"Ah," the man said, sitting up and adjusting his dark robes. Briefly he sought his stick and clutched it to him as a thing most precious. This was in considerable contrast to the shining crescent sat in the soft soil before him. He gazed down upon it as an abomination.

"I know this place," a girlish voice floated uncertainly through the grey mist that swirled around where the man knelt.

"Are we in your homeland?" Trogon Yield asked gruffly, thinking the girl had played a trick upon him.

"Octora Winkel is my homeland," the disembodied voice said. "We are not there, we are elsewhere."

"Where are you?" By now he had risen to his feet and peered into the shapeless vapour that gave no clue to anything except by means of a slight prevailing breeze that animated the mistiness unpleasantly.

"Have you the other two pieces of the trophy, sir?" came the polite response, more distant now.

"I have one only," and he retrieved it from the pale dirt.

"Then we are trapped here forever and must die a long slow death through inanition," was the cheery reply.

"Is Fatal Sophistry taught at your school?"

"Indeed. I have just completed my first year of studies."

"Thought so," the man sighed gruffly. "You said you knew this place. Can't say I recognise it, but then how many Winkels in the world have a horrid misty spot fit only for sinister deeds?"

"Foul murders and unsolved crimes may thus await us also."

"That's Year Two of the general curriculum I think," the man said.

"I like to read ahead."

"Thought so."

"There you are," and the figure of the girl in her bright silk wrap became a splash of colour in a colourless world, a flower blooming from the misty ether. "Your speech drew me to you," she said happily.

Trogon looked the girl over. In one hand she held the stun wand tightly and in the other one third of the Triple Shield. Now he understood her dire prediction. Without the complete trophy they were trapped in this place for all eternity.

"One of us, naming no names, dropped a piece of the Triple Shield it seems. I surmise this is a zone between realities. If we search in careful circles we may recover it, eventually," the Tinker declared in an organising voice. "Just in case we become separated in the search, may I suggest one of us keep hold of the two pieces remaining, naming no names of course."

"Mutual dependency engenders trust," the girl said, bowing respectfully her refusal of the suggestion. "May we begin our circles now? We can talk as we loop."

"As there is nothing else to do or see or hear, I am at your service."

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

"Clockwise or anti-clockwise?"

There was a shudder from the tall figure in his dark robes and such a flourish of his great stick Sharshua briefly thought a foul deed was impending. She stepped back and disappeared in the mist.

"Where are you child?" the man said, voice strangled by panic. "I mean you no harm."

"I am everywhere and nowhere."

Another figure loomed out of the mist, taller but still obviously feminine.

"Anti-clockwise, didn't I tell you that you old fool," this person said sternly as if listening in on the conversation previously. "It's always anti-clockwise. That's the way of things and going against it only brings you grief. See me now. Went against my better nature and paid the absolute price. Died and gone to spend all eternity reliving all the petty annoyances of my short life such as unscrewing beer bottles for old crazies like you. A curse upon you and your Tinker gold!"

With that the figure took out the coins from her treasure bag and was about to throw them upon the ground in disgust when something arrested the gesture.

"What's this?"

"That, madam, whoever you may be, is the means of saving your life, my life and that of an annoying little demon child who acts like intelligence personified," Trogon Yield said as he gazed with longing at the missing piece of the shield which had somehow ended up in Floy Merritt's cloth bag along with her collection of coins.

"Do not give it to him," a disembodied voice advised from the mists.

"Now that's creepy," and the bonnetless curls of the young woman whipped this way and that in a fruitless attempt to identify its owner.

"You won't be able to find her unless she wants to be found," the Tinker said resignedly. "Madam, may I enlighten you on matters pertaining to life and death?"

The girl focused her attention on the shapeless robed figure before her, seeming at times to be but a darker scrap of the surrounding mists, annoyingly persistant nonetheless.

"You may," she said in a manner that suggested she had been asked for the next dance and was complying graciously. She even gestured with her free hand, the other clutching the cloth bag with its assorted treasures in a grip so fierce that rampaging barbarians could not have got it off her.

"You are not dead."

"Then where am I?"

"A place no mortal soul should be indeed. A crack in a wall, a gap in a floor board. Some other place that responds not to my summoning staff," and the Tinker held up the gnarled stick.

"Well, that's cleared that up. Know where I can get some supper?"

"We must starve, lest an exit is agreed upon," came the disembodied girlish voice.

"That really is creepy," Floy said again. "Sure we ain't dead and that's a tormenting demon? I've been bad I know, but don't deserve this much of a poke in the eye."

"A tormenting demon it is," the Tinker affirmed grimly. "Yet like you and I, very much alive." Then the man sat upon the barren hillock that was the only piece of landscape vouchsafed these visitors as if he were settling in for the night. "Madam, take a seat. We are at present at the mercy of this demon so may as well make ourselves comfortable."

Squinting about suspiciously Floy Merritt squat down upon her own dusty mound opposite the old man. He seemed preoccupied with beating dust out of his hat so she tackled the matter uppermost in her mind just then.

"You Tinkers stalk the land like lords of creation," she said. "Lots of wealth us poor working girls can't dream of. Head full of complex fluff we mere simple folk could not imagine. Makes you crazy, everyone says, but you're wizards at fixing stuff so we look the other way as you tinker about. So, get fixing. My stomach is complaining, and where I banged me elbow it's starting to smart. And I lost me bonnet."

"Madam. This is all very perplexing. I know from whence the little demon who hovers around us originated, but you are a puzzle to me."

"Don't remember me do you?" the girl laughed. "Served you a meal at the Platterfull back in Cherryball Flats, however far away that may be right now. Come a long way since, in every sense of the word. Only, you're looking at a greedy soul being punished for her sins. Guess I deserve it," and she sighed sadly, in contrast to the merry mood she was in when she started this speech.

It was at this moment the strange disembodied voice once more became a real living person and Floy was going to scream as the colourful figure loomed out of the mist just behind the Tinker. There was a crackle of blue lightning and the man toppled over senseless.