Josh was still in the library, staring blankly into space, when a servant arrived with a folded note on a silver salver. He had no idea why they didn’t just give him the note like a normal person, instead of serving it up as if it was food, but he took it anyway. His mind was still churning through the revelations he’d just had, so it took him a couple of attempts to decipher the loopy writing.

It was from Lady Paleyne, and she begged for the honour of his company as soon as he was able to present himself at Sir Ernil’s house. She wasn’t really begging, it was just part of the courtly language all the nobles liked to use towards each other. But yesterday’s encounter with Orlad had now been superseded by today’s crisis, namely that there was some kind of world-ending threat running around free. On top of that, Josh’s quest for the Dreamer had petered out and he didn’t know where to go next.

He went to see Lady Paleyne anyway, if only to reassure himself that she hadn’t murdered Lord Northcrag. He was wary of asking her outright, but he didn’t immediately get the chance. As the footman escorted him to Sir Ernil’s sitting room, Josh heard voices issuing from it.

“…your behaviour giving rise to this kind of gossip, one would think you have not a single care for your own reputation…” a man was saying. He had a booming sort of voice that projected his words helpfully through the door for the benefit of any eavesdroppers in the vicinity.

The footman acted as if he had heard none of this, and simply opened the door.

Lady Paleyne’s visitor was a tall, heavily built man whom Josh hadn’t seen before, who stood over her with a pugnacious expression and a hectic flush in his cheeks. Lady Paleyne was seated on a sofa, looking downcast and subdued, of all things.

The man gave Josh an indignant glanced as the servant announced him, clearly wishing him elsewhere.

“Father, this is a young man who has recently been of service to Sir Ernil,” Lady Paleyne said, her eyes lowered. “De Haven, this is my father, Lord Shoal.”

Josh gave his bow, but he felt awkward, clumsy, and out of place, on top of the natural discomfort of a middle-class British person intruding on someone else’s family drama.

“Sir,” Lady Paleyne said, addressing her father. The formality of it made Josh feel even weirder, reminding him that he was in a foreign culture with strange customs. “Mr de Haven could surely benefit from your wisdom over a matter of etiquette.”

What? Why did Josh need etiquette advice? Had he bowed the wrong way or something?

“Everyone knows,” Lady Paleyne added, “that you have such a wealth of experience in such matters.”

The change on Lord Shoal was immediate—he straightened and cast his eye over Josh again, frowning a little, and saying importantly, “Oh? Well, I am always happy to offer my advice.”

Lady Paleyne must have summoned Josh to be a distraction for her extremely overbearing parent. Why did Josh keep falling for her tricks? It would have served her right if he’d ignored the invitation until the next day.

“Would you relate the story about your young friend who had an altercation yesterday?” Lady Paleyne asked.

What was she talking about? Josh looked at her helplessly.

“He tried to intervene in a fight, I believe you said?” Lady Paleyne continued. “He grabbed a pole of some sort to defend himself, and then his opponent took up a small table and tried to hit him with it.”

She was describing the fight with Orlad, as if her father was not aware of the full details, and pretending it was a separate incident. Josh was confused. Lord Shoal had just been telling her off for her behaviour—but maybe it hadn’t had anything to do with scene at the ceremony the other day.

“This sounds like a lowborn brawl to me,” Lord Shoal said with distaste. “And not a subject fit for a lady’s ears. I don’t see that I can be of any use.”

“Perhaps you should tell the story,” Lady Paleyne said to Josh, a slight warning in her eyes. “Naturally, as a woman, I don’t understand these things,” she made a delicate, dismissive fluttering motion with her fingers, “but perhaps my father could help your friend avoid being embroiled in a duel.”

Josh had forgotten about Orlad’s abortive challenge in the wake of all the other revelations he had experienced today. Lady Paleyne was right. The prospect of coming across Orlad again was a headache he didn’t need. He recounted the story of the fight as if it had happened to a friend of his, arising after Orlad had threatened a mutual acquaintance.

“Hmm!” Lord Shoal said, as he finished. “I am afraid to say your friend did not act with honour.”

For the third time during this conversation, Josh thought, what? He didn’t need to say anything out loud, however, because Lord Shoal had been accurate when he'd stated that he was always happy to offer his advice. He moved immediately into a long-winded explanation, the gist of which was that, even if you were attacked by a bigger, more experienced opponent, so long as he was using only his fists, taking up a weapon against him was dishonourable. The question, according to Lord Shoal, was not whether such ungentlemanly conduct should result in a duel, but whether Josh’s ‘friend’ should be considered enough of a gentleman to be issued a challenge. Attacking an unarmed man with a window pole was an ignoble act, and apparently duels were reserved only for the nobility.

All at once Josh felt himself losing patience. Despite what Lord Shoal had said, Josh and Orlad had not been evenly matched until Josh had taken up the pole to defend himself with. He resolved to do so in future the moment he was faced with another aggressive noble, and very nearly said so. While Josh was still busy holding onto his temper, Lord Shoal passed from his condemnation of Josh’s ‘friend’ to a patronising homily towards Josh himself, advising him to stay out of low taverns and not mix with the common riff raff, for fear of their low-class habits rubbing off on him.

