Anthelion's tower was five storeys high, with storage and my pallet on the ground floor, Thenum's little kitchen above that, Anthelion's personal chamber, library and laboratory on the third storey, his summoning chamber (now sealed) on the fourth and, finally, on the fifth, an observatory fitted with some of the most hilariously intricate stargazing equipment I had ever seen. By useful coincidence, that was where Thenum and I found him, bent over the eyepiece of a - by medieval standards - sophisticated reflecting telescope with a book of divinations open in his lap.

'Bad news, my friends,' he told us, as we crested the spiral staircase.

Thenum and I looked at each other.

'You know?' Thenum asked him.

'Of course I know!' he retorted, tapping his finger on the open page. 'Albeda is retrograde in the Chariot as Gideus advances! I thought to test the auspices for our meeting with the Guild and the signs aren't good at all.'

Then his brain caught up with his mouth.

'Wait,' he said. 'You weren't talking about the stars. What's happened?'

I went to his telescope and loosened it's gimbals. He blustered and complained as I manhandled the delicate gears, but it was built on the same principles as the telescopic sight on the ASVK, so I knew what I was doing. I peered into the eyepiece myself, then invited him to look.

'What am I looking at?' he asked, as he peered in.

'Val Namur,' said Thenum.

'On fire,' I added.

He glanced up at us, then down again and peered more carefully at the view I had set up for him. He adjusted the focus, then gently moved the direction back and forth.

'This is not good,' he noted. 'I should let Gethlyn know immediately, if Gazenthlion is in the area or anywhere near it.'

But we were interrupted by the distant tinkle of a bell being rung.

'Duty calls,' muttered Thenum, and dashed off down the stairs.

'Do you think it's Gethlyn?' I asked.

'He has scouts out and gets reports on monsters moving nearby,' Anthelion admitted. 'But I would be surprised.'

Sure enough, the man admitted to the tower's observatory didn't have the look of a paladin. He was gaunt of face, with a patchy black beard and deep-set eyes, half-hidden beneath the hood of a half-cape. But as he saw Anthelion, his dour expression slipped just enough for a small smile to break open his face.

'Conor?' asked Anthelion, his own smile far out-pacing that of the newcomer. 'My gods, I was sure you were dead, man! How long have you been haunting the Citadel under my nose?'

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

'It's good to see you, too, Master Magus,' replied Conor, ignoring the question, his quick eyes taking in both my presence and panning across the angle of the telescope. 'I see you've noticed the burning of Val Namur.'

'Yes, I was just about to hasten to warn Gethlyn and the paladins,' replied Anthelion, climbing to his feet, but Conor swiftly closed the distance between them, forcing Anthelion back into his chair.

'We tend to think that this... would not be a good idea,' said Conor, apologetically. 'We were looking forward to meeting you tomorrow for a proper opportunity to bring you into our counsel, but the sighting of the fire at Val Namur by your... summoned man, here, has forced us to bring our timeline up a bit.'

From all this, of course, I took it that Conor was a member of the Thieves Guild, but it was clear that Anthelion already knew him. Before Antheltion could interrupt, Conor pressed ahead:

'We're sorry to have left you out of the loop, Master Magus, but you were pursuing a solution to Gazenthlion in your own way and we didn't see any way we could assist you, so we left you to it. And if you had succeeded in summoning a champion, none would have rejoiced with greater strength than I.'

'But I did -' Anthelion started, looking askance in my direction.

'Forgive me, Summoned Man,' said Conor, noddinga brief bow in my direction. 'I didn't mean to suggest that you aren't a champion. But that you're not the champion that Gethlyn or his people would have preferred. Although, it seems now that Gethlyn would have been even less pleased with that kind of champion than he is with the Summoned Man.'

'Hi,' I said, in dry tones. 'I'm Ryan. Pleased to meet you.'

'Gethlyn was always dangerous,' Conor continued. 'While his arrogance was our best chance at victory - however slim - we were prepared to do our best to stay out of his way and feed intelligence to his scouts whenever we could. But now he is moving to take the Summoned Man's weapons and to try to use them to slay Gazenthlion himself.'

'What the fuck?' I shouted in English. I needed to secure the ASVK immediately. I had got sloppy, letting myself wander around without knowing exactly where they are.

'For now,' Conor assured me, 'cooler heads in the keep are counselling him to wait. It was a good idea to surrender the small device. It has the blacksmiths entirely baffled. The Paladins of the Temple want Gazenthlion dead, but the Congregation of Nobles are worried about what will happen to Planio if our neighbours learn she has fallen and our country lies nearly vacant.

'Force multiplier,' I said, again, in English.

'What?' asked Anthelion.

'These nobles,' I said in the local language, 'think that my weapons will help them defend themselves from invasion, even if they are few in number.'

'Are they right?' asked Conor.

'It would take generations to learn the smithing techniques and build the necessary devices to assemble enough weapons like mine to defend a country,' I said, shrugging. 'No, they are wrong.'

'Our best option to defeat Gazenthlion is you, then, Summoned Ryan,' he stated baldly. 'This is the opinion of the Guild. But Gethlyn and the paladins would take your weapons and waste them, whilst the Congregation would have you sit around until their smiths can replicate your devices and Anthelion or some other mage can re-create your magic.'

'The Guild wants to kill Gazenthlion, then?' asked Anthelion. 'I mean, of course they do, but they want her dead sooner rather than later? What about the risk of invasion?'

Conor shrugged.

'We respect you, Master Mage, so I'll tell you truly: the Guild doesn't care who rules Planio. Gazenthlion stole from us our victory. Whoever steps in after her, so long as they are human, will either need our services or will have wealth and goods for us to steal in any case.'

I spoke up:

'This isn't my land,' I admitted, 'or even my world. But if the burning of Val Namur means that Gazenthlion is on her way to the Citadel, then it seems that either we die, and she rules Planio forever, or she dies and we must take our chances with what comes next. For my part, I hope that will mean I can go home sooner rather than later. But for you, it seems like our opportunity might be here to finally bring an end to the dragon.'