Chapter 1 : Arrivals

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea

By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown

Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock' - T.S. Eliot (1915)

For Cerylia, who has another name in another place and another time…

---

She came to the Autumn Country early in the morning, whilst silver pools of dreaming mist still lazed around the night damp oaks and an ashen yellow sun painted brush strokes of decay over the deep drifts of red and tan leaves. The drama of water on mossy rocks was loud in her ears and through the abstract severity of barely clothed tree branches she could see a few black birds circling like sentries in a pastel blue sky. She breathed deeply, gasping at the thin air. The cut in her left arm was hammering blunt messages of pain into her body but she allowed herself a small smile of satisfaction. She had the Token and the trail was fresh.

A little way below there was a flat grey boulder dressed in orange lichen. The young woman sat down heavily and shook the pack from her shoulders. Blood was seeping through the thick blue velvet of her gown and she would have to bandage the wound again. It was dangerous to let blood flow in the Autumn Country. There were eldritch agents in these woods, some capable of breaking through the Barriers; things better left unnamed and unacknowledged. To such as these, a drop of blood on the ground was as good as a signature. It smelt of uniqueness and they could track it from here to the boundaries of the Great Elsewhere. So she was cautious.

The cut had to be cleansed in running water or not at all. Leaving the pack she found the stream, pulled away the torn fabric from her sleeve and let the shock cold flow wash over her whitening limb. She waited until it felt comfortably numb, then bound a fresh strip of linen tightly round for four turns, taking great care to leave no liquid red trace of her injury. The soiled bandage she stowed scrupulously back in her pack, and cutting away the remainder of the ruined velvet from her arm, wadded the stained material safely on top.

The traveller rested for a few moments, closing her eyes until the chill in the air brought goose pimples to her newly exposed skin, then she stood up with a shiver, pulled on cloak and pack and set off down the hill. She followed the stream where it warded the woods and in a quarter of an hour emerged from the trees to find a broad asphalt road sliding through the forest, covered with a thin skin of sodden yellow leaves. The road was flanked by short stone columns every twenty metres or so along its length, each one as high as her waist and surmounted with a granite statue of a nymph or an imp.

She tossed shoulder length honey coloured hair back from her lightly flushed face and began to whistle as she walked down the road, not loudly but distinctly. There were certain tunes that were prescribed for routes like this. She wasn’t exactly frightened but there was no need to take unnecessary risks.

The brittle brightness of the early morning soon faded. A bone dampening wind was now tormenting the forest, not cold but unpleasant enough, and low grey clouds began to take up their stations to cover the sky. Another two hours of steady walking lay ahead of her and for the last fifteen minutes the traveller had to endure the unremitting fall of the sort of rain patient enough to soak through all but the most waterproof of garments if given enough time. She was a little worried about water seeping through her bandages and washing out traces of diluted blood, so she kept her left arm cradled inside her cloak. But the cloak couldn’t shield all her clothing. Where it was exposed, the traveller’s blue velvet gown was soon heavy with rain and her spirits sank.

Suddenly the road came to an end. A stout grey castle squatted at the top of a low rise. It was a typical Waypoint Fortress in granite and black slate. The wide moat was overgrown with angelica, hogweed and brambles, a dank thicket of unkempt vegetation that was wet and miserable but drier than it was designed to be. The traveller had seen friendly buildings like this throughout the Frontier Realms but in the Autumn Country, loyalties were questionable. An atmosphere of sodden disinterest hung about the place, dripping from the overhanging crenellations with the rain. She saw no obvious sign of life and the portcullis above the main archway was raised so that the way was clear to a gloomy inner courtyard. It was a little surprising not to see at least a guard or two at their posts. The young woman felt a brief thrill of fear but she hardened her resolve and determined to cross the drawbridge.

The last twenty metres or so in front of the moat had been cleared of trees and the traveller had just set out across this open grassy expanse when the loud psychic whisper of a nearby dislocation startled her.

The Autumn Country was notoriously leaky. In many of the Frontier Realms the Barriers were low, so that natural and unnatural dislocations were prone to open at the slightest excuse. The Autumn Country was one of the worst. Here, dislocation was built into the very pattern of the Realm, an irregular fading, a waxing and waning of decay which ghosted the trees themselves in and out of the world. She’d been aware of it ever since her arrival in the woods; a thinness at the heart of things, punctuated perhaps every ten minutes by a sudden hollow feeling in her stomach as though she’d spent a brief second in free fall. If she turned round quickly, perhaps she’d see a bare tree snatched away to Winter, or feel the exhalation of a thin mist and a sudden unexpected spatter of brown leaves as the transfer took its course.

