Lessek's Key

THE BORDER CROSSING

‘We would have known, right?’ Steven asked.

‘I suppose so,’ Gilmour answered, ‘although I can’t be certain anymore – I’ve lost track of myself recently…’

‘I think you’re underestimating yourself, Gilmour. Maybe you’re tired – we’ve been going at breakneck speed since Mark and I arrived, and that’s just been the past Twinmoon or so. You’ve been pushing yourself for much longer: you’ve been running on fumes since Orindale.’ Steven held back a branch to let the old man past. The forest they were walking through was thick with young growth, periodically interspersed with the charred remains of an older tree, still standing, but truncated by fire and crusted in black ash. Steven released the pliable branch with a snap. ‘Anyway, I’m sure we would have felt it.’

‘I agree,’ Gilmour nodded, ‘if he had levelled the city, we would have known. I felt the Port Denis spell from all the way across Eldarn, so even in my current state I think I would have sensed it if Nerak reduced Traver’s Notch to rubble three days’ ride from here.’ He tried to sound encouraged, but he wasn’t happy at the idea of resting at Sandcliff; the site of the massacre that had killed nearly all of his closest friends was not the most relaxing prospect. ‘You may be right, Steven,’ he continued. ‘I’m not young any more – I haven’t been young in nearly two thousand Twinmoons.’ He laughed. ‘But on fumes? That I don’t understand.’

‘Fumes, yes,’ Steven said, ‘gas fumes – it’s a car reference, Gilmour. Automobiles: you’re going to love them.’

‘Automobiles.’ He considered the word. ‘Very well; we shall see in due course.’

Comforted by the idea that Traver’s Notch still stood, Steven changed the subject and asked, ‘Where are we, anyway?’

‘You see that hill over there?’ Gilmour pointed across a shallow valley to the north. ‘That’s Gorsk. Sandcliff is probably four or five days’ ride north of there, longer if Nerak has the hills patrolled and we have to work our way up the coast.’

‘What’s keeping us from just riding through the valley and heading north right here?’ Steven indicated the gentle downward slope from their current position on top of a long ridge running west to east along the border. He was anxious to cross over into Gorsk; he needed to feel as though the final leg of their journey had begun. Lessek’s key had been feeling especially heavy in his pocket.

Gilmour stared for a moment across the valley, then said, ‘I’m no expert on foreign affairs, but I suspect they might have some questions for us.’ He pointed down into the draw where smoke swirled among the treetops that encircled a clearing. There were several rows of large canvas tents.

‘Holy shit,’ Steven exclaimed, ‘where did they come from?’

‘They are encamped all along this ridge,’ the Larion sorcerer said. ‘Take a look back there.’ He pointed west, the way they had come.

Squinting, Steven could see more tendrils of smoke snaking their way skywards from within the trees. ‘Jeez, they’re everywhere,’ he said, then, as if noticing their position for the first time, ‘Shouldn’t we take cover?’

‘Why?’

‘For one, the only cover we have right now is a few charred stumps. And two, well… there is no two, but one seems a healthy enough reason to duck down for me, wouldn’t you agree?

‘I wouldn’t worry, Steven,’ the old man said calmly.

Steven looked incredulous. ‘And why not?’

‘Your mother’s blanket, remember?’

Steven stopped and rubbed his horse’s nose. ‘It works on them too?’

‘From what I can gather, your spell was very thorough.’ Gilmour didn’t elaborate.

Steven looked around, suddenly uncomfortable, and gripped a fistful of mane. ‘All right then. If they don’t know we’re here, let’s go, before they find us some other way. What are we waiting for?’

‘Did I mention that I’m a little uncertain of my own skills right now?’

Steven nodded. ‘And?’

‘I don’t doubt your magic at all, but I would hate to attempt a crossing and have someone hear our horses whinny, or see too many tree branches moving against the wind – they’d be bound to investigate.’

‘Oh.’ Steven sounded dejected.

‘Don’t get downhearted.’ Gilmour tried to sound reassuring. ‘You did a very thorough job and I am quite sure Nerak has no idea where we are – at least for now.’

‘I think I’ve felt him looking for us,’ Steven said.

‘Me, too,’ Gilmour said. ‘But until I am convinced we won’t be riding into an enemy prison, I want to continue east until the patrols thin out enough that we could cross in one of your fuming automobiles and no one would be any wiser.’

‘All right then.’ Steven turned back to the trail.

Gilmour said, ‘I was impressed, by the way.’

Steven looked surprised at the unexpected compliment. ‘You were?’

‘No spells, no fancy incantations, just focus and concentration: you are far, far ahead of any Larion sorcerer I ever knew, Steven, even some who had been studying for twenty Twinmoons or more – except Kantu, Pikan and Nerak, of course, but they were exceptional.’ He sighed and climbed into the saddle. ‘I was impressed. Come on, I think we can ride from here.’

Steven looked back to where Garec and Mark were engrossed in a conversation about arrows and homemade fletching. ‘Mount up, boys,’ he called softly. ‘We’re going to ride from here.’

‘Oh, hurrah,’ Mark groaned. He was still clumsy in the saddle and would have been far happier jogging all the way to Sandcliff Palace. ‘How much further today?’

‘We need to get past that encampment, and Gilmour says we might have to go another day or two east towards the coast.’

Garec agreed with Gilmour. ‘They won’t patrol as much out there, especially east of the Merchants’ Highway. There’s nothing out there.’

As they set off, Mark tried to pull the wrinkles out of his leggings where the unruly fabric had bunched up to expose his lower legs; he cursed and nearly fell into the dirt beside the trail. ‘Goddamn these creatures,’ he muttered, pulling himself straight again.

Gilmour, confident Steven’s cloaking spell would effectively distract any one who thought they detected something out of the ordinary, allowed a small fire behind a house-sized boulder left on the ridge by a god building a mountain somewhere further north. It wasn’t strictly necessary – they had plenty of dried meat and cheese still – but Gilmour had been craving a cup of coffee himself, and as the milk wouldn’t last much longer, he decided a break would do them all good. Everyone was anxious to cross the border into Gorsk and he couldn’t blame them; he was a little excited as well. He hoped they had come east far enough to slip north safely.

