The Archmage had a private office as well as an audience chamber, conference room, and, presumably, other rooms dedicated to other administrative functions. Her entourage knew not to go in and peeled off to separate destinations as they approached, leaving McKenzie alone to follow her in.

"Close the door," she said. McKenzie did. "Sit down."

McKenzie dropped himself into a chair across an expanse of marble desk. The Archmage settled into another chair - a fair approximation of an executive office chair, he noted, with back support and everything - across from him.

"We may now speak freely. Are you working on a way to break the curse?" Xixaxa asked him.

McKenzie shook his head. This wasn't the discussion he'd been expecting.

"A pity," the Archmage shrugged. "Everything changes if the curse can be broken. Anaharra doesn't have to go to Vyrinia, I don't have to kowtow to Lord Lemuel anymore, Violentia could be run out of town for the troll she is, Danandra might try and take over the world again, but it's unlikely, and Sharinta, well, I have no idea what she'd get up to if let off the leash, but perhaps a way could be found for Callena and Sharinta to co-exist. None of this can happen, though, because the curse forbids it."

"Sharinta said you'd tried to break it," McKenzie said.

"I have. I like to think I'm beyond the need for either self-aggrandisement or false modesty, McKenzie, so when I say that - with the possible exception of our mutual acquaintance Lord Lemuel, whose actual physical presence on this world is debatable - you are looking at the single most powerful individual alive right now, I mean that as a purely factual statement, and I've occupied that particular position for the last 467 years. Over the last decade I've tried several times to break the curse, and each time, although I have come close, I have failed. I have failed because, I believe, breaking the curse requires two things. One is power - I have that. The other, McKenzie, is emotion, and frankly I haven't really had much use for it for the past couple of centuries: I'm woefully out of practice. So, when something comes along that really, really makes you angry, perhaps you might want to try this."

The Archmage levelled a finger at him, and there followed a moment of complete and total stillness, the impression of crushing pressure, as if he had somehow been plunged into a deep ocean trench, and then, very faintly, the sound of something cracking, but not quite breaking - but there was none of the usual tingling.

McKenzie shivered, feeling suddenly very cold.

"Shit," he said, with feeling.

"Those who can wield the quintessence are very rare, and very dangerous. Danandra - when she is thinking straight, of course - is wise to counsel you against using it. The last man to wield it destroyed his enemies, himself and the island he was standing on at the time. It brings with it a lesser known gift, however: those with the quintessence do not just absorb magical power, but magical patterns also. You will forgive me for proffering the observation that you are not the most introspective man who ever lived, but it cannot have failed to escape your notice that you have somehow picked up Callena's talent with languages, and, I will wager, you now have a great many other tricks up your sleeve that you might not even be aware of."

And a few you might not be aware of either, McKenzie thought. "Yeah, I did notice, as a matter of fact," he answered aloud.

"I have just added another tool to your box: be careful when you reach for it. The quintessence brings power - it does not bring control. Even I cannot say what might happen when it is used: beyond reminding you that there is a large hole in the floor of the southern oceans where an island used to be," the Archmage said.

McKenzie nodded. But you're hoping I'll use it, to break the curse, McKenzie thought. Or maybe you just think I won't be able to resist. Either way, he knew, he was totally going to use her spell. She was a master manipulator.

"Ain't you one of the good guys, though?" McKenzie asked her. "Why are you under the curse anyway? Not that anything Lemuel would stoop to would surprise me, at this point, mind."

"Lord Lemuel's reasons are often involved, and many of his motivations are unclear," the Archmage answered.

"Nice answer. I can tell you've been involved in politics for four hundred plus years," McKenzie replied.

The Archmage ignored that.

"I have made arrangements for a heavily armed airship to transport Her Imperial Majesty to Vyrinia, to press her claim to the throne there. The vessel will be accompanied by two equally powerful consorts, and the Empress will be travelling with her full retinue of guards and attendants. I have, upon consideration, decided that you, Lady Sharinta, Lady Danandra and Lady Violentia are not, by nature, bodyguards, and given that you only just stopped an assassination attempt by purest luck, you will be given other urgent duties more in line with your particular capabilities," she said. "This is, of course, a fiction. Her Imperial Majesty will travel incognito with you, by an alternative route."

"Finally some common sense. With any luck, she can give us all the slip and escape this sub-Machiavellian nonsense," McKenzie told her.

Xixaxa didn't rise to that, either. "You had best return to Her Majesty: she will be needing the reassurance of your presence. She has come to depend on it a great deal."

McKenzie sighed wearily. "No-one here talks straight, do they? Yes, I'm aware of the fact that Anaharra seems to have a bit of a crush on me. I'm sure it's just a variant of Stockholm Syndrome or something. She's a sweet and lovely girl and curse or not I'll do anything to protect her, but I'm not plannin' any advantageous marriages any time soon."