But this was different - stronger and altogether more purposeful. She turned around to face the woods, suddenly nervous as a guilty cat. On the right of the road the trees fell away but to the left was a last high banking before the castle lawn and it was amidst these trees that a black space opened and something came tumbling through, hurtling straight towards her as it fell.

“Oh my God,” the something said from its position sprawled on the ground. It was a man in a black suit with a white shirt and a red tie. She had wasted no time, shifting her balance and using his speed to trip him. Her knife was at his throat.

“Don’t move!”

She guessed he was in his mid thirties - thick red blonde hair and a frame of lenses across his face that was now bent askew.

“W.. what. I mean w.. where. I mean w.. who?”

He was shivering uncontrollably and starting to get very wet. It had obviously been dry and warm in the Realm where he had come from and he was ill prepared for the conditions.

The traveller thought fast. He didn’t look like an Agent.

“Who sent you?” she demanded. “And don’t pretend you’re a Freelance! That was a deep disruption. No Freelancer would have the strength to open one of those. You’re under Contract. Tell me who sent you!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about! No one sent me!”

He was struggling to get up but she pushed him down again, one knee firmly on his chest.

“Who are you?” he managed to ask. “And where am I, for God’s sake!”

“Careful”, she said, suddenly alarmed. “Mind your language! Don’t you know where you are?”

“I’ve just said I don’t, haven’t I!”

This time his voice had an edge of hysteria. Either he was a very good actor or else he really didn’t know where he was. There was something familiar about his unusual manner of dress, which nagged at the traveller’s memory. She’d seen garments like these on one of the Stable Worlds and she recognised the accent of his English. Yes, that was it. It was the Realm that some called the Earth and his English was the old original flavour. And those lenses, then, were no adornment or token. He was short sighted and they would be glasses. She decided to try a little test.

“My questions first,” she said. “What’s your name?”

“Peter Kirkland”

She evaluated this for a moment, tasting the truth. Perhaps after all, he wasn’t an Agent? There were certainly few of the usual signs. Of course some of the Agents were tricky these days but even so… There were still “accidents” across the Barriers. And then there were Agents unscrupulous enough to select a victim for Exile as a trading counter in a distortion swap. She would trust him for now. She sheathed her dagger, returning it to the scabbard strapped to her boot.

“This is the Autumn Country,” she said, helping him to his feet. “It is not a place I prefer to linger, although many have lingered here.”

She nodded to the castle. He straightened his glasses, removed them carefully and wiped raindrops from the lenses on the front of his shirt.

“Now tell me truly. What do you know of the Frontier Realms?”

“Nothing,” he said with obvious feeling. “I know absolutely nothing about why I am here or where I am. One moment I was in the lift, going down three floors from the computer room to the accounts department. The next thing, the doors opened and flung me out here! What’s going on!”

“I don’t know,” the traveller said simply. The rain had plastered her dark blonde hair to her forehead. Peter found her voice oddly accented with an unusual foreign lilt but it was not difficult to understand. It was almost musical and quite beautiful. And so was she.

“Listen to me,” the young woman said. “I really don’t know why you are here. I’m sorry you’ve been wrenched out of your world, and if I can, I will do my best to return you to it.

"But I’m afraid I’m not in a position to do that right now. This is the Autumn Country,” she repeated, as though that explained everything.

“I will do you no harm. You have my word on that. But this can be a hazardous place. I am only travelling through. I’ll speak frankly. You are something of a hindrance to me Peter Kirkland.

"You may come with me because I can see that you are helpless, ignorant and alone and I would not abandon you to the Autumn Country in such a state. But know this. I am following a dangerous trail and I cannot afford to fail or to loose my way before the end. My enemies are subtle and various. One of them has taken something from me - something important. I seek to recover it. That is all you need to know for the present and it is more than you should say to any other.

"If you choose to come with me, then you must listen to what I say and follow my instructions immediately and without question. This is not a Stable World like the Earth. Carelessness here costs more than lives sometimes.