As Mark busied himself with the coffee pans, Gilmour moved around the boulder and gazed at the hills rolling towards Sandcliff Palace. In the twilight they were brown fading to purple, flanked by the grey-black northern mountains. He pitied those who died late on a winter’s day: the journey to the Northern Forest – a journey Gilmour wasn’t even sure he believed in any more – would be long and tiresome, especially for someone his age. To pass this way after the leaves had fallen, the naked trees and hills cold in the late day sun, would be an anticlimax to a life filled with love, passion and engaging pursuits. He reached out with his mind, hoping to detect a soul making its way across the burned-over ridge, to offer a greeting and ease the loneliness of that final trek, but he could sense nothing.

He had just started back towards the fire when he heard Mark shouting.

‘Stand still – right there! Show me your hands!’ The foreigner’s voice drowned out whatever anyone else was trying to say.

Another, unfamiliar, voice answered, ‘I didn’t see you. I can’t believe I didn’t see you.’ He didn’t sound that concerned that he might be run through in the next breath, but rather, someone genuinely surprised. ‘Four horses and three men- four men-’ Gilmour had come around the corner, ‘-and I didn’t see you. Gods rut a dog; you’ve got a fire burning and I didn’t see you!’

‘Hands, asshole!’ Mark, an arrow drawn full, didn’t notice his slip back into English.

‘My hands? What? What should I do with them?’ The stranger spoke calmly, apparently unafraid of the angry bowman.

‘Turn them over. I want to see your wrists,’ Mark said.

‘What an odd thing to-’

‘Now, asshole, or I will drill you through the neck.’

‘I don’t know why-’

‘Shut up,’ Mark interrupted, ‘and pay attention! I want to see the backs of your wrists, so turn your hands over. Do it now, or die. No discussion; your decision. I will not care, not for one moment, if your body rots on this hill for an eternity.’

The man stretched out his arms, causing his tunic sleeves to ride up his wrists, and did his best to show his hands from every angle. ‘I must say, I have been detained from time to time in my life, but this is the most curious demand I’ve ever heard,’ he said conversationally. ‘Where did you all come from? Is it magic?’

Mark ignored him. ‘Do you see anything?’ he asked.

‘No,’ Garec answered.

‘Nothing from over here either,’ Steven said, ‘and I’m getting nothing from-well, you know.’

Mark still held the arrow nocked. ‘What are you doing here?’

The man, who looked somewhat younger than Garec, was dressed in the ubiquitous leggings, a wool tunic with a leather bandolier and a heavy brown cloak. His hood was up, but he had made some effort to cast it back from his face, hoping that eye contact with his assailants might convince them of his peaceful intentions. Still waggling his wrists, he said, ‘My name is Rodler Varn. I’m from Capehill. I make, uh, well, deliveries into Gorsk from time to time.’ He indicated the bandolier with his chin. ‘A bit of root, that’s all, and not much. I’m not greedy. I take what I can carry and go in on foot.’

‘Fennaroot,’ Garec said, surprised, ‘you sell fennaroot in Gorsk?’

‘What’s fennaroot?’ Mark kept the arrow trained on Rodler’s chest but looked to the Ronans for clarification.

Gilmour said, ‘You remember your first day out of Estrad, Mark? The root I sliced for you?’

‘Oh, yes, right: it gave a real kick. We tried to get some in Orindale, but it was out of season or something.’

‘Malagon made it illegal,’ Garec added. ‘That’s why we had trouble finding it.’ He moved over to the man and opened one of the leather pockets in the bandolier. He held up a piece of nondescript dirt-covered root. ‘He’s telling the truth.’

‘It’s dope?’ Mark asked. ‘So you’re a drug dealer? Oh, that’s just terrific, the one person we meet out here is a drug smuggler.’ He chuckled and lowered the bow.

‘Fennaroot has many uses, Mark,’ Gilmour said, keeping an eye on Rodler Varn. ‘It’s not very powerful in its raw form-’

‘But let me guess,’ Steven interjected, ‘dried and crushed into powder, it packs a significantly more powerful punch.’

‘Yup,’ Mark said, ‘just sprinkle a little on your pancakes and you’ll be swimming the English Channel.’

Rodler, still exposing his wrists for their inspection, called, ‘Hey, Southie, can I come up now?’

Wheeling back, Mark drew the bow again and trained it on the stranger. Rage twisted his face and for a moment Gilmour feared he would kill the fennaroot smuggler. Mark’s voice was grim. ‘My family has put up with racism for generations, and where I come from, the appropriate thing for me to do right now would be to express my sincere outrage and disgust at your narrowmindedness. But guess what, asshole, we aren’t there, are we?’ Gita Kamrec of Orindale had called him a South Coaster in the caverns below Meyers’ Vale, but Mark had let it pass; there had been nothing pejorative in her usage, and she had obviously earned the respect of the numerous black members of her small fighting force. But that had been some while ago, before something fundamentally good had snapped inside Mark’s mind.

‘I don’t believe Eldarn will miss you,’ he continued. ‘They might pin a medal on my lapel. Ridding the world – even this rotting nightmare you call a world – of a racist drug smuggler might be the best thing I’ve done since I got here.’ Mark laughed, an unfunny sound that rattled around in the back of his throat and died.

‘Wait, wait, one moment, wait, please,’ Rodler begged. ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t think there was anything-’

‘And that makes it even worse-’

‘But wait, wait, if you’re heading for Gorsk, I can get you in,’ Rodler was pleading. ‘I can get you past the patrols.’

‘We’ll be fine,’ Mark said, his tone still uncompromising.

The man fell to his knees. ‘I can get you silver, lots of silver. Is that what you’re doing out here? Or is it Sandcliff? I can get you into Sandcliff.’ His voice cracked in desperation; Mark grinned, wondering if he had pissed his leggings.

‘What do you know of Sandcliff?’ Gilmour interrupted, raising one hand to Mark as if to stay the execution – even if only for a moment.

‘The Larion palace, I can get in there.’ Rodler’s eyes were pleading; maybe the old man was the leader of this odd company. ‘That’s where you’re going, right? Sandcliff?’

‘How do you know?’

‘Well, you’re an old man, really old – what else would you be doing out here during this Twinmoon, running along the edge of the border and heading east?’

‘Adding ageism to your list of transgressions is not impressing me, shithead.’ Mark refused to look at Steven.

Rodler tried to explain, his voice still shaking. ‘You built a small fire in the lee of this rock, hoping the smoke will disappear in the twilight. You obviously have some magic, because I nearly stepped on you and I don’t generally miss four men, four horses and a burning campfire, especially when they’re directly in my path. So I’m guessing you have some cloaking spell keeping you hidden, or at least keeping people around you distracted by other things.

