as far as this trip's concerned."
	"I have ?" Kazuko turned round to look at her tailless asset. 
	"Quite. You do recall, the time that shaman somewhat lost his temper with you ? After all, you DID rather break his apprentice's training regime."
	Kazuko frowned. Then her face lit up. "I remember ! He cast a spell at me - and set his own hut on fire ! Phooofff ! Place went up like a torch. He must have missed, or something."
	The sorceress shook her head, raven braids tossing. "No, dear. It bounced right off you - I did TELL you, you're entirely spell-proof ?"
	"Oh, Auntie," Kazuko objected. "You know I'm not ! I can cast spells on myself, like that handy one "Accommodate"." She turned to Suzuko, and winked. "You'll like that one. It's sort of never having to say "Sorry, but we're Physically incompatible" again. And anyway, other folk CAN cast them on me. I found a Priestess who pumped me up with every - er, good health, spell, she'd got, the day I got into the Verdine Woods this trip."
	"Quite. But all those were Divine level ones, not Sorcery; the mechanism involved is quite different. Just as Riord's body has adapted to suit a lifestyle of fighting, so has your mind and aura accommodated to the various - strains you subject it to. It's intrinsic now, something you've not lost with your recent physical "resetting", that I can tell you."
	"Hmmm." Kazuko frowned. Suddenly, she snapped her fingers. "Hey, Suki ! Like I told you, dating all those Avatars of Really Super old Ones, it's sorta acclimatised me. Like, they sorta want to make sure I don't come to any harm, for next time round. When you know you'll be around for an aeon or three, you make sure things don't get accidentally broken."
	Suzuko winced, recalling what her friend kept telling her about her "research projects". Kazuko owned a dimensional portal the size of a dinnerplate, which she often rented out for various official or personal projects. Although the working gateway was scarcely ten centimetres across, many N-Dimensional beings could manifest tentacles and pseudopods for a wide variety of uses.
	Strangely enough, although in modern Japan most folk were massively xenophobia, they made an exception where Elder Beings from what Kazuko called  "totally other" planes were concerned. Possibly the ingrained reverence for all things Traditional had something to do with it, as folk respected beings who had seen the first colonists arrive on the Japanese mainland over the ice-age land bridge. It had always been considered an honour to marry into your family's Head Clan, the one with the best traceable lineage from the earliest Ancestors: nowadays it was triply honourable to join those who had been rulers of Japan long before it had geologically separated from Asia. Not only the Emperor now had Divine ancestry, though many of the modern generation had more tentacles than the Imperial Family.....
	Kazuko spotted Riord looking puzzled, head cocked to one side. "Seems I've ended up with a case-hardened psyche, after persuading all those hunky horrors go all the way. The physical side's not the half of it - you should try it. Just open your mind right up, let them take it as far as it'll go."
	 The ex-equine looked more baffled still. Kazuko looked at her appraisingly, and an eyebrow raised. "Imagine me as a teeny little pony, the only mare in a whole Northmarch herd. But ten times more so. It'd take some getting used to, but Lots of fun trying."
	Riord brightened up, flicking her hair as she nodded.
	"Anyway, " Shakarna put in gently. "What we have is a swordswoman of the first rank, who I can't detect as human, even standing in the same room as her. We have Kazuko, who's got Nothing to fear from sorcerous energies - it'd be like trying to kick a cannonball to death. Can't be done, and you'd sorely regret trying. And there's you."
	"ME ?" Suzuko's mouth was dry. "But, Mrs. Kohaki ... I hardly know a thing about this world - and we're going right back into the heart of things, where I don't even have a Goddess to call on that anyone else around here believes in !"
	"Yes." For a second the sorceress studied Suzuko critically. "Have you ever wondered, just Why you were chosen ? Every living thing on this world is born and raised in the local bio-astral field, whether they ever get to use it as active magick or not. Even myself -" she waved an arm around, sweeping in the laboratory and the whole complex, "even myself, I was born in the influence of the local Gods, subject to their actions and whims, however subtle. We can no more escape their influence than a fish can stay dry. So when a Newcomer to the pantheon wanted a blank slate in the Divine sense, you were the only one for the job."