"Don’t trust strangers. Let me do the talking and we’ll see if we can get you out of this mess.

"When we are somewhere safer, we will hold a longer conversation but this isn’t really the time or the place.”

Finally she managed a brief smile of consolation. He was soaked now and sober. He was obviously taking her seriously. Good.

“Will you come with me?”

“What choice do I have?” he said. “Lead on!”

She sighed theatrically and took his arm.

“Come on. Cheer up. Let’s find out if the good folks of the castle are at home shall we? I, for one, would like to get out of this rain!”

Strangely enough, the young woman felt a little better as they passed under the dark archway and entered the courtyard. She was fairly certain that her new companion was harmless and even though Peter was an unwanted liability it was still good to have company.

Inside the curtain wall, the fortress looked as though it had started on the road to ruin. The masonry was crumbling in places and fallen stones were left to lie on the cobbles. Green ferns grew in the cracks and one wall had been abandoned to ivy and moss. A couple of miserable rooks gave a brief raucous cry and made a short flight from the battlements to the top of a dilapidated stable block. The traveller would have thought the whole castle deserted if it were not for the regular clouds of blue smoke which she now noticed, coughing out of an oblong brick chimney at the back of the keep.

The keep itself was on a traditional mound in the middle of the bailey and seemed in a better state of repair than the rest of the castle. As they approached it, a thick brassbound door opened inwards and a long wooden pole poked out, to be followed by the stout figure who carried it. He was wearing a leather jerkin with a dull metal breastplate strapped over the top. A red skullcap covered his thick mop of curly black hair. His skin was black and shiny, and his face was adorned by a golden guard, which bridged his thin nose and shielded his cheekbones, giving him the look of some exotic, half-metallic creature. Once free of the doorway, the man spun the pole in his hands until it was vertical and Peter could see that it was an iron pike with a fat serrated blade at the business end.

The young woman was somewhat amused by this amateurish example of military discipline. Obviously, the sentry had been sheltering from the rain.

“You’ll be waantin’ to see the Count, if’n I suppoose rightly,” the man said. His accent was rich and drawn out, with long a’s, and o’s that all sounded like they’d been doubled up to oo’s.

“If you please,” the traveller answered, taking her cue from him. But it wasn’t a cue to be taken lightly.

“Thaat’s a shame ‘coos he’s oout huntin’,” he said with satisfaction, like a man delivering the punch line to a particularly good joke. He shifted his balance so that the pike was held diagonally across his chest and made himself comfortable baring the door. He was obviously in no hurry to let them in.

“Well is there anywhere we can wait?” she tried.

The guard paused and seemed to be considering this for a long time.

“Noo, I doon’t rightly reckoon aas there is,” he said easily.

“So we’re stuck here in the rain then?”

“Thaat’s aboout the size on it,” the guard agreed and after an agonising pause continued, “Corse you might waant to see the sensescaal. Would thaat be right noow?”

“Yes please,” the traveller answered eagerly but even as she did so, she detected the gleam of humour in the sentry’s eye, which told her she’d been caught out again.

“Thaat’s a shame ‘coos he’s a bed with coold and he’s not to be disturbed.”

And with that he lapsed into silence and seemed ready to stand there forever.

“Lucky old coold, eh? Whoever she is.”

Peter had been growing increasingly frustrated by the turn of events and couldn’t resist this contribution. He was still in shock - trying to come to terms with the whole unbelievable business of finding himself suddenly flung into this bizarre situation. The joke came to him out of a spirit of reckless defiance and total disorientation. It brought a warning look from the young woman but a sudden guffaw from the guard who appreciated it much more.

“Fine hospitality this is,” Peter said with a shiver.

“The Frontier Realms are not famous for their hospitality,” his companion answered wryly.

The arrival of a tall man in a hooded purple cloak broke the deadlock. He came striding to the keep from a squat circular building in one corner of the courtyard. Like the guard, the newcomer had deep black skin, but in his case it was a matt, undecorated ebony darkness that reflected no light. His wiry grey beard had been neatly trimmed and looked as though it could scour pans. Peter judged him to be in his sixties with a bony frame that was all knees and elbows. Without saying a word the man nodded to the sentry who stood aside with some regret that his game had come to an end. Gesturing for the travellers to enter, he shepherded them inside, and at last they were out of the rain.

