Before they could ask her anything more about this magnificent radiator, Lady Melei spotted a well-dressed young man sitting in the back of a wagon, sketching something out on a large piece of parchment. "Ah, there's Hieronomus. He can tell you all about it. Hiero!"

The young man looked up. He was a bookish-looking fellow, with curly black hair, and was wearing a pair of spectacles. He looked up so quickly when Lady Melei called his name that the spectacles nearly flew off his face; he had to adjust them with his thumb and forefinger. "My lady," he greeted. He looked and sounded a bit nervous, a bit skittish. "And...and how are you this morning?"

"Could be better," she grouched. "Sir Farrow and Sir Brack returned empty-handed last night. I'll have to send another group out this afternoon. How are the modifications coming along?"

"S-still working on them, I'm afraid," he said. He held up the parchment, which was covered with complicated-looking drawings. "But I've made some progress."

"Well, at least someone is getting something done around here," she said grumpily. "Hieronomus Gil, I'd like to introduce you to Sir Estil Endsgrief."

The young man adjusted his glasses. "The f-famous knight?"

"Just so," she said. "And these are his friends. Arai, Shell, and..." She stopped, blinking at Lillandra. "I'm sorry, what was your name again?"

"Lillandra," Lillandra said, rather coolly.

"Yes, Lillandra. The four of them would like to accompany us on our journey west."

"Ah. I see."

"Hieronomus is an alchemist," Lady Melei said. "One of the greatest minds in Galleus. He's the one who invented the radiator, and he's the one who's going to make me rich. Isn't that right, Hiero?" She slapped him on the back, in a familiar sort of way. He flinched.

"Y-yes, of course," he said. "I'm the inventor of the radiator."

"But what is the radiator?" Shell asked. "And how is it going to make you rich?"

Lady Melei smiled at the skittish alchemist. "Perhaps you could explain it to them?"

"Ah, yes. Well, simply put, the radiator is a device designed to repel monsters and to prevent them from materializing, by interrupting the compression process with maginite-mist." He pointed to the strange device attached to the roof of the wagon that Lady Melei had just emerged from. "That's it over there."

"It repels monsters?" Arai asked, impressed. Was such a thing even possible?

He nodded. "It's a special compound I developed. The primary ingredient is powdered maginite, mixed with water and a few other ingredients. When a galvanic charge is passed through the mixture, and vaporized through my apparatus, it creates a certain chemical mist which repels monsters. It also disrupts the natural compression process of magia, as I said, which prevents monsters from materializing in the immediate area."

Arai immediately understood the value of the young alchemist's invention. "You're going to use it to pass through the Scarred Lands."

He nodded again. "The greatest obstacle to regular travel through the desert are the monsters, which are constantly appearing and attacking unwary travelers. My machine will keep them at bay."

"I was the first one to recognize his genius," Lady Melei said proudly. "I've been supporting his work for the last several years. As soon as he finished the final prototype, I began making arrangements for this expedition."

"Y-yes," Hiero agreed. "Lady Melei has been very...ahem...generous."

"So why haven't you set out yet?" Shell wondered. "What are you doing camped outside of town?"

"Ah." Hiero shook his head sadly. "Unfortunately the machine requires a great deal of maginite to work."

"I've been sending parties out into the desert to hunt down monsters and collect the maginite they leave behind," Lady Melei said. "But we need a whole wagon full of the stuff, and most monsters only leave behind a few small shards. They're also very difficult to destroy, as I'm sure you know. Even the little snakeheads and geckos out there can be a threat. I've lost a couple of men already." She sighed. "If I had known it would take this much time to gather this much maginite, I might have postponed the expedition, but it's too late now -- I'm already up to my ears in debt."

"And now we've got the Engulfer to deal with," Hiero added.

"The Engulfer?" Arai asked.

"That's what we call the monster that's been prowling around Panner's Canyon," the alchemist said. "It's quite large."

"Large?" Lady Melei blurted. "It's gargantuan. Three times the size of a dragon, at least. It resembles a large, fat grub worm, only it has thousands of little legs, and a face full of tentacles. I sent Damon out to try to incinerate it -- Damon's the sorcerer I hired -- but he couldn't put a dent in it. It's hard to get close to it. It moves slowly, but its tentacles are very long and very fast." She made a face.

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"You want to kill it for its maginite?" Lillandra asked.

"I'd love to," she said. "The damn thing probably has a ton of maginite in its belly. But I don't think we can kill it -- it's just too big. We're hoping the radiator will drive it off -- we can't pass through Panner's Canyon while that thing is down there."

"Maybe we could kill it for you," Shell offered.

Lady Melei looked down at her. "Really?"

"Arai's sword can kill any monster," she said confidently, "and Lillandra and I are witches. Well, I'm still learning, technically--"

"Shell--" Lillandra started.

"We killed a chthonic salamander below Kingsaile," the elf girl went on. "It was huge, but Arai was able to destroy it."

Lady Melei regarded Arai, looking him up and down -- rather boldly, he thought. He almost felt as though she were undressing him with her eyes. "You have a magic sword?"

"I do," he admitted. "But killing monsters isn't as easy as Shell makes it out to--"

"I have an idea," Lady Melei said, snapping her fingers. "If you can get rid of the Engulfer for me, and collect its maginite, I'll not only allow you to accompany us on this expedition to the west, I'll let you in on a portion of the profits. Two percent, perhaps? I'll have Phile work something out."