	"You're a sorceress," Suzuko pointed out. "I thought you didn't handle Divinities ?"
	A smile. "Miss Hohki. Think of me as a flying fish. I can escape the depths by my Will - but it remains my home." Another pause. "And you shouldn't sell yourself short. Though Riord is capable indeed, it is to your wits and not her swordarm you should trust. Not all conflicts will be won by swordplay or the delegated power of Divinities - and that is a concept this world is slowly coming to recognise."
	Suzuko's ears lay flat on her skull. Holidays and not Heroics, were what she had been looking forward to on this trip. But as often happened - things HAPPENED to her.

	"It's great, eh ?" Kazuko enthused an hour later, as they stood again on the curtain wall surrounding the enclave of civilisation, far-flung into the Twisted Zone. "We get to see Dystope again - I get to see the main Temple of Dhoreen again ! And we'll see what we can fix up for you." Her speculative gaze locked on Suzuko, and a tongue-tip protruded slightly as she ran through possibilities. "We could start with a "Truemusk" smell - how'd you like to smell like, say, a wolf ? That'd throw a few trackers off, I'm sure. And then we can start on Illusion spells.... unless of course you'd like some more Permanent enhancements." She looked the vixen up and down critically. "Put it like this - anything anyone's ever paid a plastic surgeon to do, you can just Have, painlessly and naturally. Wouldn't that be great ?"
	Suzuko backed away. "Oh, no." She said flatly. "Paws off. I'm not letting you get anywhere near me with those spells of yours. I've got enough trouble as it is, with my own Goddess."
	Kazuko looked at her critically, and gave a brief flash of a frown. "You know, Suki..." she mused. "I can't help but think, you've got quite the wrong impression of Dhoreen, as a, like, Goddess. I mean, just because I make sorta full use of what she's got to share - well, that's just me. It's not compulsory, you know."
	She stretched her arms behind her back, looking out onto the sun-splashed wilds. "Like, you and Pathwan. She's got a lot to offer you. And I don't mean "Accommodate" and "Truemusk" either, though you'd find a good use for 'em." She turned to survey the slender vixen critically. "There's thousands of folk, just pray to her when they need to - you know, despite the low tech level here, almost nobody's ever died in childbirth, and I mean, ever ? And as for Pathwan - well, anything's possible. Dhoreen reconstructed stable species out of Enteropes, against active Divine-level opposition from the Chaos Gods. She can definitely do the trick with a Genemeld hybrid like him - whatever problems you might have had - she can fix 'em. That's what she gives: absolute and total control.  I mean it - you can get absolutely whatever you want. If you wanted to make a date in your diary to expect, say, gold-scaled draconic twins with fox-tails, to be born on next New Years's day at Noon - she can do that, whether you've ever even seen a draconic or not. And I don't mean at one o'clock, either."
	Suzuko closed her eyes. Her chosen mate was one of the Genemeld centaurs that had been banned from almost the entirety of her homeworld. One of the reasons was that their genetic structure was distinctly unstable - although it was quite possible for them to breed true with healthy offspring - often the results were "unfortunate" in the extreme. But if Dhoreen could help her and Pathwan...
	She dismissed that train of thought, though not without a pang of regret. "I'll ask MY goddess, what she can do about that," she said firmly. And clapped a paw to her muzzle, astonishment on her face.
	"My Goddess." She said, almost in awe. "I said it. And actually mean it, too."

	Evening fell as they made preparations for what Suzuko glumly expected to be a one-way trip. Kazuko was as cheerful as a tiger loose in a battery farm, as she looked through her aunt's stores of defensive and offensive equipment.
	"You know, Kaz, I really don't think this is the way to go about it." Suzuko stood by the doorway, eyeing her friend critically as she gleefully collected a satchel of sorcerous tactical battlefield devices. "Mrs. Kohaki DID say we wouldn't win this one by fighting ... I mean, having Riord along's going to be handy - Dystope's a dangerous place, even if we were just minding our business. This Ayshalah's got most of the army he can call on, and I rather think he'll spot all that high-energy enchanted hardware as soon as we're in the same county..."