‘And him.’ Rodler pointed at Steven. ‘He looks fit enough to run from here to Capehill, so why carry a staff? He doesn’t need it for walking – his legs aren’t injured and he has a horse-’ Rodler’s half-guesses were coming more quickly now, ‘and I have never seen anyone this close to the border who hadn’t planned somehow to get into Gorsk. Of course, no one I have ever met along this ridge was going into Gorsk for benevolent reasons. Resistance fighters, root peddlers like me, even a few merchants, but no one comes this way to see the sights.’ Rodler paused in his rant to check on Mark, who still had a shaft nocked and drawn full. ‘But I know things about Gorsk – I’m well connected there. And I will never again use that term, I promise, and I am deeply sorry I offended you. No offence was intended, I swear. I’m telling the truth: If you want to get into Sandcliff, I can get you in.’

Gilmour gestured for Mark to lower his bow and, reluctantly, he complied, saying as he returned the arrow to its quiver, ‘If I get even the faintest hint that you are thinking of me or of my race as anything other than your equal – your better – you drug-dealing piece of mooseshit, I will drop you in your tracks. You will have no idea death is coming, but it will be final. Do you understand?’

Rodler nodded, still sweating.

Gilmour indicated he should join them around the fire. Mark bent to his coffee and tried to ignore the conversation.

‘How much do you carry?’ Garec asked.

‘Just this,’ Rodler indicated several pouches along the bandolier; it looked like they ran round his back as well, but he pulled his cloak close again.

‘We’re not here for your drugs,’ Steven said. ‘None of us are interested.’

Rodler calmed noticeably. He looked again at the hickory staff and asked, ‘That magic, then?’

‘I can get hockey games on it when the wind is right, but sometimes the audio is fuzzy,’ Steven said. Mark, in spite of himself, barked a laugh as Garec looked quizzical.

‘Not willing to tell me, huh? Well, what’s that language you and your- your friend speak? Asshole? Hockey? ’

‘It’s the language we speak where we live. ’ Mark had used too many slang terms for him to believe they were anything but foreigners now.

‘A different place? A different world?’

Steven nodded. ‘You don’t seem surprised.’

‘My great-grandmother told my mother all about the Larion Senate – although I think they were all dead before even she was born. But she never forgot the stories about when magic and mystical things happened all over Eldarn. It wasn’t just the dark prince’s nonsense, but real magic, and fascinating inventions and ideas and innovations the senators had brought back here from- well, from somewhere else.’

‘Your great-grandmother was right,’ Gilmour said. ‘It was a magical time.’

Rodler smiled for the first time since joining them. ‘You sound as though you were there.’

Gilmour raised his eyebrows.

Rodler gave up. ‘So did you plan to cross tonight?’

‘We had thought about moving further east, at least across the Merchants’ Highway, and crossing there,’ Garec said, and then regretted divulging that much information, but neither Gilmour and Steven seemed upset with him for it.

‘You could do that, but there’s no need,’ Rodler said. ‘Right here is fine. There’s a big encampment back about a half day’s ride-’

‘We saw it yesterday,’ Steven agreed.

‘But that’s it until you reach the highway and the border stations.’

‘How do you know?’ Garec asked. ‘I thought you said you only make these deliveries from time to time.’

‘Sometimes more frequently than others.’ Rodler sniffed the air. ‘What is that? Burned tecan?’

Garec answered, ‘It’s called coffee and I recommend you try it barefoot.’

‘All right.’ Rodler shrugged and began pulling off his boots.

Steven didn’t attempt to explain. ‘What can you tell us of Sandcliff Palace?’

‘So I was right. That’s where you’re going.’ No one responded, so Rodler continued, ‘I think there must be some old Larion magic still working in that place, because you would never know it had been abandoned for so long. The grounds are a tangle and the forest has just about swallowed the place, but it doesn’t look at all run down. It’s as if its heart is still beating, and with a few folks to clear the brush, it would be back to the glory we all heard about as kids. It’s not falling down, or even dusty. The windows aren’t broken – well, one big one above the main hall, but that’s the only one I remember seeing – and the inside is as clean as my mother’s bedroom.’

Gilmour grimaced at the mention of the broken window, but quickly hid his embarrassment. ‘How did you get inside?’

‘I was in a hurry one morning after a business undertaking unravelled-’

‘Tried to sell to the wrong people?’ Garec interrupted.

‘No. It wasn’t a fennaroot deal. I was at the university.’

Steven frowned and Gilmour explained, ‘There is a small university near Sandcliff – the Larion Senators did much of their work there.’ He chose his words carefully: Rodler appeared to have been honest with them and it was clear he was not Nerak disguised, but he had yet to prove himself trustworthy.

‘So you were there trying to enrol in a class?’ Garec asked pointedly. ‘The universities have been closed since Prince Marek took the Eastlands.’

Rodler cast his eyes down towards the fire. ‘I make a number of trips up here. Some trips are more lucrative than others. Often I’ll stop by the university-’

‘Books,’ Steven interrupted. ‘You’re stealing old books.’

‘I do a bit of book business in Capehill, yes.’

Garec shook his head.

‘What?’ Rodler defended himself, ‘I have to make a living. How do you feed your family?’

‘I’m a farmer in Rona,’ Garec said.

‘You’ve come a long way from home since harvest, then.’ The quick-witted smuggler didn’t miss much. ‘When did you get all the crops in? A few days ago? You’re quite a speedy traveller.’

Garec didn’t back down. ‘I cover some ground, yes.’

‘You were saying-’ Gilmour interrupted.

‘What? Oh, right, Sandcliff, well, I was at the university and I ran into some Malakasian officials whose business ethics did not entirely align with my own and I had to run like a raving madman to get free. I figured they would assume I made my way back into town; so instead, I headed up towards the old palace. When I reached the lower gardens, I thought I was clear, but there they were, waiting.’

‘I understand they’re thorough about such things,’ Garec said.

‘So I moved through the lower garden – well, the brush – trying to find some cover. They’d fanned out and were hard on my heels when I found a grate, like a drainage grate for rain runoff, or melted snow, maybe, running through the gardens – I’ve never seen anything like it, it was a simple idea really, just an underground trench to allow for excess water to run down from the garden-’ He broke off, as if to rhapsodise further about the Larion drain, but a look from Mark brought him back on track.