The ground floor of the keep was a single large room with a high ceiling and two stairways in opposite corners. A large fire burned in the grate, and although much of the resulting smoke was drawn up through an iron hood into a wide stone chimney running up the wall, its hungry consumption of logs left a residual blue thickness in the air. Brown rushes were strewn across the rough stone floor but there were three well-worn rugs by the fire which added an element of comfort to the Spartan appearance of the place. The bare walls were decorated with crossed swords, battle-axes and the stuffed head of something that reminded Peter vaguely of a stag. When he looked more closely, however, the high set eyes and oddly pointed ears quickly convinced him that the luckless beast was either an extreme mutant or something else altogether.

A dozen people occupied the room. Two were young teenage soldiers, engaged in a half-hearted mock fight with wooden swords. One woman was chopping vegetables on a long wooden bench, another carried a pail of water towards the opposite stairs whilst a third stoked the fire. An old man sat on a stool beside her, whittling with a short knife. The rest were a motley collection of ragged children playing in front of the fire.

“Follow me,” said their host, and the two travellers were led quickly though the room, accompanied by a dozen curious stares.

They took the nearer flight of steps, steep, twisted tightly round the central pillar and worn by years of heavy use. Peter nearly stumbled twice before they came to an iron bound door and were admitted to a much smaller room that overlooked the courtyard. Red and purple abstract tapestries covered two walls but the longest one, opposite the door, was given over to a large bookshelf, populated with hundreds of leather bound volumes.

“Sit down please,” the tall man said, throwing back his hood and indicating two high backed chairs in front of an ornate redwood table. Now Peter could see his face more clearly. He had deep set eyes; pale, watery and unapologetic in returning the younger man’s stare. The mutual scrutiny could have lasted only a second or two but it seemed much longer and Peter felt he had been intelligently assessed and found wanting. Without hesitation, the old man turned to the young woman and began abruptly as they took their seats.

"You will have noticed," he said, "that I have not asked for your weapons. I am sure that I can trust you not to abuse my hospitality. Nevertheless, if you were thinking of using a blade inside this room I should warn you that it is warded. Do not think that I am stupid or weak."

“What is your name?” he continued in a more intimidating tone, the sudden change in his voice startling them just a little.

“You may call me Cerylia,” the traveller answered. It wasn’t her real name, of course. No one with any experience would be foolish enough to exchange real names in the Autumn Country. If he had hoped to trick her so simply, he showed no disappointment as he smiled at her reply. It was some time before he continued. He took a chair for himself first - a large comfortably padded piece of furniture in front of the bookshelf and on the opposite side of the table. Pouring himself a beaker of water from a tin pitcher, he took a sip. Conspicuously, he offered nothing to the travellers.

“I am called Tarragon,” he said at last.

“This is the castle of Count Arcturus, Master of the Autumn Fire, Guardian of the Cross Roads, Watcher of the Angry Roads, Patron of the Final Harvest, Gatekeeper of the Seven Ways, and Defender of the Barriers.

I am the Count's personal councillor and academic advisor. The Count is out, but we are expecting him back soon. I am sure that he would like to see you.”

“Yes, yes… We would like to see him too."

The young woman hesitated but pressed on. "What exactly does he defend the Barriers from?” she ventured cautiously.

“Ah… That would be telling…In these places there are many strange wanderers. One cannot be too careful.” Tarragon turned to Peter. “And your friend? What, prey tell, might your name be sir?”

“P...” Peter began.

“Pendramon,” Cerylia cut across smoothly, almost literally taking the word out of Peter’s mouth. He felt as if his name had tumbled out of his head and been slipped inside a fold of the young woman’s cloak. It had all the fluidity and disconcerting dexterity of a conjuring trick.

“Pendramon,” he repeated numbly, like a stumbling child.

Tarragon smiled again; rather nastily this time, Peter thought. It had the false politeness of a thief caught red handed trying to explain away his haul. All of a sudden he felt an enormous and inexplicable relief that Cerylia had been quick enough to interrupt him.

“So Pendramon, what brings you to the Realm of the Autumn Country?”

"I'm with Cerylia," he answered simply. She was pleased with his cautious reply - accurate and yet it revealed nothing. If Tarragon was suspicious he didn't show it. He turned to Cerylia.