	Kazuko put down the Sledgehammer Of Small Silly-Hatted Blue Dwarf Slaying she had been admiring, and cocked her round head to one side.
	"Well, you know what they say. The best form of defense is offence. And the best form of attack is surprise - Total surprise ! Preferably a pre-emptive thermonuclear carpet-bombing till the craters overlap, on someone who doesn't even suspect you're unfriendly ! Von Clausewitz said that, so there." Her face was flushed and radiant, as she tossed her mop of hair back out of her eyes.
	"I sort of doubt he did, you know..." Suzuko commented warily. But it was not her friend's words that surprised her. In the narrow room, her Kazuko's excitement was pumping out more scent than usual - which was standard for a human. It was a matter of quality and not just quantity, though - there was definitely something different about the way Kazuko was smelling, that triggered a chord in the vixen's brain and narrow, sensitive snout. She looked her friend up and down.
	"Kaz - you're not ... ill, are you ?" She asked, puzzlement in her voice. "You smell different."
	Kazuko raised her hands above her head, and twirled round like a dancer. "Me ?" She demanded in mock outrage. "Oh, I'm feeling just Excellent.." She cast a mischievous glance at the vixen. "Maybe I'm practicing my Truemusk spells - If you don't appreciate 'em, no reason to let them go to waste."
	Suzuko's eyes narrowed as Kazuko's widened in mock innocence, till they were brimming blue lakes of sparkling highlights taking up three-quarters of her skull frontage. "Hmmm. Anyway. We're off tomorrow - you AND Riord had better get some sleep - I mean that."
	With a mock sigh, Kazuko put down the satchel. "I suppose you're right. About the hardware, anyway. This Ayshalah's going to have Detection spells set up like a radar picket all round Dystope, now he knows we'll just HAVE to be coming after him. And this stuff positively Glows in the dark, so Mangana tells me." She shrugged. "But aren't you glad you're coming along ? Can't do THIS sort of thing back home." She cast a regretful glance at the racks of enchanted weapons.
	Suzuko was suddenly homesick. For all its faults, she wished she was back on Earth at the academy, even with the perpetual stink of diesel on her Project overalls, the crowded rooms and the occasional leak of Liquescent Horror dripping through the plaster from Kazuko's room on the floor above. 
	"I know." She said firmly. "So when next I go back there, I'm Staying there."


	The night Suzuko dragged her hesitant paws towards Shakarna's completed Teleport circle, saw Mangana and her party reach the edge of the Zone.
	"Interesting." Gralius's whiskers twitched. They stood at the base of a slope, where the first foothills of the Southwall Mountains ran down into the broken lands they had just crossed. "Look behind - Mangana, you have mage-sight of a kind - can you see the boundary here ?"
	The raven-haired girl stood up in her stirrups, and concentrated. To her vision, the landscape looked almost like a hollow filled with thick, swirling fog - except that the "fog" was sorcerous energy: crude, undirected power sitting on the hills like a plume of fall-out.
	"Yes, we're out of it," she agreed. And then she frowned. "So, where's this place we're making for ? I know the Capital better than some of these nearer towns - safer."
	Gralius nodded, beads of mundane fog clinging to his fine whiskers. He knew what she meant; as a less sympathetic priest would have said, "The Taskarl never fouls its own lair". Neither sorcerors or the great hunting-shrews were popular neighbours, and avoided being seen close to home.
	Beauvette grunted, tossing her horns. "Let's move it - dunno if there's an inn within reach tonight, but there ain't one here ! Come on, Pomegranate." She urged the massive stallion up the slope, his wide fringed hooves striking sparks from the hard rocks. "Getcha some beans and oats when we get there." A huge hand patted the swelling thews of her favourite's neck as she turned to wave the rest of the party on. "OI ! Vazeeq ! Get those mules trottin' !"
	At the back, the baboon looked up at the collumn of tired horses, and urged the mules after them. He had, he considered, not had TOO bad a trip - Beauvette had been very restrained really in the presence of these Outworlders, and had only made him polish her armour once a day - less, that time she was wearing the fish-scale, mail, which due to its enchantments was self-cleaning.