‘There was nothing covering the opening now – I guess it might have been wood once, or maybe metal that rusted away, but either way, it was gone, so I crawled inside and made my way up the trench.’ The way he told the story, it sounded as if eluding Malakasian patrols was something he did every day. ‘The trench ran through a narrow breach in the wall into the scullery, just about wide enough for people to empty water pots or old beer barrels in, I guess, but I managed to squeeze through.’

Gilmour shook his head wryly. ‘I’m quite sure the Larion leadership never thought of that opening as a potential breach in the palace’s defences,’ he murmured.

‘It wasn’t much of one, I tell you,’ Rodler said, ‘it would take a rutting Twinmoon to get a decent-sized fighting force through there. The palace wouldn’t ever have been under any real threat from that trench, but we were always told it was hard to get into Sandcliff via the main entrance, what with all the spells and such, so I was surprised that I could just crawl into the place.’

‘So what did you find inside?’ Gilmour wiped a few beads of nervous sweat from his forehead.

‘Nothing,’ Rodler said, ‘I wasn’t raiding the place. Well, I did try to find the library – but really I just went in to hide while the prince’s squad tore the gardens up looking for me outside. I waited until they were gone and then thought about going back out.’

‘But not before you went looking for books,’ Garec reminded him.

‘Of course – I’m a businessman, just like anybody else.’

‘But you couldn’t get to the library,’ Gilmour stated more than asked.

‘Rutting mothers, no. I couldn’t get out of the stinking scullery. The doors, windows, nothing would open.’ Rodler pursed his lips. ‘That’s when I knew the place still had some leftover magic in it.’

Again, no one replied.

‘So that’s why you want to go up there, you want to tap into that force somehow – with that stick? Or is it you?’ He pointed at Gilmour. ‘You seem to know a lot about the Larion Senate.’

Gilmour shook his head. ‘I had a grandmother much like yours.’ He changed the subject swiftly. ‘How would you recommend we get into Gorsk?’

The sun had set by the time they reached the river, but the water reflected moonlight in hundreds of tiny sparkles, illuminating a surprisingly bright path into Gorsk. ‘It will be cold,’ Rodler said, not bothering to whisper – unless a patrol was right on top of them, the perpetual background roar of the water would muffle their voices. ‘But we don’t have to be in it for long, a few hundred paces, that’s all. The patrols from the highway station come up to this river on that shore. Patrols from the encampment in the west come up as far as this shore. Neither patrols the centre… I’d prefer it a bit darker, but we ought to be able to pass by tonight without incident.’

‘What makes you so confident?’ Garec asked quietly.

‘I almost stepped in your campfire – if one of you isn’t wielding powerful magic to mask your whereabouts, someone is watching over you. I think we could be screaming songs and playing a bellamir and no one would know we had passed. But it’ll be very cold, so we have to move quickly.’ He gestured and moved into the water.

Steven shrugged and followed, leading his horse. The mountain water was icy-cold and for a moment he feared the horses would refuse to move, or worse, might bolt and give away their location, but apart from a few irritated shakes of her head, the mare allowed herself to be drawn towards the centre of the river. Their packs were tied onto the saddle, but he retained the hickory staff, warm in his hand despite the frigid, numbing cold in his legs, and Lessek’s key, an indistinct lump in his pocket. Rodler hadn’t commented on the curious cut and colour of the Gore-tex coats; he appeared to have learned when to keep his mouth shut.

They picked their way carefully upriver, but after what felt like an hour, Steven began to worry that he might never regain feeling in his legs. He was seriously considering an attempt to warm the water as it rushed by when Rodler turned and pointed.

‘Just up here, up past that big willow,’ he said, indicating a willow tree standing sentinel on the bank, its leafless branches hanging like the thinning hair of an ageing woman. Steven waited until Rodler was distracted and then quickly moved between his friends, drying their leggings and warming their feet with the hickory staff.

‘Thanks, Steven,’ Mark said. ‘Do me a favour and leave him wet, okay?’

‘He got us here,’ Steven said firmly.

‘Where’s here?’ Mark asked. ‘How do we know Eldarn’s answer to the Gulag Archipelago doesn’t lie just over the next hill? We can warm up beside the fire with Al Solzhenitsyn.’

‘Nah, he got out,’ Steven said.

‘Do you know where we are?’ Mark asked Gilmour.

The old man nodded. ‘I used to fish in this river – if we follow it north, we’ll begin to see landmarks I’ll recognise; then we can turn east to Sandcliff.’

‘Should we risk a fire?’ Garec asked. ‘I’m freezing.’

‘Not here,’ Rodler answered, ‘let’s ride further north. There’s a copse upstream where I keep a fire-pit ready to dry me out after coming through. I’ve yet to hear a patrol come by while I’m in there.’

‘Come here first,’ Steven said. ‘I owe you at least this much.’ He used the staff to dry Rodler’s leggings and boots.

‘Well, that’s a neat trick,’ he said, grinning. ‘I knew that stick was special.’ He reached out to touch it, but recoiled, wondering if it might strike him dead on the spot. Coming across the four travellers had put an unfortunate kink in his plans; agreeing to guide them into Gorsk was a desperate offer to save his life, but he was curious about Steven and the wooden staff, and he wanted very badly to pillage the library at Sandcliff Palace. Rodler decided to remain with the four strangers for a while – at least until he had a better understanding of their intentions.

Steven and Mark turned into the car park next to the Air Force Academy Aquatics Centre just north of Colorado Springs. They had made the trip to the Colorado State Championships to support one of Mark’s swimmers, Bridget Kenyon, who was a favourite in several events. Bridget was behind them in a titanic SUV with her parents, her two younger brothers and her grandmother.

Steven asked, ‘Why do they hold this all the way down here and not in Denver?’

‘The facility is state-of-the-art: an Olympic-size pool cuts down on the number of turns the kids have to make so in the end, the times are faster.’ As Mark opened the truck door, the winter air rushed inside, chilling them both.

‘It’s a long ride to watch one girl swim.’

‘Ah, but wait until you see this girl swim.’ Mark zipped up his jacket, pulled on his gloves and stepped outside. ‘You’ll agree it was worth the trip.’

‘All right, but you’re buying the hot dogs.’ Steven realised he had forgotten his gloves and pushed his hands deep into his pockets. ‘Let’s hurry. I’m cold.’