"Well then, my lady," he said without warmth. "I had better address my question to you, it would seem. What are you doing in the Autumn Country?"

Cerylia had had some time to think about her answer to this enquiry. The castle presented no overt dangers but she was always uneasy in a place where she knew so little. Subtle dangers could be twice as deadly as obvious ones. There was something about this Tarragon which made her wary - a dangerous perspicacity. It crossed her mind to wonder if he'd been the one to initiate Peter's involuntary transfer to the Realm. His curious reaction to the man didn’t sit altogether well with the theory but she didn’t like the way he'd hunted for Peter's name. Although, she questioned herself critically, was it any different from the way that she had behaved on first contact with the bewildered stranger?

The allegiance of the castle was an unresolved question and Tarragon's position highly uncertain. Soon she would need to consult with the Token inside her pack which felt pregnant with the heavy weight of unborn truth. But that would have to wait until she had a little privacy. In any case it was perilous to consult the Token too often. There was an addictive quality to the transaction and a demanding cost. She could only afford to pay a little more of that particular fee, so she would have to postpone any consultation until it was absolutely necessary. It was even possible that she wouldn’t be able to use the Token at all and if that happened she wasn't quite sure what she'd do. Certainly it was better to trust to her own wits for the moment. She would try a mixture of truth and a healthy dose of misdirection.

"I'm just passing through," she said. "I'm engaged in a collection contract. There are some rather unusual Binding Rules available for the individual who can obtain a certain ancient silver sculpture from one of the Twilight Realms. There are ways through the Autumn Country that can save me a great deal of time, and time is of the essence. Obviously I can't give you any more details. Commercial confidentiality, I'm afraid. I'm sure you understand."

She smiled sweetly and continued in a more uncertain tone.

"Unfortunately, I believe I may have some competition. They have probably passed this way before me. I think there could be four or five of them. One is a striking blonde in a red figure hugging cat suit. She usually wears a broad brimmed crimson cowboy hat with a green feather in the crown. I'm sure you would have noticed her. There's a spindly white stick of a middle-aged man with prominent ribs, jewelled ears and a flattened nose. And I'd be interested to know if there was a young man with them; probably wearing a white tabard and with the little finger of his left hand missing.

"We're old rivals you see. I'd like to know where they went and how much of a start they have on me."

Tarragon steepled his own fingers as though he was praying and tapped them against his lips. "Interesting," he said. "I had no idea that the Stability Council let their Agents go wandering off on freelance jobs. Standards must be slipping if you can wear the pin and go gallivanting away on your own for some trinket…"

Cerylia cursed herself for a fool. The man was mocking her openly now. She had been stupid not to remember the turquoise pin broach on her cloak which proclaimed her rank and authority to all those with the knowledge. The Autumn Country was a provincial backwater. She'd assumed that no one here would recognise the protocols of the Stability Council - very careless. There was no point in being embarrassed about it though. Cerylia decided just to brazen it out. He'd got one story and she had no desire to give him another. She shrugged, smiled again and stonewalled.

"Well spotted, sir. But my question remains. Have you seen the Agents I described?"

Tarragon laughed - a harsh and surprising sound like the call of the rooks in the courtyard.

"I might have," he said. "Or I might not have."

"I'll let the Count tell you himself, if he chooses to. You won’t have to wait long. I see the hunting party is back already!"

There was a clattering of feet and metal, and the call of men at arms. Looking out of the window they could see three large, white, mounted beasts entering the courtyard in single file. Peter had never seen anything like them. The creatures were about as tall as a shire horse but with a much wider girth and a lower slung chest. They were longer too, perhaps five meters or so from the snout like head to the back pair of legs, and then another two meters or more of a fat prehensile tail, which they flexed restlessly as they lumbered forward. Each one was covered in a dense pelt of dirty white fur, which from this distance seemed to be composed of long, quill like hairs, stiff enough and thick enough to show a clear parting down their backs. The beasts were wearing some elaborate leather and gold tackle, lacquered in black. It was a one-piece construction but contained three separate saddles; each creature being quite strong enough to carry three fully armoured men apiece. The rider at the front controlled his mount with two pairs of thin reins and a third pair was looped loosely in front of the second man. The warrior at the back carried a pike like the one wielded by the guard they had already met. And now Peter noticed that the animals possessed a sharp set of shiny black claws at the end of their thick legs, which were striking loudly against the cobbles. Even from here, he thought he could detect a deep intelligence in their eyes and for a strange moment imagined that there was some sort of hidden amusement in there as well. He was reminded of a fantastic cross between a giant anteater and a sloth, but with three pairs of legs? Nothing on Earth had an anatomy like that!

