She was staring up at him, her expression unreadable.

Tehol thought to toss up his hands to punctuate his; harangue, but he shrugged instead. ‘Yet my heart breaks for a naked hen.’

‘I’m sure it does,’ she whispered.

‘You should have left,’ Tehol said.

‘What?’

Boots clumping in the alley, rushing up to the doorway. The flimsy broken shutter-newly installed by Bugg in the name of Janath’s modesty-torn aside. Armoured figures pushing in.

A soft cry from Janath.

Tanal Yathvanar stared, disbelieving. His guards pushed in around him until he was forced to hold his arms out to the sides to block still more crowding into this absurd room with its clucking, frightened chickens and two wide-eyed citizens.

Well, she at least was wide-eyed. The man, who had to be the infamous Tehol Beddict, simply watched, ridiculous in his pinned blanket, as Tanal fixed his gaze on Janath and smiled. ‘Unexpected, this.’

‘I-1 know you, don’t I?’

Tehol asked in a calm voice, ‘Can I help you?’

Confused by Janath’s question, it was a moment before Tanal registered Tehol’s words. Then he sneered at the man. ‘I am here to arrest your manservant. The one named Bugg.’

‘Oh, now really, his cooking isn’t that bad.’

As it turns out, it seems I have stumbled upon another crime in progress.’

Tehol sighed, then bent to retrieve a pillow. Into which he reached, dragging out a live chicken. Mostly plucked, only a few tufts remaining here and there. The creature tried flapping flabby pink wings, its head bobbing this way and that atop a scrawny neck. Tehol held the chicken out. ‘Here, then. We never really expected the ransom in any case.’

Behind Tanal a guard grunted a quickly choked-off laugh.

Tanal scowled, reminding himself to find out who had made that noise. On report and a week of disciplinary duty should serve notice that such unprofessionalism was costly in Tanal Yathvanar’s presence. ‘You are both under arrest. Janath, for having escaped the custody of the Patriotists. And Tehol Beddict, for harbouring said fugitive.’

‘Ah, well,’ Tehol said, ‘if you were to check the Advocacy Accounts for the past month, sir, you will find the official pardon granted Janath Anar, in absentia. The kind of pardon your people always issue when someone has thoroughly and, usually, permanently disappeared. So, the scholar here is under full pardon, which in turn means I am not harbouring a fugitive. As for Bugg, why, when you track him down, tell him he’s fired. I will brook no criminals in my household. Speaking of which, you may leave now, sir.’

Oh no, she will not escape me a second time. ‘If said pardon exists,’ Tanal said to Tehol Beddict, ‘then of course you will both be released, with apologies. For the moment, however, you are now in my custody.’ He gestured to one of his guards. ‘Shackle them.’

‘Yes sir.’

Bugg turned the corner leading into the narrow lane only to find it blocked by a freshly killed steer, legs akimbo, white tongue lolling as Ublala Pung-an arm wrapped about the beast’s broken neck-grunted and pulled, his face red and the veins on his temples purple and bulging. The odd multiple pulsing of his hearts visibly throbbed on both sides of the Tarthenal’s thick neck as he endeavoured to drag the steer to Tehol’s door.

His small eyes lit up on seeing Bugg. ‘Oh good. Help.’

‘Where did you get this? Never mind. It will never fit in through the door, Ublala. You’ll have to dismember it out here.’

‘Oh.’ The giant waved one hand. ‘I’m always forgetting things.’

‘Ublala, is Tehol home?’

‘No. Nobody is.’

‘Not even Janath?’

The Tarthenal shook his head, eyeing the steer, which was now thoroughly jammed in the lane. ‘I’ll have to rip its legs off,’ he said. ‘Oh, the hens are home, Bugg.’

Bugg had been growing ever more nervous with each step that had brought him closer to their house, and now he understood why. But he should have been more than just nervous. He should have known. My mind-1 have been distracted. Distant worshippers, something closer to hand…

Bugg clambered over the carcass, pushing past Ublala Pung, which, given the sweat lathering the huge man, proved virtually effortless, then hurried to the doorway.

The shutter was broken, torn from its flimsy hinges. Inside, four hens marched about on the floor like aimless soldiers. Ublala Pung’s pillow was trying to do the same.

Shit. They’ve got them.

There would be a scene at the headquarters of the Patriotists. Couldn’t be helped. Wholesale destruction, an Elder God’s rage unleashed-oh, this was too soon. Too many heads would look up, eyes narrowing, hunger bursting like juices under the tongue. Just stay where you are. Stay where you are, lcarium. Lifestealer. Do not reach for your sword, do not let your brow knit. No furrows of anger to mar your unhuman face. Stay, lcarium!

He entered the room, found a large sack.

Ublala Pung filled the doorway. ‘What is happening?’

Bugg began throwing their few possessions into the sack.

‘Bugg?’

He snatched up a hen and stuffed it in, then another.

‘Bugg?’

The mobile pillow went last. Knotting the sack, Bugg turned about and gave it to Ublala Pung. ‘Find somewhere else to hide out,’ Bugg said. ‘Here, it’s all yours-’

‘But what about the cow?’

‘It’s a steer.’

‘I tried but it’s jammed.’

‘Ublala-all right, stay here, then, but you’re on your own. Understand?’

‘Where are you going? Where is everyone?’

Had Bugg told him then, in clear terms that Ublala Pung would comprehend, all might well have turned out differently. The Elder God would look back on this one moment, over all others, during his extended time of retrospection that followed. Had he spoken true-‘They’re just gone, friend, and none of us will be back. Not for a long time. Maybe never. Take care of yourself, Ublala Pung, and ‘ware your new god-he is much more than he seems.’

With that, Bugg was outside, climbing over the carcass once more and to the mouth of the alley. Where he halted.

They would be looking for him. On the streets. Did he want a running battle? No, just one single strike, one scene of unveiled power to send Patriotist body parts flying. Fast, then done. Before I awaken the whole damned menagerie.

No, I need to move unseen now.

And quickly.

The Elder God stirred power to life, power enough to pluck at his material being, disassembling it. No longer corporeal, he slipped down through the grimy cobbles of the street, into the veins of seepwater threading the entire city.

Yes, much swifter here, movement as fast as thought-

He tripped the snare before he was even aware that he had been pulled off course, drawn like an iron filing to a lodestone. Pulled, hard and then as if in a whirlpool, down to a block of stone buried in darkness. A stone of power-of Mael’s very own power-a damned altar!

Eagerly claiming him, chaining him as all altars sought to do to their chosen gods. Nothing of sentience or malice, of course, but a certain proclivity of structure. The flavour of ancient blood fused particle by particle into the stone’s crystalline latticework.

Mael resisted, loosing a roar that shivered through the foundations of Letheras, even as he sought to reassert his physical form, to focus his strength-

And the trap was so sprung-by that very act of regaining his body. The altar, buried beneath rubble, the rubble grinding and shifting, a thousand minute adjustments ensnaring Mael-he could not move, could no longer even so much as cry out.

Errant! You bastard!

Why?

Why have you done this to me?

But the Errant had never shown much interest in lingering over his triumphs. He was nowhere close, and even if he had been, he would not have answered.

A player had been removed from the game.