‘You’re such a wimp, Steven,’ Mark teased.

‘But I’m good at it – nearly world class!’

Inside the centre they split up; Steven headed upstairs to find their seats while Mark escorted Bridget down to the pool, distracting her with inane jokes to keep her mind off the early heats. As they emerged into the pool area, a wave of voices washed over them and Mark heard someone say, ‘There’s that Kenyon girl. She’s picked to win the 200 free.’

‘Bridget. I think that’s her name,’ someone else replied. ‘I saw her swim at Regions. She put on a freakin’ clinic that day, I tell you.’

‘We may be able to take second or third, but she’s the one, over there, that’s her, she’ll take the l00 butterfly.’

‘That’s right. That’s right. She’s the one with the nigger coach from Idaho Springs. Oh, yeah, I hear great things about him, too. He was tough in his day.’

Mark wheeled on the crowd, drawing an arrow. ‘Who said that?’ he shouted. The bow felt good in his hands. He had made it himself, whittling down the green branch, even killing the deer whose hide provided the crossed leather strips that made the weapon so resilient.

‘Hey Southie, can I come up now?’

‘Right, the one with the nigger coach from Idaho Springs. Oh, yeah, I hear great things about him.’

‘ The nigger coach from Idaho Springs. I hear great things about him.’

‘Hey Southie, can I come up now?’

Mark homed in on the voice. It was Rodler Varn, the Falkan drug smuggler. He was here in the stands somewhere. There, beside that guy, whatshisname, the bigot in the green Fort Collins sweatshirt. Smiling, the racist waved and offered Mark an ironic thumbs-up.

‘That’s just great,’ Mark said, ‘smile and wave. No one heard you, asshole, but this ought to get your attention.’ He exhaled slowly and released the bowstring.

The man in the green sweatshirt took the arrow in the chest, just above the second L in Collins. Two more followed with muted thuds. One dotted the I; the other found its way inside the tiny hillock of the N. Garec’s coaching was paying off.

‘I warned you,’ Mark snapped, nocking another arrow. ‘My family has been putting up with that bullshit for generations and the appropriate thing for me to do right now is to express my outrage at your narrow-mindedness. Well, I’m expressing it this way, asshole.’ A fourth arrow pierced the man’s throat. ‘That’ll shut him up,’ Mark said with satisfaction.

‘Hey Southie,’ Rodler called from his seat beside the body. He reached over to finger the fletching on one of Mark’s arrows. The other parents and coaches chatted, sharing swimming gossip. No one seemed to notice that Mark Jenkins, the talented young coach from Idaho Springs, had just fired arrows into a spectator’s chest.

‘Southie, can I come up now?’

‘I’m going to kill you, asshole.’ Now Mark started loosing arrows aimlessly into the humid air of the aquatics centre; most found their way into the man in the green sweatshirt until the body tumbled off the bleachers and rolled to a stop behind the girls’ bench.

Frustrated, Mark turned to Bridget. ‘Did you hear what they were saying about me?’

The girl smiled up at him, her dirty-blonde tresses tied back in a utilitarian ponytail, soon to be coiled up, snakelike, and tucked inside her swimming cap. Holding two ends of the rolled towel she had draped over her shoulder, Bridget said, ‘Maybe I’ll carry your bag then, sire? Maybe carry it for you? What do you think, sire? Maybe for a copper Marek or two?’

‘What?’ It was noisy in the arena and he shouted over the din, ‘Bridget, I didn’t hear you.’

Grinning to expose her teeth, two perfect rows of white, ortho-dontically sculpted masterpieces, Bridget said, ‘The water’s cold in here today, but they have warm water at the Bowman, my prince.’

‘I’m not a prince, Bridget,’ Mark said. ‘Go swim, will you? You need to get warmed up if the water’s cold.’

‘They have warm water at the Bowman, my prince,’ she repeated and moved towards the starting blocks at the end of the pool.

Mark watched her walk away, then called after, ‘I’m not a prince.’

Bridget turned and mouthed a few words Mark couldn’t hear. Tossing her towel onto the blue-and-white bench running the length of the pool, she climbed onto the third starting block. A large number 3 had been painted on the front of the block; Mark wondered if it were important for the swimmers to know which lane they were in during the race. He glanced down at the water and whispered, ‘I’m not a prince.’

He saw it move, a flash of something opaque and indistinct. Was it a trick of the light? Then he saw it again, this time rushing towards the other end of the pool, and he knew what it was. He started towards Bridget Kenyon at a run, screaming, though the noise had grown so loud, he couldn’t hear his own voice.

Bridget didn’t hear him either. She had tucked her ponytail under the rubber swimming cap and was ready to dive in for a few warm-up laps. ‘Bridget!’ Mark shouted again, ‘No! Don’t go in the water!’

His heart stopped as the young girl dived lazily into the pool. Bridget Kenyon never hit the water.

The almor burst through the surface and took the girl in mid-air. She was dead in an instant; as the demon carried her to the bottom of the deepest part of the pool, Mark could already see her muscular back and powerful thighs thinning to leather and bone in the creature’s unholy grasp. A moment later the almor released her body and a wet sack of bones drifted to rest against the far wall beneath the three-metre diving board.

Mark stood at the side of the pool, waiting for the almor to surface, certain that it would: it had come for him and he was ready to die if necessary, whatever it took to rid the world of this monster.

He expected the demon to explode from the pool like a tidal wave, but instead, the almor bobbed above the surface, a nearly translucent, shapeless creature. He fired arrows into it as quickly as he could draw and release, but they passed through the demon and ended up on the bottom of the pool where they lay together: an underwater game of pick-up sticks.

The water is cold today, but they have warm water at the Bowman, my prince. The almor’s laughter came from inside his own head. Mark thought he might pass out from the pounding reverberation.

Panting, he managed, ‘I’m not the prince.’ He couldn’t bear to look down at what was left of Bridget’s body. ‘I’m not the prince.’

As the almor disappeared through the filtering system and out into the Colorado Springs water supply, Mark heard its words: Not yet. That was what Bridget Kenyon had mouthed to him, he now realised.

Not yet.

Mark awakened and was on his feet before he realised it had been a dream. His cheeks were damp: he had been crying in his sleep. Gilmour, stirring the coals in their small campfire, leaned over and whispered, ‘Are you all right?’