"They are Kestervaals," Cerylia said to Peter. “Natives of the Hybronican Hills.”

"Absolutely," said Tarragon, "and though it may seem ungracious, I must now attend on my master, and you must go to the audience chamber. Follow me."

The councillor took Cerylia and Peter back onto the stairwell and up another flight of steps before leading them into a tall but narrow room. The audience chamber stretched the length of the keep, though it was barely a quarter of its width. The tapestries which covered these walls were more straightforward than the ones in Tarragon's room. Hunting scenes, banquets, wars and weddings decorated the dirty cream fabric. A small fire burned in a black iron grate, with a flue which fed into the main chimney. There were three heavy tables and a variety of chairs.

"Sit here," Tarragon said, indicating a comfortable couch by an open lancet window. "I shall return shortly. Don’t go anywhere!"

The travellers were on their own again and they stood for a few moments, studying the activity in the courtyard before the young woman turned away with a small sigh. "You never can tell," she murmured cryptically. "You never can tell."

Peter looked as apprehensive as she felt and Cerylia smiled in reassurance. She couldn't prevent wincing briefly as she sat down though, and she used her right hand to grip the upper part of her left arm where the barb had pierced it.

"You're hurt!" Peter exclaimed. It was the first time he'd noticed.

"Just a bit," Cerylia admitted. "I'll be alright." She paused briefly to straighten her back and rest her head against the wall.

"Before I reached the Autumn Country, I had to cross over an infamous river on an even more infamous bridge which some call the Last Lantern Bridge. I already knew that my quarry had fled here but I couldn’t follow the Agents immediately. There were certain timing complications and I chose to chance the Last Lantern Bridge to consult an old friend. My friend wasn't there but my enemies had left a present for me in the shape of a mechanical trap. I was an idiot and it caught me by surprise. Luckily, they hadn't set it properly and I was too quick for the machine to do the damage they intended. But it left its mark.

"My enemies mean business, Peter."

Last Lantern Bridge by DMFW with Midjourney

She sighed again as he absorbed the impact of her words.

"Look, I really am sorry you got mixed up in this. Really. None of it is your fault and if it's at all possible, I'll find a way to help you out, without getting muddled up in my troubles. I don't want to lead you into any more danger than you're already in, believe me."

"But there isn't a way, is there?" he answered with a lop sided grin. "You've already said as much before."

"Not that I can think of now," she admitted.

"Then I'd better make the best of it, hadn't I?" he said. "You see, I don’t know why I'm here or where here is (and don't tell me it's the Autumn Country again!) but I haven't completely lost my wits. You've offered me a way back home. That's the best offer I've had and I can’t really object to the rest of the terms, now can I?"

He grinned again, a feeble bravado in the face of apprehension bordering on fear. Despite herself, Cerylia was impressed. The man had been catapulted out of a completely different life into a strange and threatening world to which he'd had such little time to adjust. Yet he still had some reserve of humour. But he doesn’t know what I know, she thought. He's got no idea what I'm facing and what those robbers have really stolen from me. Then she suddenly felt sad again - worse than at any time since she'd come to the Autumn Country, and her face closed down and she turned away.

"Have you dressed the wound?" Peter asked, trying to remember the first aid lessons he'd sat through many years ago.

"Yes," she said, turning back. "It ought to be changed but I'll have to leave it for now. Don’t worry about it."

"Listen…" He was hesitant. "I know you said you didn’t want to tell me what you were looking for, but since you're stuck with me can't you at least let me know a little bit more? I might even be able to help…"

"You won't," she said flatly. Then she relented a little.

"I suppose it's only fair to tell you something." But she stopped after that, as though she might have changed her mind again and Peter felt he had to prompt her.

"So what are these 'Binding Rules' then?"