	He broke out of his reverie as he saw the minotaur turn and fix him with a piercing gaze from those deep-set eyes. "Coming, troop-leader," he called back, narrowly avoiding the sudden snap of his mule's sharp teeth as he applied the spurs. Beauvette had had other things to occupy herself with, coming through the Zone - but now her attention was focussed on him. 
	"I know," his dog-like muzzle wrinkled in worry "Just how an ant feels under a burning-glass..."

	They made camp on the far side of the ridge, as black veils of rain swept up from behind them. Horst and Mangana set up the alcohol stoves, and they all hastened to get their shelters secured before the onset of the wet night.
	"Well." Gralius looked around himself. There came a moment of quiet, as they settled down under the green canvas, arranging their sleeping-bags away from the expected leaks. "I'm not sure where exactly we are - I've always come around the Zone to the Southwalls, never right through it. But I think we're too far to the East; down this valley tomorrow and we should hit the trade-route."
	Machsan picked up an empty wine-skin, and stared at it disconsolately. "Aye. Then we'll see what we'll see, right ?"
	The feline cleric nodded slowly. "Remember, I checked this with Primane, so I'm fairly sure there'll be something we're interested in - but I've no idea what."
	The freshening wing rattled the canvas roof above them as they clustered round the spirit stove. Beauvette scratched behind one lowered ear as she idly looked out on the land.
	"You knows, Gralius - remember back when all this started, not more'n a month ago ? There we was, been sittin' on our tails for most of a year, just drillin' the troops to stop them getting ale-guts. Nothin' to do - just a guarding those forests, make sure nobody steals 'em."
	Gralius nodded. "Indeed the world Does change. "
	"That's it, like. Now we've got somethin' to DO - just like old times." Her deep-set eyes flashed, and her tossing head scraped the canvas . "Don't you get the idea this is ... bigger ?"
	The feline frowned. What other folk dismissed as Conspiracy Theories, he knew was generally Divine Will Manifesting. There were plans and currents that they would all be Informed about, In Due Time. But considering that this mission had fallen three years behind schedule already thanks to Primane's busy in-tray, this time it was a case of mortals definitely having to make the most of what they could do on their home plane. Primane had already helped him more than any score of priests had a right to expect in their whole lives .... which seemed to lend weight to this mission being more than it seemed.
	"One thing is certain," he suggested mildly. "The Gods of Law have had little occasion to take a direct hand down here. We seem to be living after the last Chaos Wars, Primane preserving, and maybe it will be as it was before the first ones. This was not a world meant to be fought over - it was ordered in the beginning to run itself. Given the choice, the Seven would leave it to do so."
	"I know what he means," Mangana whispered in Horst's bristly ear. "like my aircraft - all I want to do in it is fly, but it spends half the time in the repair hangar, being tinkered with."
	Horst snorted. "Gralius." He said flatly. "Your Patrons may have withdrawn from most of this world - but they are clustering round US, like wasps on a beer-mug. "
	"They are." Grey whiskers twitched uncomfortably. "We can but hope that we are being sent to find an Answer big enough to cover that too."
	Silence fell, broken only by the flapping of canvas and the soft crunching from outside as the horses grazed. 
	Mangana worked her way out into the open air and stood, stretching. Their camp was on a narrow shelf of the ridge, facing West  as they looked down the valley. The light was fading; below them was the deep gorge, filled with pinewood shadows and the roar of unseen waters foaming on rocks below. Through a sudden break in the clouds, one parting ray of light spilled through to splash the hillside with golden splendour.
	Shading her huge eyes, she put them to good use as she scanned the way ahead. There was nothing remotely resembling a track: things that came and went on the borders of the Twisted Zone generally had reason to avoid leaving evidence. She sighed. Usually, that applied to her and her family.
	"Still," she raised an eyebrow as she ran a furless hand down her armour. "I don't exactly look the part of a sorceress, right now."