Mark rubbed his hands over his face and across the back of his neck. He felt like he was having a breakdown; his heart was racing, and he was panting and sweating now, as if he had just finished a strenuous workout. He couldn’t even see clearly. He crossed to where Steven was lying, wrapped up tightly in his coat and a blanket, and kicked his roommate firmly on the soles of his boots. ‘Wake up,’ he muttered.

‘What?’ Steven groaned, rolling onto his back, then his eyes adjusted to the firelight and he could see Mark standing over him. He sat bolt upright and reached for the hickory staff. ‘What is it?’ he asked urgently. ‘What’s happened?’

Gilmour crouched beside Steven. ‘You look terrible, Mark. Are you sick?’

‘It was Lessek. I’m sure of it,’ he gasped, still trying to slow his breathing.

‘What did you see?’ Steven’s grip tightened on the wooden staff. He looked over at Rodler and Garec, but both appeared to be sleeping still.

‘Steven, that moment before you hacked that tramp in half, what did he say?’

Steven’s brow furrowed. ‘I wasn’t really listening – he was so irritating, calling me sire all the time, prattling on and on about five hundred different things. I kind of tuned him out as soon as I suspected it was Nerak. I was concentrating on sniffing for any hint of tobacco on his breath.’ Steven smoothed his blanket over his legs while he thought. ‘Sorry, I can’t remember.’

‘Was it something about the water?’

Steven’s eyes widened. ‘That’s it!’ he started to shout, then, lowering his voice again, he said, ‘He was talking about getting cleaned up, or getting clean clothes- no, it was a bath. He’d said something when he disappeared into the trees and I hadn’t really heard him because you and I were talking about the Bowman and whether or not they would have hot and cold running water. It was obviously a joke, but then-’ Steven paused. ‘You know what? He was talking to you. Right before I decided to use the staff, that little bastard was talking to you. He said, they have warm water at the Bowman, sire.’

‘Was it sire? Did he say sire? Or was it something else?’ Mark glanced over at Gilmour, who was shaking his head.

‘He said, my prince,’ Gilmour muttered, ‘I’m sure of it. I remember thinking exactly what you were thinking: what did he mean by that? Mark, you stopped to look up at him – that was just a breath before Steven sent him to the Northern Forest.’

‘I just needed to be sure I wasn’t losing my mind,’ Mark said.

‘Did you dream? Was it Traver’s Notch?’

‘Yes and no – not here, but the state swimming championships last year. You remember, Steven? Down at the Air Force Academy?’

‘With that girl Kenyon?’

‘Bridget, right,’ Mark answered. ‘I have no idea why – if it was Lessek talking to me – he chose that day. Or it may be just a bad memory sparked by our new friend over there.’ He gestured towards Rodler, who was curled in his cloak.

‘How was that a bad memory? I thought she swam brilliantly that day.’ Steven uncorked a wineskin and offered it round.

‘It wasn’t her. It was this guy from Fort Collins – I don’t remember his name, but his daughter was swimming against Bridget. When we walked in, I heard him say something rude about me. I don’t know that he meant it to be cruel, and at the time I dismissed it because I just figured he didn’t think anything of calling me a nigger.’

‘So what did you do?’

‘Nothing.’ Mark shook his head. ‘Oh, well, I did the usual thing all intellectuals do when met with that kind of situation: I frowned, acted displeased, expressed my outrage at his narrow-mindedness and blah, blah, blah, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, but I didn’t kick him in the teeth or call him a white trash asshole or anything like that.’

‘But you wanted to,’ Gilmour said.

‘Of course I wanted to,’ Mark said. ‘I always want to.’

‘And today, when Rodler called you a Southie and you almost filled his chest with arrows-’

‘I guess it woke up the fury I felt that day at the pool.’ Mark looked over at the Falkan drug smuggler again. ‘But, Gilmour, there was more to it. The girl I was coaching, she called me my prince, just like Nerak did. And there was an almor, a big mother, right in the pool, and it called me prince as well. It said, “There is warm water at the Bowman, my prince”.’

‘That’s it – the last thing Nerak said before I clubbed him,’ Steven added.

Mark sighed. Everything that had been on his mind the past weeks came back in a rush – now he needed a few moments to sit by himself and sort them out. The process would go more smoothly if he could take a break from the conversation to determine if he was actually prepared to pursue this particular uncomfortable notion further, but from the look on Steven and Gilmour’s faces, he knew there was no chance of putting them on hold while he wandered about the copse arranging puzzle pieces.

‘What are you thinking, Mark?’ Gilmour asked.

‘Is it that obvious?’

‘I can smell the smoke,’ Steven joked, and the three men laughed softly together.

‘This may be nothing, but I need Garec to confirm a nasty suspicion I’m having.’ There was no going back.

Steven nodded and poked at Garec with the hickory staff. ‘Hey, Garec, wake up,’ he whispered.

The young Ronan rolled over, quickly lucid, and demanded, ‘Why? What’s happening?’

‘Lessek may be visiting again tonight,’ Mark said.

‘Grand,’ Garec groaned. ‘The last time he showed up we got attacked by a demon.’ He sat up and sniffed noisily. ‘What are we doing?’

Mark said, ‘I need you to think back to your dream at Seer’s Peak.’

‘My dream? How can I forget? First I have to stand and watch as the most beautiful woman in Eldarn has sex with a frothing freak while a bunch of guards and soldiers wait around in case she needs assistance. Then as if that wasn’t bad enough, I get to see Rona devastated by some kind of plague and my favourite woods haunted by an army of wraiths. And afterward, for everyone’s enjoyment, I am forced to repeat my dream over and over and over again until the details become so firmly lodged in my memory that I will probably be able to recall every moment on my deathbed three hundred Twinmoons from now. That, of course, was thanks to Gilmour – so anything you need from my particular vision is well preserved right up here.’ He tapped a knuckle on the side of his head.

Mark grinned. ‘All I need to know is if the woman that Doctor-’ He paused, trying to remember the name.

‘Tenner,’ Gilmour supplied.

‘Yes, that’s it, Doctor Tenner. The woman he chose to carry on Eldarn’s line, the woman having sex with the crazy, crippled prince, was she black?’

‘What do you mean, black?’

‘Did she have black skin? I don’t mean black, like shadow-black, but did she have dark skin, like mine?’

Garec nodded. ‘She did. When she came in she looked like a servant – there’s no difference once we all get out of our clothes, but from what she was wearing when I first saw her, I would guess she had been a servant at Riverend Palace.’