The Archmage gave McKenzie a level look. "When the time comes," she said, "remember your determination to protect her - and remember the spell. Goodbye, McKenzie."

- o O o -

"Just how incognito is incognito when one of your group is a ten foot fucking troll?" McKenzie asked Danandra, as they saddled up horses - proper horses, this time - the next day.

"I explained," Danandra said. "I have altered everyone's appearance, and trolls often seek work as merchant guards on the more hazardous trade routes."

"You didn't alter my appearance," McKenzie noted.

"Hardly Danna's fault that you keep emitting sparks and going back to normal after two minutes, is it?" Sharinta said. "Anyway, it's not like you look like anything fucking special. No-one's going to recognise you in the street."

They were waiting for Narra - whose disguise was being attended to by the Archmage herself - in the yard of an inn near The Tower. Danandra had been magically busy that morning: usually defiantly ginger, her hair was now a nondescript mousy brown colour and her ears no longer gave any appearance of elvishness. Sharinta - temporarily a blonde - looked uncannily like (a healthier version of) her sister. Leni looked like Leni - as McKenzie had alluded, there wasn't much that could be done to disguise her. Whatever Danandra had attempted hadn't lasted on McKenzie - even though he tried to stop it, the magic kept being absorbed into the reservoir, and he would return to looking like himself. He had, however, packed up his earthern clothes in a saddlebag and instead donned the outfit he'd been given when he arrived at the tower, although the gun still rode on his belt, under the cloak. The grenade was wrapped up safely in a bag.

Narra arrived a few moments later, via the unexpected method of popping into existence in a vacant stable, and if Danandra's obfuscations had been subtle, then the Archmage's were blatant but thorough: Narra was black. She picked bits of straw from her hair as she emerged.

"How do I look?" She asked, and her voice was also different, her accent now sounding, to McKenzie, slightly french. Her general figure had not changed overmuch, but her features were different, presumably more in line with her borrowed ethnicity, and, like Danandra, she had lost her elven ears.

"Still hot," Sharinta spoke. "But nothing like you looked before."

"Yeah. Nice," McKenzie agreed. She did look nice. And small. And vulnerable. Stood next to Leni, she looked like a doll: an infinitely breakable one. She was never going to be safe anymore.

A thought occurred to him, and he dug his phone out and sent Christine a quick text.

"If you're done faffing with that thing," Danandra said, "we're leaving."

"Yeah, comin'," he replied, and mounted up. His horse this time was both larger, nicer-natured and comfier.

The reply came an hour later, as they were leaving the outskirts of Melindron and riding through farmland to the east.

Yep, Jimmy says yes gateway can take 2 ppl. Sending 2 suits. He says what size ruffly?

Circus girl sized, McKenzie replied. Tell Jimmy thanks.

Over the course of the next day, as they travelled through the countryside, though Leni, Danandra and Sharinta engaged in conversation, banter and their usual ill-tempered bickering, Narra did not smile once, and said little. McKenzie, picking up on her mood of fatalistic resignation, didn't either.

Their cover story was not tested until they hit the Vyrinian border. It was a grander affair than the only other Vyrinian border McKenzie had seen, although that would not be a difficult achievement. A symbolic wooden pole rested across the road, surrounded by a collection of solid-looking huts which had been built to cater for the housing, storage and working-space requirements of the Vyrinian customs officials and guards stationed there. A profusion of slightly more disreputable huts and tents formed a secondary ring of habitation around the official core, evidently to cater for their drinking, prostitution and gambling requirements. All of this was presided over by a wooden tower fifteen feet or so high, atop which a squad of archers and a ballista crew formed a pointed reminder Not To Fuck About.

They joined a short queue of other travellers on foot, mounted and sat atop wagons laden with goods. To McKenzie's surprise, they didn't have to wait long - a robed official, flanked by a pair of guards in reasonably well-maintained and polished armour - waved them off the road.

"Ladies, gentleman, good morning - a reminder, please, to keep your weapons at their ease," the official said pleasantly, indicating the tower with a slight jerk of his head. "If I might trouble you for your names and reason for entering Imperial territory?"

"Atra Themades and Tasha Santero, Your Excellency: makers and purveyors of the finest thaumatoclerical spells, charms and artifacts by appointment to Her Wisdom the Archmage of Melindron. Here are our bona fides," Sharinta said, indicating first Danandra then herself, and handing the official a slim sheaf of parchments. "We are on our way to your fair capital to replenish the stock of our establishment there - and to keep our factor honest - and we hope to do some business along the way, if the price is right. The young lady is Senram Ulla, Atra's apprentice mage. Zak Largan is our token male, " Sharinta grinned ferally, "a licensed merchant guard, and the troll answers to the name of Suparentia. She is also a licensed guard."

