A heavy first hammered upon the tower's front door. Thenum and I hurried down the staircase: him to answer the door and me to secure my weapons and get ready to leave the Citadel.

I was in Anthelion's room, removing the ASVK from his wardrobe, when I heard a familiar voice.

'Stand aside! I am on official business for the Temple and the Congregation,' growled Marlinya, her clear, deep voice easily carrying up the stairs. 'If you were to give me cause to beat the dlokin who murdered my partner, I would welcome it!'

'Oh for fuck's sake...' I muttered under my breath, slinging the weather case for the rifle across my back and readying the M4. With a round up the spout, I double-checked the safety.

'How can the Tower of Anthelion assist the Lady Marlinya?' Thenum asked, in a vain attempt to stall the paladin.

With a distinctive shuffling sound of plate on chainmail, she began to ascend the staircase.

'Whoa there, Marlinya,' I ordered.

She looked up to find me with my carbine pointing in her direction. She stopped, but showed no sign of appreciating the danger she was in.

'Hand over your devices,' she ordered me. 'The Temple of Paladins had established formal rights of ownership.'

I didn't follow the jargon, but I got the gist.

'One more step and I'll empty your skull,' I warned her.

She locked eyes with me over the top of the sight unit. She had the look of a weightlifter about her - a powerful neck rose from broad shoulders to support a young-looking face (by which I mean "younger than me") with a square jaw, wide mouth and dark, brown eyes. She wore a mail coif, covering her short hair.

After a moment of hesitation, I saw determination set itself in her face and knew she was about to advance. I turned and ran back up the stairs.

I had no intention of shooting her. Quite apart from the utter waste of a bullet, she was just doing her job. But I couldn't surrender the tools I needed to open my way home. I had to find some back-up.

'Anthelion, Marlinya is here and she's wants to take the rifle!' I gasped as I burst out onto the observatory floor.

I was met with silence.

'Anthelion?'

Oh great. He and Conor had somehow made themselves scarce right when I needed their assistance. I was pretty tasty in a fight down the High Street at kicking-out time. I could duck and weave, throw a punch or three, and I even had some quality jiu-jitsu training in my back pocket for when things went to the floor. But at the end of the day, my training involved putting tiny pieces of metal into people's bodies from a long way off. I wasn't a ninja. And I certainly wasn't a knight in shining armour.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

So when Marlinya crested the top of the staircase I hit her with the first available object I could put my hands on.

That telescope sounded even more expensive when it broke.

When Anthelion appeared behind her, having emerged from his summoning room where he and Conor had taken refuge, and saw the scene that greeted him on the observatory floor I wasn't sure whether he was more upset about Marlinya or the telescope.

'My telescope!' he screamed in dismay.

OK, yeah. He was a lot more upset about the telescope. But I was busy trying to restrain Marlinya. Hitting someone in the head with a brass reflecting telescope is more art than science, and if I'd really gone to town I could easily have killed her with a shot like that, so I had chosen the high road and pulled my swing to try to hurt and shock her and knock her down, but not to knock her out. As Anthelion appeared, I was astride Marlinya with the paladin facedown. This, fortunately, was a scenario for which I was well trained, practised and equipped. Taking prisoners had been part and parcel of routine patrolling in Helmand, and for all Marlinya's obvious strength, I'd dealt with tougher customers before. I had the plasticuffs out of my pouch and over her right wrist practically before she hit the floor. Now it was just a case of getting her other wrist in before she could throw me off.

'A little help?' I begged, as Conor appeared from behind Anthelion. He took in the situation a lot faster than the wizard and helped me wrestle the cuffs onto her. Then I divested her of her sword belt, removed the scabbards and used the belt to tie up her ankles.

At this point I was learning a lot of new vocabulary from our captive. Conor sighed, produced a large, thin square of material from an inside pocket, spun it into a sausage shape and wrapped it around Marlinya's head to gag her.

'My bloody telescope!' Anthelion wailed again.

'Priorities, Master Mage,' said Conor. 'We were about to leave anyway. This just lights a fire beneath our urgency.'

'Yes, but...' He gestured at the dented tube and the shards of broken silvered glass which must have been worth a king's ransom, intact. 'Why?'

I shrugged as apologetically as I could manage.

'First thing that came to hand,' I told him.

'But...' he protested, only for a stream of muffled curses to escape from the trussed Marlinya. Anthelion lifted his staff, looking down at her. 'Sleep!'

Marlinya's eyes immediately closed, hey body went limp and she dropped her head to the floor. I must have looked dumbfounded.

'What?' demanded Anthelion, still smarting at my destruction of his treasured instrument. 'I am a wizard. Did you think summoning champions was my only trick?'

'Well that'll make her easier to move,' said Conor. 'How long can you keep her like that?'

'Not long,' he admitted.

'Then we'll take her with us,' Conor went on. 'We'll need to move fast.'

I was already primed to go. I helped Conor carry the unconscious paladin down the stairs as gently as we could, then I found my bergen, strapped up the ASVK and was ready to leave. Anthelion took longer and would have been longer still without Thenum chivvying him at the same time as the servant completed his own hasty packing.

Meanwhile, Conor opened the front door and, in answer to his whistle, three more figures slipped through into the tower. These assistants of his - presumably more Thieves Guild members - wrapped and carried Marlinya and then, in a rushed and anxious cloud of uncertainty, we left the tower as one group and headed towards the Citadel's lower levels.