I have more important things to worry about, Josh thought.

He probably would have said that if it wasn’t for Lady Paleyne. Every time Lord Shoal said something particularly thoughtless or offensive, Lady Paleyne stepped in with a soothing comment of her own, distracting him while flattering his knowledge and experience.

Josh had just decided that he would give up on asking her anything about Northcrag and leave, when she got rid of Lord Shoal using the exact same tactic as yesterday, puttting a gentle hand to her brow and declared that she felt exhausted, and simply must take a rest.

Josh stifled his impatience while Lord Shoal criticised his daughter for taking on too many duties and attending too many parties, while simultaneously excusing her weakness as only natural for a woman, but eventually he wound down and bid her good-bye. He evidently expected Josh to accompany him out—god forbid he would leave his daughter alone with an unattached man—but Lady Paleyne said quickly, “Oh, Mr de Haven, Sir Ernil left the book you wanted in the library. Perhaps you should go and look at it. Forgive me, I forgot until just now!”

There was no book, but presumably she wished to speak to him after she had evicted her father, so he obediently followed her directions to the library, thinking that Lord Shoal was lucky he had never suffered the same fate as Lord Northcrag. Sir Ernil's library was smaller than the one owned by the Marquis of Silbury, but Josh started checking it for volumes of interest nevertheless.

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Lady Palayne came in a few minutes later, her demeanour completely changed. The Dutiful Submissive Daughter had been replaced by the Languid Playful Courtier. By this point Josh was fed up with all the obscuration and misdirection he seemed to get embroiled in whenever Lady Paleyne was around. Couldn’t she just be herself, instead of playing all these roles?

“What’s going to happen to Lord Northcrag?” he asked bluntly.

She raised her eyebrows and looked him over thoughtfully. A little of her languid manner fell away.

“A dastardly plot,” she said, with immense satisfaction. “I hear that, following his collapse at the ceremony—not fatal, I assure you!—strange creatures secretly raided his home and carried him away.”

Did she mean the huldra?

“I also hear that he will henceforth be held hostage, and his son has been ordered to cover up his father's absence by pretending he is now an invalid, and confined to his bed, too sick to be seen by anyone but his closest family.”

“That doesn’t actually answer my question about what will happen to him,” Josh pointed out.

She gave a frustrated sigh.

“They have a method of keeping someone in a state of incapacitation indefinitely. Naturally they will put it to good use.”

She was referring to the fact that the huldra were now in possession of the sarcophagi. Josh couldn’t argue with that, since it seemed a fitting reversal of fortune for someone like Northcrag.

“But that’s not what I asked you to come here for,” she went on. “Orlad is a problem.”

She seemed to think that Orlad was their mutual problem. She wasn’t, Josh reflected, completely wrong on that, if Orlad was about to hunt him down and challenge him to a duel.

“Why doesn’t he like you?”

She paused, and said reluctantly, “We were engaged, once. Or rather, I had thought we might deal well together, but I subsequently discovered myself to be mistaken.”

Orlad resented her because she’d dumped him.

“What is he actually trying to do?” Josh asked. “Why did he want to steal the key fragments?”

Lady Paleyne bit her lip thoughtfully.

“Most of this is conjecture, you understand,” she warned him. “I haven’t spoken to him for many years.”

Josh nodded.

“I believe he is one of the Eradicators.”

Josh raised his eyebrows inquiringly.

“A group which believes it is their holy purpose to destroy every single scourge in the world,” Lady Paleyne clarified.

Ah. Orlad had been after the key fragments because he wanted to free the Demon, presumably so that it would consume the scourge. Josh wanted to tell her that it was too late, the Demon had been released anyway, but there was no way he could do so without revealing his own outworlder status.

That was something he would have to think about.

“Isn’t the destruction of the scourge something you and Sir Ernil want too?” he asked instead.

“We want to retake Celespire,” she said. “How that is accomplished is a matter of debate. While we have no love of the scourge, a diplomatic solution would suit us just as well.”

“I see.”

“I will not be leaving the house without protection over the next few days. I would suggest that you stay away from both here and Silbury’s residence. To the best of my knowledge, no-one who saw Orlad’s fight with you at the ceremony knows where you live. Even I don't know your direction, which is why I sent the note to Silbury's house. But if Orlad does track you down, he will attempt either to force you into a duel, or use you against me in some other way, to make me to reveal the location of the key fragment you took. So be on your guard.”

That was all Josh needed.

“I’ll be cautious,” he said.

She raised an eyebrow.

“I haven’t hitherto noticed any particular tendency towards caution in you,” she said. “But that will have to do.”

Which Josh thought was unfair, but he followed her suggestion that he leave via the back door, rather than the front entrance, in case anyone had been watching Silbury’s house or this one, ready to follow him home.