‘A South Coaster?’ Mark was on eggshells.

‘Yes, definitely,’ Garec said. ‘What are you trying to work out? That was a long time ago, and even if they did succeed in getting that woman pregnant – well, you read Doctor Tenner’s letter: she went off to live in Randel with someone named Weslox Thervan. If Tenner died in the fire, there was no one to produce that baby as Prince or Princess of Rona.’

‘But that baby would have been Eldarn’s true monarch, Rona’s prince.’

Gilmour nodded.

‘Mark,’ Steven said, ‘where are you going with this? Nerak might have been jerking your chain – he called you prince, but he called me sire about sixty-three times.’

‘But not in my dream,’ Mark said. ‘If my dreams are coming from Lessek, then it’s Lessek trying to draw my attention back to those words from Nerak, “There is warm water at the Bowman, my prince.” Did you notice that was the only thing Nerak said to me then? He asked the rest of us – once – if he could carry anything else, but apart from that, he mostly talked with you, Steven.’

‘So Lessek wants you to remember that comment. Why?’ Garec asked, ‘is it because you come from the South Coast?’

‘I don’t, Garec. My family comes from New York. Before that, we were lost in the confusion surrounding the American Civil War. No one has been able to trace back far enough to know what my origins were. Educated guesswork invariably leads to a slave ship that arrived somewhere in the American south after 1619.’

‘So South Coasters in your world are slaves?’

‘Were, Garec,’ Steven said. ‘It was long ago, a grim time for our world.’ Turning back to Mark, he asked, ‘Are you thinking that the servant girl-’

‘Regona Carvic,’ Garec said, ‘remember, from Tenner’s letter?’

‘Are you thinking that Regona somehow came through the portal to your world? That she’s related to you?’

Mark shrugged. ‘Why else would Nerak and then Lessek draw my attention to that comment, my prince?’

‘Holy shit, buddy, but that’s assuming a lot,’ Steven said. ‘I don’t see how it would be possible – the far portals have been in Nerak’s control ever since Sandcliff Palace fell, and Regona was taken to Prince Danmark’s chambers at least a Twinmoon after that. If Nerak had the portals, how could she have got through?’

Mark turned to Gilmour. ‘When Nerak was in Estrad, busying himself with Doctor Tenner and the fire at Riverend, where was the portal?’

‘I don’t know. All I can work out is that Nerak had it hidden somewhere in the city where no one would find it; he most likely did the same thing the day he took Prince Marek in Pellia. He probably hid the portal at Welstar Palace, made the trip downriver to the capital and took the prince right there at his father’s side.’

‘But the portal wouldn’t have been in his control when he was out causing havoc or taking souls?’ Mark felt another piece slip into place.

‘No. Theoretically, the portal would have been available, if not open, for someone else to use.’

Mark wished he had some time to himself, to draw a diagram or a crude timeline. He drank from the wineskin, then wiped his mouth and asked, ‘Steven, why do we live in Idaho Springs?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘What are we doing there? I love it there, but I freely admit I don’t fit in as well as I might someplace else. And you, you’re worse than me. How many decent jobs did you pass up after finishing your MBA? Three? Four?’

‘What’s your point?’

‘Maybe we don’t have a choice. Maybe we were supposed to find Lessek’s key and we couldn’t leave. Look at you: you do magic with no spells or potions. You just think of things you want to happen; you will them to happen and they happen. Is that the staff, Steven, or is that you? Are you a real sorcerer, or are you a guy who found a magic stick that somehow got into his bones? I’m asking because I don’t know. But then I couple that with the fact that I left Fort Collins to come to the foothills and take a teaching job that pays less than just about any job I could have found down in Denver or in one of the suburbs. So I wonder what we’re doing there, and if we are there by choice.’

‘No one is forcing me to live in Idaho Springs, Mark,’ Steven said with a degree of uncertainty. ‘My parents live there.’

‘But why? Do you think they had a choice?’ Steven was about to respond when Mark pressed on, ‘Think about the communication I have allegedly had from Lessek. He quiets my fears moments after I arrive in Eldarn. It’s a memory from a day at the beach with my family. My dad is drinking beer. I had been drinking beer; I’m comforted by the memory and it takes me weeks to realise I’m supposed to be thinking about my dad. Lessek didn’t give a pinch of shit whether I was comfortable or not. He hit me with a memory of home, because he needed me thinking about why my dad was such an anomaly: he’s the only guy on the beach facing west; he has three hundred pictures of a family vacation that spanned thirty-seven states and almost all of them were taken within one hundred miles of Idaho Springs. He was drawn there, Steven, just like us.’

Steven was shaking his head. ‘You aren’t the prince of Eldarn, Mark.’

‘You’re right,’ he answered, hearing the almor’s cavernous voice echo in his head, ‘I’m not – not yet – because I believe my dad is Rona’s prince, Eldarn’s king. I won’t be until he dies, and that’s fine with me, I hope he lives to be a hundred and six.’

Steven stood up. ‘Do we have any wine left? I need a drink. Mark, this is crazy. You can’t be the prince of Rona, and I am not a sorcerer. We weren’t drawn to Idaho Springs, because there was nothing in Idaho Springs to draw us there.’

‘Yes there was,’ Mark interrupted. ‘You have it in your coat pocket.’

‘Lessek’s key?’

‘That night in our house, we chucked it away – we thought it was nothing, maybe a hunk of some crazy miner’s rock – and yet I felt it that night, Steven, and I felt it again when you came back here, that day by the fjord. It’s something I can’t explain, but it reminds me of when I get a flight back to Long Island to see my family: it’s about feeling safe, like I belong – feeling like I’m at home. That hunk of ore makes me feel like that – when I stand next to you and you have it in your pocket, and when I stand next to your bloody saddlebag when you have it packed away. At any given moment, I can pinpoint the location of that stone, even blindfolded.’

‘This is too much, Mark,’ Steven said. ‘You had a bad dream. I’m sorry Rodler called you a Southie, but you can’t take that insult and decide it means you’re sovereign of Eldarn.’ He was growing exasperated. ‘It’s too great a leap. You can’t explain the portals. I know for a fact that the safe-deposit box was never opened at the bank because the key was missing until I found it at Hannah’s shop. There are no records of any deposits or withdrawals from the day William Higgins opened the accounts in 1870. That portal was secure.’