"Oh them," she said with a dismissive frown, "forget them! I made all that up. The whole thing about the silver sculpture and the collection contract was just a piece of misdirection. I had to tell Tarragon something and I was hoping I'd found a plausible story for him. It's the kind of thing you might expect a freelance Agent to be doing in the Autumn Country. It didn’t work though. He doesn't believe it anyway. This gave me away."

She was fingering a delicate turquoise broach in the shape of two hollow interlocking circles which was pinned to her cloak.

"It's the badge of office for Agents of the Stability Council," she explained. "I should have taken it off. Tarragon was right. No Stability Council Agent would be chasing a collection contract into the Twilight Realms unless it was cover for something else… I've made a bit of a fool of myself there."

"So this 'Stability Council' is backing you up then, is it?" Peter ventured.

"Yes and no. I am one of their Agents but this is a personal task. They know what I'm doing but they haven’t got the resources to help me out. Or else they don't want to commit themselves. It's all rather political, It would take too long to explain it now but I'm effectively on my own."

"Apart from me," Peter said.

"Apart from you, of course," Cerylia allowed with an ironic smile.

"So now I know what you're not doing, are you going to tell me what you are doing?"

"I'm chasing some thieves," she said. "I'm chasing the Agents I described to Tarragon. I think they are under Contract to a Power known as the Proton King."

"So this woman in the red cat suit and the cowboy hat…"

"…does exist, yes," she finished for him, interrupting his own interruption.

"She travels under the name of Eryndra, although some call her Lacheema. And the man I mentioned with the prominent ribs and yellow jewelled ears, is Kark. He's a psychopath. They say he once killed a woman, just because she was wearing similar jewellery and he took it for ridicule."

"And the Proton King…"

"…is a very nasty piece of work that likes to throw his weight around and doesn’t care much for the Stability Council," she said. She might have continued with her explanation but at that moment they heard footsteps ascending the stairs and Cerylia motioned Peter into silence.

Tarragon entered the audience chamber first, followed immediately by his master.

The Count was a tall, barrel chested man in his mid to late fifties, still muscular and strong despite the fact that he was plainly running to fat. His face was broad and his skin shone with a chocolate and bronze lustre. His long hair had been carefully braided into dreadlocks with red and yellow beads and it fountained from his head in an unruly cascade. Striding flamboyantly into the room, he threw down a silver oval shield, painted with the design of three green toothed leaves. He turned towards his two guests and began to unbutton his bottle green jerkin.

"Ah," he said, catching sight of Cerylia.

"Well, well, this is a surprise! I never expected to see you here."

He smiled broadly and winked at Peter. "Welcome to the Autumn Country! And welcome to my little domain."

Cerylia seemed taken aback.

"Ithika!" she murmured at last. "So this is where you got to!"

"Tusk, tusk," the Count answered with mock severity. "Such bad manners, I don't know what the younger generation is coming to these days! That name belongs somewhere else, now doesn’t it? I'm sure you wouldn’t like it if I called you Kamnisa Nadjen, now would you?"

"I thought not," he rumbled on, without waiting for an answer. "And as I remember you were always such a stickler for the Conventions and the Laws of Form, weren't you? Little miss prissy, eh?"

The Count grinned again as Cerylia (or was it Kamnisa?) pursed her lips sharply. Peter was beginning to realise just how much he had to learn here. But already, he suspected (and rightly) that his companion had more names than the two he now knew…

"So come on, let's do this properly," the Count admonished her playfully. "What would you like me to call you?"

"Cerylia," she said simply. "And this is Pendramon."

"Indeed," the Count said sceptically but obviously unwilling to challenge them for the moment. "And for my part, let us say that I am Azbyc Vewdx, alias Count Arcturus, Master of the Autumn Fire, Guardian of the Cross Roads, Watcher of the Angry Roads etc, etc… But I'm quite sure that Tarragon has already listed all my eminent titles and I won’t bore you with them again.

"Instead let me offer you some better hospitality. These are friends, Tarragon. Send for a couple of bottles of the Alushian Red."

Then turning to Cerylia and Pendramon he continued in more reverential tones, "The grapes must be wounded by a perfect autumn frost, harsh enough to break the skin before they are sent for fermentation. Alushian Red is such a fine wine. I will take you to see my vineyards if we have the time."