Arai wasn't really interested in profits -- all he cared about was getting across the desert -- but this expedition was probably their best and only chance of making it through the Scarred Lands, and if this monster was standing in the way of their progress...

Could he actually kill it, though? He had great confidence in Silus, but the sword was only as strong as the man wielding it, and monsters like the big salamander, Nharlek's assassin, and the moss-man on Tapil Island had all given him trouble. As Lillandra liked to say, Silus did not make him invincible.

Arai glanced at Lillandra. "What do you think?"

"I think you know how I feel about hunting monsters," she muttered.

"Sir Estil?"

The knight shrugged. "Panner's Canyon isn't far from here. If this monster should find its way into town, it could cause a great deal of death and destruction. It should be gotten rid of regardless."

Arai nodded. "All right," he said. "I want to know more about this monster, though, and what it's capable of."

"Absolutely! I can tell you all about it...over breakfast." She suddenly approached Arai, singling him out, fluttering her eyelashes at him in a girlish sort of way. "Would you care to join me?"

"O-of course," he said, a little flustered by her forwardness.

"Great! I'm starving." She linked arms with him, surprising him further. "Tell me about yourself," she said. "Where are you from? And where, exactly, did you get this magic sword?"

He threw a backwards glance at Lillandra and the others. Shell was oblivious, and Sir Estil merely rolled his eyes at Lady Melei's boldness. Lillandra, however, was scowling at him.

* * *

They ate breakfast with Lady Melei -- eggs, bacon, and biscuits, served up by Phile, who was one of Lady Melei's servant girls. She was a teenager, probably about the same age as Lillandra, but very prim and proper, and meticulous in her serving of the tea. Lady Melei seemed to enjoy bossing her around.

But then, Melei seemed to enjoy bossing everyone around -- she was always barking orders at someone or other. Her knights, her servants, her alchemist, and even her sorcerer, Damon, all seemed to be at least a little terrified of her.

Damon stopped to chat with them for a moment. He was a paunchy, middle-aged man, and very ordinary-looking; if Arai hadn't known he was a sorcerer he never would have guessed. But the man obviously had some talent, because his eyes bugged out when he saw Lillandra; evidently he had noticed the way the magia was swirling around her. "You must be very powerful," he said.

"Yes," she said simply.

When the man left, Arai whispered to Lillandra: "How strong is he? Could you tell?"

She shrugged. "About average, for a sorcerer."

The conversation was lively -- Lady Melei grew very excited when she learned that Arai and Lillandra were from the other side of the desert, and she began peppering them with questions: What kinds of people lived in the west? What kinds of problems might they run into? Would the governments of the west be willing to open up diplomatic relations with Galleus? What kinds of trade goods did they possess? And so on.

While they were eating, they suddenly felt a tremor in the earth -- a low, vibratory rumble, which rattled their dishes just a bit. Arai and the others were startled, but neither Lady Melei nor Phile or anyone else seemed to be alarmed. "We've been getting a lot of these quakes lately," she explained. "I don't think it's anything to worry about. Now! Tell me more about Velon. Are your people friendly? How do you think they'll receive us? Is there a market there for Citian silk? We've got ten bolts of it to trade."

Arai exchanged a glance with Lillandra. "Velon is very far to the west," he said. "I doubt you'll be doing any trading with the Velonese at all. You're more likely to be doing business with the Queendom of Elent, or maybe the Jek, in the northern prairie, but the Jek are a warlike people and you're probably better off avoiding them."

"But this is marvelous! The one thing this expedition was lacking -- apart from maginite, of course -- was a guide to tell us something of the lands beyond the desert. I've been chasing down as many reports as I can, from people who have been there, but they're very hard to come by." She took Arai by the hand and looked into his eyes. "How fortunate I am, to have found you."

He cleared his throat, a bit nervously. "Ah, yes," he said lamely. "But you were going to tell us about the Engulfer?"

"Of course," she said. And she gave them a complete description of it -- Lady Melei, it turned out, had actually seen the monster herself, albeit from a great distance.

After breakfast, and after she had briefed them on the monster, she was called away to deal with some crisis. "We'll talk more later," she said to them, although she was looking at Arai when she said it. She gave him a wink, and then she was off.

"She's nice," Shell commented. "I think she likes you, Arai."

"You noticed," he muttered. "What do you think about this Engulfer-thing, Lill? Do you have any thoughts on how we might kill it?"

"Your guess is as good as mine," she said, a little distractedly. She was staring daggers at Lady Melei's departing figure. "I could control it if I had a Dragon's Bit, but those take a long time to make."

"There's a lot of magia out here," Shell pointed out.

"Not enough. Having all this magia to work with would speed things up, but there's a limit to how quickly a cauldron can siphon magia out of the air. It would probably only shave a few weeks off. And I'd need a wyrm's horn and some ape skin and some other materials to craft it, besides."

"Is there anything else you might be able to make?"

"I'd have to think about it."

"You have your sword," Shell reminded him.

"Sure," he said, "but this monster is supposed to be enormous, even bigger than the salamander we fought in the Dwellmer. Silus can destroy most monsters with a few slashes, but the bigger they are, the more damage they can absorb. And getting that close to a monster with tentacles..." He shook his head. "I'm not wild about it."

"Well, we'll have to come up with something," Shell said. "She's promised us two percent of the profits! And we're not going anywhere until someone kills this thing."

Arai sighed. "She's right. Where are the horses? I'd like to get a look at this beast, anyway."