‘But the other was not,’ Mark argued. ‘Imagine if Doctor Tenner, before he died in the fire, made arrangements to send Regona through the portal. Think about where she would be safest from Nerak – it’s certainly not in Randel with Weslox. She would be safest delivering that baby in a medically advanced society – even in 1870 – and then raising it there. He probably figured he would go and find her later, after the trouble had passed – he might even have drafted the letter I found behind the fireplace as a decoy, after all, everyone talks about this guy as if he was a genius.’

‘That couldn’t be the case,’ Gilmour said.

Mark turned on the old man, his argument ready, but Gilmour went on, ‘It would have been Lessek.’

There was an almost tangible silence, broken only by Rodler’s breathing and the ever-present babble of the nearby river. It was Steven who finally spoke. ‘Not you, too, Gilmour. This is madness.’

‘Actually, it makes sense, except Tenner – he was a brilliant physician and an excellent advisor to Prince Marek, but he knew nothing of the Larion portals. After the Larion Senate fell, only Kantu and I knew they existed, and how to use them to cross the Fold. Kantu was in Middle Fork; I was wandering broken and lost. The only person who could have done it was Lessek – he could have detected the portal and sent Regona across the Fold. He might have known that Eldarn’s monarch would be drawn to the keystone, one of our world’s most powerful talismans, even across great expanses of open land or water. Mark’s deductions, however fantastic, are quite reasonable. I’m not saying this is true, but it certainly could be. Lessek could have intercepted Regona on her way to Randel and sent her across the Fold to your world.’

‘But how?’ Steven was still far from convinced. ‘If Nerak was in Riverend, kindling Estrad’s biggest bonfire and killing off the rest of the Ronan royal family, how much time would Regona and Lessek have had? Nerak couldn’t have been there for very long.’

‘Lessek would have been able to detect the portal, even when closed-’

‘I believe that,’ Mark interrupted ‘When we opened it that night in our house, we could feel its energy as soon as Steven cracked the seal on the cylinder.’

‘Why isn’t it doing that now?’ Steven asked suddenly. ‘It’s there in my pack. Why can’t we feel it?’

‘You’ve grown accustomed to it,’ Gilmour said. ‘If we took that portal to somewhere never touched by Larion magic, the people there would feel a tingling in the air like you did. Regardless, if Lessek was on hand, he could have escorted Regona to the far portal and allowed her to open it.’

‘She had to do it?’ Mark asked.

‘Lessek would have been a wraith,’ Gilmour said. ‘He may have looked like a normal man, but he would not have been able to open the portal by himself.’

Steven considered their argument aloud. ‘So Lessek knows Nerak has the portal hidden in Estrad. He meets Regona outside the palace while Nerak is inside, burning the place to the ground. Lessek encourages Regona to open the portal and proceed, alone and pregnant, to a foreign world, where she is drawn by the force of his key to Idaho Springs, Colorado – oh, and somewhere along the line gives birth to Mark’s great-great-great-grandmother?’

‘Or grandfather,’ Mark said. ‘Otherwise, yep, that about sums it up.’

‘I see.’ Scepticism was thick in Steven’s voice. ‘But you’re overlooking the fact that your family isn’t from Colorado.’

‘True, but my great-grandmother moved west when she was married and my grandfather worked for the railroad, crisscrossing the west from their home in Cheyenne. My father was actually born in St Louis and lived in the Midwest before moving to New York. I’m telling you, Steven, he and Mom had planned for that trip to San Francisco for years. They literally saved every penny they could for it – they had a big jar on the kitchen counter. It was their dream to go to the Pacific and we had to pry Dad out of those mountains with a crowbar. He just didn’t want to leave. And in what community in 1870 would a dark-skinned, single mother have been accepted? If she was in the United States, it had to be the black community: no whites would have had anything to do with her.’

Steven said, ‘Your great-great-great-grandmother was from Rona.’

‘I don’t know,’ Mark sighed. ‘I know it’s crazy – but Lessek is trying to tell me something; he’s been trying since my first night here, on the beach near Estrad. I just haven’t been able to figure out what it is, and this is the only thing that makes sense.’

‘If you’re right, how would Nerak know?’

‘I have no idea,’ Mark answered. ‘Unless he knew the key would have pulled me to Idaho Springs, and your bank.’

‘What about me? He doesn’t seem to know anything about me, and I worked in the damned bank for three years – and we share the house. If what you say is true, I’ve been a victim of Lessek’s key as well. Why doesn’t Nerak know who I am?’

‘I can’t begin to say, but if the opportunity ever arises, we should definitely ask him.’ Mark walked over to where Rodler slept and, kicking the smuggler a good deal harder than he had his roommate, said sharply, ‘Wake up, asshole.’

Rodler was up like a cornered animal, a thin dirk held tightly in one fist, no trace of sleep in his sharply focused eyes. ‘What’s happening? Is it a patrol?’

For a moment, Mark was impressed with the man’s response, though sleeping with one eye open was most likely a necessity for him. Still, he didn’t like Rodler and didn’t approve of his business. He had decided he would kill Malakasians without guilt, his way of dealing with the helplessness he felt in the wake of Brynne’s death. Mark might not like war, but he recognised there were times when it was inevitable. Diplomacy in Eldarn had died the night Nerak killed Prince Markon at Riverend Palace and he had taken up arms for the oppressed. He might kill, but he would never deal in drugs, no matter how lucrative it might be.

Now grinning at Rodler, Mark asked, ‘You wouldn’t happen to have been in Colorado Springs last winter for the Colorado State Swimming Championships, would you? Maybe sitting next to a man from Fort Collins? He had on a green sweatshirt.’

The man blinked several times in confusion, then sheathed his dirk. ‘Mark Jenkins, I don’t even know what most of those words mean. But no, I was not in Color-ado last winter. I have never heard of that territory. Is it in Rona?’

‘I’m relieved to hear that – but I woke you up to make certain you understand that if you ever disparage me, my skin colour or my race again, I will kill you. All right?’

‘Gods rut a mule, Mark, but I thought we were already beyond this.’ He shook his head in disappointment. ‘I was doing my own thing, when you appeared and started shouting. I would have been very happy to have missed the four of you by a thousand paces, believe me.’

‘Just so you understand – and Rodler, I truly am glad that you weren’t in Colorado Springs last winter.’

‘And why is that?’ The younger man sighed.

‘Because you would be dead already.’ Mark turned back to his blankets. ‘Good night.’