Cerylia had to smile and Peter could sense her relief. At least she knew this Count Arcturus character and that was surely something…

"It's been a long time," the Count was saying. "You know, the last time I saw you, you were all fired up with enthusiasm to enter the Academy. Yes, that's right. I was organising trade links between the Water Worlds and the Old Techno-Gang and I'd come for a meeting with your father. The Stability Council wanted to make sure my deals all went smoothly. They had a vested interest in keeping the Old Techno-Gang happy in those days. I hear it's not quite the same now…

"You must have just turned sixteen. We had a heated little argument, I remember. Something along the lines of profit versus principle."

"I remember it quite clearly," Cerylia said with a non committal frown. "I'm afraid I couldn’t understand your attitude. My dad said you were a good friend of the Stability Council but I couldn’t see it. I suppose I might have been just a tiny bit prissy in those days…"

She seemed to enjoy the admission though, and managed a tiny smile.

"Ah yes," the Count laughed. "The idealism of youth, eh? What would we do without it? And you obviously haven’t given it all up or you wouldn’t have signed on as one of their Agents."

"I haven't given it up," she said, suddenly turning serious again, "but what about you? You know you upset a lot of people when you dropped out of sight in the middle of the Silver Build. That was a big Construction Contract. The Stability Council trusted you to steer it through. You do realise that once you disappeared with most of the major Binding Rules the whole enterprise fell through. We ended up with a distortion matrix bad enough to disrupt navigation round the whole of the Island Realms (as if there wasn't enough trouble there already)! In fact there are Agents still trying to clear the mess up now, and that was twenty five stanzas ago."

"I had heard something of the sort," the Count said. Peter got the impression he was trying for a dry indifference but it came out sounding uncomfortable. There was an awkward silence during which Tarragon arrived with the wine. The Count poured generous measures of dark red liquid into long stemmed glasses. When Peter sipped his drink he found it rich and decidedly heady.

"Enough dwelling on the past, I fancy!" their host said, all bonhomie and bluster again. "You know I still get news from the Council, even if they get no news from me! My contacts told me you'd got yourself hooked up with some natural born Realm Runner from one of the Stable Worlds. The romance of the century, I heard they were calling it. What was his name? Ah, yes, Sunanon, that was it! They said he could smell a distortion from half a world away. And brave as a lion too! Lost his little finger in a fight with the weretrolls of Mistica. Is this him?"

He nodded his head in the direction of Peter.

"I must say he's a bit of a disappointment after all the stories I'd heard…" He made a face and rolled his eyes comically.

"No it isn't him!" Cerylia said, plainly irritated and caught a little off guard. "I've told you, this is Pendramon."

The Count shrugged. "That explains why he's got all his fingers, then. Ah well, never mind eh?" He winked at Peter who was blushing from the combination of the wine and a little embarrassment at being made the good humoured butt of the big man's joke.

"Seems like that Sunanon's a lucky man, though. Wouldn’t you agree Pendramon?"

For a moment Peter had forgotten his own alias. "Err… yes, yes I would," he managed at last, feeling boorish and flat footed.

"Well that wasn't very positive, was it?" the Count said, enjoying the upper hand in the conversational game. "Not a great flatterer, is he?" he said to Cerylia, continuing to tease his young guests mercilessly. He leant forward conspiratorially, suddenly adopting an accent which was perfect corrupted Essex cockney. "You need to practice your chat up lines, mate," he advised Peter.

"Look. If we can just get down to business!" Cerylia had had enough.

"OK, OK," the Count sat up, holding his hands out in ostentatious surrender before slumping back all sly and predatory.

"Business it is then. Whatever you want, my dear. Tarragon's been briefing me, but I'm still a little confused. What exactly is your business?" He raised one quizzical and provocative eyebrow but didn’t wait for an answer.

"Let me see if I can get this straight. You're travelling with 'Pendramon' and you're after Binding Rules for a collection contract on a silver sculpture in one of the Twilight Realms. And you're following rival Agents; a woman in a red cat suit, a man with yellow jewelled ears and possibly a man with a missing little finger.

"I'll take it as read that some of this is pure fabrication. Naturally, you wouldn't be telling old Tarragon the truth, now would you, eh?"

He grinned broadly, obviously intrigued and enjoying himself. "The question I have to ask you is, Which bits are true and which bits are false? And what do you want from me, other than my excellent hospitality, of course? And who could these Agents be? A man with a missing little finger, eh…

"Well, well, well…"