He hastily shook his head and stepped back, stumbling against the hounds' noses. They growled; the dwarf recoiled, mumbling, "That's the only one! The only thing I have! You're not getting it!"

Greedy guts! He'd make a nice friend for my inner pig. I had to give it some thought.

"Sir Durin, I'm afraid you don't understand," I said. "I'm the Temple's First Priest and the owner of the castle. I have my men here with me and our alliance representatives. We can't allow zombies to roam these corridors unattended, nor can we let them sneak our mithril and ammo. As the castle's owner, I have the right of ownership to everything in these lands."

I almost felt guilty expropriating him. The dwarf was a sorry sight. He started shaking, recoiling this way and that with a haunted look in his eyes, stumbling against the hounds' bared teeth. Finally he froze, scowling like a cornered rat.

I reserved my compassion for the old idiot. It was time to make him an offer he'd find hard to refuse. "You could, however, stay in the castle. You don't even need to part with your treasure."

The dwarf pricked up his ears, looking at me expectantly. I screwed my face into an appropriately official expression. "Durin the Dwarf, Master of the Mithril Smithy, I hereby invite you to join the Children of the Night and accept the post of the clan's steward and treasurer!"

Why not? I didn't have enough people, did I? So I had to think of something pretty quick. At least he wouldn't be able to run off into the real world with our money. Nor would he fritter away the funds to the first so-called friend or honey trap.

"Your job will be to guard and increase the clan's property. Which doesn't mean I'll have to run after you begging you every time I need a nail to drive in the wall! You are the guardian; I'm the owner. You have a minute to consider my offer."

The ex-Master didn't hesitate. I don't think he expected to get a second similar offer from somewhere else. The alternative, however, was sad and unenviable.

He nodded. With a metallic click, he drew his hand from behind his back and offered it to me, palm up. On his thumb hung the pin ring he'd pulled from the grenade.

"Don't move," I said to him calmly. "Show me your other hand, very slowly, and please don't unclench it!"

Impressed by the seriousness in my voice, the dwarf pulled the other hand from behind his back, showing me the primed grenade. I lay my hand over his wizened fingers and squeezed it to prevent him from letting go of the safety clip. Gingerly I removed the ring, pinched the two ends of the split pin in my teeth and rethreaded it into the hole. Breathing a sigh of relief, I much more calmly let go of the clip handle. What a kamikaze. Had he just tried to blow us all up or was he really so clueless? I didn't ask. I motioned him to open his shovel-like hand, caught the deadly pineapple and cautiously put it in my bag.

The dwarf's greedy stare followed the disappearing treasure. "Do you understand the steel invaders' mechanics?"

"Sort of," I mumbled as I scanned the heap for any more hazardous junk. Trust them to unearth some tactical nuke so that this smartass could try to take it apart with a sledgehammer. How was I supposed to rebuild the Temple after that?

I wondered what the Vets would think when they noticed an atomic mushroom on the horizon? Would Dan and Eric immediately think about me? I seemed to be their prime suspect for lots of things.

"And who are you?" the dwarf squinted like a cop and—inconspicuously, so he thought—reached under his cloak. "Are you their servant or something?"

"Don't worry. It's been eight hundred years since anyone heard about them. Few still remember they existed at all. The world has new inhabitants now: the Immortal Ones. Millions are just visitors while hundreds of thousands have settled down here for good. I'm one of them. So please stop searching your pockets for whatever it is you're looking for, just surrender it to our ammo depot. Pointless trying to kill us: I've just told you we're immortal. So are you with us? Here's the invitation."

I selected him as target, crossed my fingers—no clan had ever hired a zombie before—and sent him an invitation to join. The Universe didn't shatter—apparently, the world's mechanics had been sufficiently changed the last time—but our clan counter grew by one.

Now that's a motley crew! Should I invite the Fallen One to join, too? Or Macaria, talking about the devil? Had she already realized she was now sitting on a time bomb? How did she expect her priests to level if she'd pulled them out of the food chain between her worshippers and herself, stripping them of the necessary referral XP? Never mind Eric: I was sure the Vets wouldn't let him down by seeking another priest for their own initiation. Actually, hadn't they invited me to some official 'do or other this coming Saturday? That was in their own interests: the priest's raid tricks and special abilities could add their two cents to the clan's power making it stronger and more competitive. But what was I supposed to do with the other Temple priests? Did I have to pay them for every initiation? Suicidal little cow. First she'd made a real botch of things, then she disappeared and left me to clean up her mess!

I stirred and glanced at the zoned-out zombie who must have been digesting his new status, saying goodbye to his eight hundred years of solitude.

I mentally reached for the Castle-controlling artifact. "Lurch!"

"Yes, Master!"

"What do we have in the way of a treasury? Know any?"

"Three!" AI reported with a note of pride in its voice. "One is official, used as bait for burglars and as decoy for an attacking enemy. Lots of traps and very few real treasures, mainly costume jewelry. The second one is the owner's personal treasury, an artifact strongroom with floating coordinates. It's currently on standby buried deep in the foundations and can be moved closer to your suite at your first request. Finally, the secret vault used to store real treasures. Status: yellow, borderline functional. Unfortunately, the regenerating wave that occurred sixteen hours ago has caused forty-one tons of the vault's contents to mysteriously disappear."

Bam! My virtual greedy pig collapsed, unconscious. I gave him a mental slap on his fat cheeks, wiped his large tears and sighed, "Oh, well. No use crying over spilt milk. Now listen: on my orders, Durin the Dwarf has been appointed castle treasurer. He is granted access to the last treasury you mentioned. His initial task will be to store the mithril ore and other valuables. Notify me of all instances of him carrying out more than 1% of the vault's contents."

With a smile, I turned to the dwarf and slapped his wood-hard shoulder, shrinking as I imagined him crumbling to the floor with my hearty endearment. But by now he was too dry and wizened to fall apart. Good.

"Welcome to our ranks! We are few but we do have potential—a Super Nova castle, the First Temple complete with a priest, and the promise of support from two gods. Potentially we might be looking at a major war but you can't scare a dwarf with a good fight, can you?"

He grinned in agreement, exposing a row of perfect white teeth marred by a couple of impact gaps. His jaw must have suffered a few quality punches in its time: to the best of my knowledge it took a good horse's kick to make a dent in Dwarven teeth. And not just any kick but a fractal one involving some twists and turns. Dwarves could gnaw on rocks without as much as a toothache.

I was about to send him back to the cellars for a new dose of mithril when I remembered the point at which we were interrupted. "How many grenades did you say you had stashed?"