	The nondescript traveller's gear they had worn from Japan to Dystope, had been left behind at her tower home, and with the joyous greeting reserved for old friends, she had taken out her usual costume. A round, one-piece titanium helmet covered her head, painted in a brown and light grey splinter pattern camouflage. Her tunic was oiled brown leather, flexible strips of more titanium mesh making it tougher than standard chainmail and far moore comfortable. The only other solid metal armour was a pair of steel shoulder-pieces and thigh-protectors, tassets as they had been termed in Europe of long ago. She would have liked to have engineered a full set of Samurai armour, but that would have been too distinctive at any sort of distance.
	Not all foes were susceptible to magic - and she had a finite pool of energies available, which she urgently needed elsewhere: all this party could fight hard, but only she and Gralius could heal. Her halberd was another old companion; six kilos of a hard grey steel forging comprised the multi-use head (blade, spike and armour-crusher), and extended in a protective strip a third of the way down the three-metre ash wood shaft. The weapon felt reassuringly heavy in her arms, though she hoped not to find out how much of her old skills were gone with the Resetting that had affected them all. She KNEW what to do - but the heavy shoulder muscles she had built up in her early teens in daily practice, had been one of the casualties.
	She grimaced, and instinctively cast a glance down to her chest, where effectively she now only had the one set of breasts that humans were generally content with. 
	"We had our lives saved, being Reconditioned like that," she muttered to herself, breath a foggy cloud in the dank evening air "but everything costs."
	A footstep came from behind her. Turning, she cast her mate a wry smile, Horst offering a mess-tin of steaming stew. Shakarna's few attempts at "production-line sorcery" had included a combined preserving and dessication cantrip: her household was supplied for journeys with what was rather better than freeze-dried rations. She hungrily took it and they ate in grateful silence, as together they stood watching the stars came out beyond the mountains, where the sweeping rain held off for the moment. Light faded, and still they stood there.
	"Look - on that far ridge, two valleys away..." She pointed in the direction of their route. "Lights of houses. Folk there are coming in to their homes, throwing wood on the fires, putting lamps in the window to greet late-comers, looking forward to a meal and a warm, dry bed."
 	She turned to her mate in the last light, her great pools of eyes glittering like wet opals in starlight. "I used to love watching the far horizons back in Japan when I was little, when Father'd take me there to school. We'd just sit and watch the lights coming on all over the islands - we had a game, seeing how far we could see from the house we'd got on the clifftop." Her eyes closed, she burrowed a slim hand for warmth under his tunic, feeling the thick wiry fur and the hard lithe muscle beneath. "Some days, after it'd rained just like this and the air was clear, you could see right across to the lighthouse on Akura-Jima, sixty kilometers over the waters. Sixty thousand metres, of cold black water. And on the far side, there's be folk sitting right down in comfort, just glad to be in together out of the cold and the rain."
	Horst put his triangular-fronted snout down to press lovingly against her naked forehead, wisps of damp black hair tangling under her green waxcloth hood. His sensitive nose felt her rain-cold skin and the deep slow pulsing of blood in her veins, vibrant with life. Just at that moment the first cold squall laden with the night's rain lashed them, sending them running arm in paw back to shelter, Mangana shaking with sudden unexpected laughter that rang out into the deepening night and rising wind.
	Gralius raised an eyebrow as they pushed under the wet flap of the shelter, warmed only by body heat and the wan flickering of the spirit stoves as Vazeeq brewed up honey-laced tea for them all.
	"See anything ?" He asked mildly. "You were out there long enough."
	Behind him in the crowded dark, Beauvette gave a cheerful grunt. "Don't reckon you has to worry about them as lookouts. Now, wi' most folk, you wouldn't put 'em on watch if they've only eyes for each other." She tossed her head, horns scraping on the lowered roof of the tent. "But with her, she's got eyes enough for him an' to spare !"
	Gralius sighed, as he pulled up his blanket and prepared to start his nighty devotions. Tomorrow was probably going to be a day of miracles and wonders - which in Divine terms meant a Happy Ending as part of the Big Picture.
	There was generally trouble with divine-scale Happy Endings, though. As he well knew from many a history and example - a lot of the Mortals involved, generally didn't live to see them.