Instead of returning to his lodgings, however, Josh went back to Crosskeys. He still felt weirdly off balance after the Ramina's bloodthirsty confession yesterday, and now being told that he had defended a woman the wrong way was making it worse. All his encounters recently had served to stress just how alien this world really was, and how disconnected he was from it. Doug might be from the seventies, but at least he was from Earth.

Doug was still there, surrounded by his adventuring group, and it was clear that Josh had interrupted a planning session, because they were pouring over a map and discussing possible routes to the temple of the Shining Light of the Moon, were the third key fragment was supposed to be held.

Doug greeted Josh cheerfully, and asked if he had thought about joining the expedition since their talk earlier that morning. If it hadn’t been for the revelations over the previous few hours, Josh would have said yes. Now, however, he knew that their quest was doomed, and he couldn’t even tell them that.

He would have to find a way.

He shook his head regretfully in answer to Doug’s question.

“I received word that a relative of mine will be arriving in Dendral soon,” he said. “I need to look after them during their stay.”

To his relief, Doug accepted this explanation. Shortly after that, the planning session broke up, and Josh was able to get a private word with Doug.

“What do you think of the scourge?” he asked.

Doug blinked at the question.

“It was so much easier when it was just the seven of us,” he said sadly. “Everything was so much simpler back then. There were bad guys, and we fought the bad guys and we rescued people. We were doing good! But then Jenny was killed, and Lily a few years later.” He paused. “We let our personal grievances get in the way of saving the world. We split up, when we should have been together. We lost our way. And when the outlanders came along, it just…” his voice trailed away. “They didn’t have the same values. They weren’t heroes in the same way.”

Josh hadn’t been looking for an adventurers ain’t what they used to be back in my day type of conversation.

“This isn’t how I thought it would be, when we started out,” Doug said morosely. He took a deep pull of his beer.

“Why has no-one tried to send the scourge back where they came from?” Josh asked.

Doug set down his beer and pulled thoughtfully at his beard.

“Easier said than done, kid,” he mused. “We aren’t even sure how they were summoned in the first place. Tylas never said.”

“But if the power of the Dreamer brought them here, presumably it could be used to send them back,” Josh suggested.

Doug nodded slowly.

“But god knows where the little idiot is now,” he said.

“Who?” Josh asked, startled.

“Jenny and Siggy’s son.”

Jenny had been Guinevere the Dreamer, and Siggy had been—presumably still was—Wayland the Smith. Josh hadn’t known they’d had a son together.

“Boy never got over losing his mother,” Doug added, staring ruminatively back into the past. “We were all so pre-occupied with saving the realm, and Siggy, well, he was a harsh parent. He never got over losing Jenny either, too busy with his own grief to think about the kid.”

“What’s his name?” Josh asked.

“Karl.”

Josh put all the pieces together.

“This Karl is the Dreamer?” he asked.

Doug shrugged.

“Presumably. He took the power for himself.”

“And no-one knows where he is?”

“Yeah. Siggy was going to create a shrine for Jenny, and secure her power in it so that no-one else could have it. He spent half a year working on it. But Karl thought he was owed it, that it was his birthright, as Jenny’s son. So he took it one night.” Doug shook his head. “Never been seen since.”

Josh felt a spark of excitement, although he was careful not to show it.

“No-one ever looked for him?”

“Oh, Ozzie did, but he never found any trace of him.”

After that, Josh let the conversation drift to other matters, then excused himself and went home. He was careful to check behind him to make sure no-one was following him, but he saw nothing suspicious.

In his room, he found Babel the pig sleeping at the foot of his bed. Despite his general creepiness, Babel was turning out to be a quiet, low maintenance sort of pet, and seemed to subsist mostly on stories. Josh had established that he didn’t even need to write them down—simply telling them out loud was enough.

He’d gone through whole bunch of fairy stories, told tales of Robin Hood, and recounted episodes of Star Wars and Doctor Who. Babel never seemed to get bigger—for which Josh was thankful—but seemed to become firmer and more real at the end of each story. Josh was running out of ones he could tell off the top of his head, and was considering buying a book to read out loud.

Lady Paleyne had warned him to stay away from Silbury’s house, but Josh had to go back to find out more about Karl. Plus he still had a couple more magic lessons, and he needed to check in with Ramina to see what she had found out about the scourge that was lose in the city.

Taking Lady Paleyne’s advice, however, he spent most of the next couple of days in his room, and when he did go to attend his magic lesson, he made sure he took a roundabout route there and back, and checked for people following him.

He used his time in Silbury’s library to look for information on Karl the Dreamer, although on the rare occasions he was mentioned, he was nothing more than a footnote. He would have been about Josh’s age when Tylas the Undying summoned the outlanders.

It was three days after the ceremony that he woke to Ramina tapping at his window again. When he opened it he saw she was dressed in what he could only describe as a ninja outfit, with a black mask across her face.

“It’s tonight,” she told him, the mask stretching in a grin. “The scourge is going after Sir Owain tonight.”