Everyone handed the official at least one bit of parchment, which was duly scrutinised and handed back.

"Naseem - send for the mage," the official despatched one of the guards, then turned back to them. "Your prospects are good, ladies - the supply of magical items has been rather flat of late, or so I am told: my brother-in-law is a trader in such things. If I could trespass upon your patience for a few moments, the station mage will give your packs the once over and we'll have you on your way."

"What, just like that?" McKenzie asked. "Don't want to sound ungrateful or anythin', but I kind of assumed you'd want bribing."

The official gave a thin smile. "I see it's not your first time as a merchant guard, good sir. The practices and standards of this outpost are of course above any reproach, but I have heard it said - unofficially - that it is not wise to extract the usual fees and gratuities from clerics and mages."

"What, because it's bad luck?" McKenzie asked.

"Indeed so - I would certainly dub it 'bad luck' if one's testicles were to shrivel up and drop off a few days after giving insult to a cleric or a mage, which, I know first-hand from a fellow with a rather high-pitched voice, is wont to happen upon occasion."

McKenzie sniffed and nodded. "Fair point, well made."

They were joined by a middle-aged man in a patched brown robe, who coughed as he approached. His eyes were bloodshot and his nose and cheeks were crazed with veins.

"Ah, good mage," the official greeted him dryly. "Does this fair morning find you in a fit state to perform a magical examination of these packs, or are you, as the men often put it, 'still rat arsed?'"

The official's caution around mages didn't seem to extend to this one, McKenzie noted.

The mage's only answer was to cough once more and hawk something unpleasant onto the grass. He then looked pointedly at the girls and the horses for a few moments. McKenzie caught a minor, stuttering flash of magic.

"Nothing illegal," he grunted a few moments later, then with a cursory bow of inter-mage courtesy to Danandra, he stumbled back towards one of the huts.

"And thus is due process followed to the letter," said the official, making notes in a small book he drew from his robes, then ripping out and handing Sharinta one of the pages. "Prosperous journey to you, ladies and gentleman. Show that to the gate guards and they'll raise the bar."

"Thank you, Your Excellency," Sharinta told him, and off they went.

"Are we stopping here for breakfast?" McKenzie asked, as he caught a smell of frying bacon.

"Yeah, lets," Leni said. "These places are a haven for people who can't show their faces near civilisation 'cos of something they've done, hence very relevant to my interests."

"Second thoughts, let's just ride," McKenzie grumbled.

They continued on, entering a wooded area, and then Sharinta looked at Danandra, sighed, and pointed her horse off the road.

"Where you off to?" McKenzie asked.

"Vyrinios, McKenzie, where the fuck do you think I'm off to?" Sharinta replied.

"This is the road to Vyrinios, innit?"

"Yes. Via several towns and cities we don't give a shit about, and it's a very well-known and public route to Vyrinios. The Archmage's ruse with the airships'll've been figured out by now, and these disguises won't last forever. You wanna spend the next several days in a constant running fight?" Sharinta replied acidly.

"Is it your time of the month or something?" McKenzie asked. "You only had to say. Communicate a bit with your fellow cursees, Sharinta."

"Fine - the plan is we cut across country. Happy now?" Sharinta replied. She didn't say that the reason was partly so that Anaharra could be disposed of quietly by Leni in a remote location, should it prove necessary.

"Ecstatic," McKenzie answered flatly.

- o O o -

Sharinta had been right on the money - the airships had been discovered to be empty of Vyrinian princesses, and to contain only an invitation to a meeting with Her Wisdom. This was taking place, and the six invitees - representatives of the top six Imperial 'governors' who continually contended for control of the empire - were currently in 'outraged' mode, or would have been if the woman seated calmly on the other side of the table hadn't been the current top contender for the most scarily dangerous and powerful being on the entire planet.

"There may certainly be room for compromise on some of your proposals, Your Wisdom," said the envoy of Governor Maxos of the Vyrinian Haven Islands, "But this concept of a 'Vyrinian Republic' is an impossibility. Vyrinia is an empire, and there must be an Emperor."

"I offer your principals the opportunity for a share in direct executive power over a united Vyrinia, gentlemen," the Archmage said. "Otherwise Vyrinia will be an empire, and there will be an Empress, and she will not share power. Tell them that it is decision time. Tell them that there will be no negotiation on any of these points. Tell them that they will swear their loyalty to the new Vyrinian constitution, or they will be considered rebel provinces at war with the Vyrinian empire and Melindron too. That is all: you are dismissed. I will expect your answers in two days' time."