With the cases done with, there was little to do but wait for the Cackle to subside. I read, and studied, and struck up passing friendships with several similarly stranded travellers living in the residentiary, merchants mostly. Perhaps friendships is too strong a word: I knew them well enough to share a drink or a conversation or a game of regicide with, but nothing more. They understood what I was, and it made them nervous around me. For the first time in my career, that vulgar sensation of power began to feel like a burden.

Towards the end of the first week of enforced occupation, a message arrived from the commissioner of Jared County. Due to the vox-out, it was brought by a biker who had run the flooding levees and wash plains of the county limits overnight. I can only assume the commissioner had paid the man well, for he was in a poor state by the time he arrived. The Foothold administrator, an old fellow called Wagneer, brought the message slip to me and waited while I read it.

‘He seems most insistent, this commissioner,’ I remarked.

‘Mal Zelwyn? He’s a good sort, very dutiful. He knew you were in town on circuit duties, and evidently hopes you might oblige him.’

I held the slip up.

‘Do you think this is genuine, administrator?’ I asked.

Wagneer shrugged his sloping shoulders. ‘Sounds like a hot one to me, but what do I know? I don’t have rosette training.’

Zelwyn, the commissioner of Jared County, had reported a pair of killings in his township, the unimaginatively named Jared County Town. He suspected cult activity, and requested an assessment by the circuit inquisitor. I would have dismissed it except for two facts. One, I had nothing better to do, and two, Zelwyn had written:

The victims suffered deep, random cuts and slashes to the body, having been slain by a crushing head wound. Each victim was missing its left ear.

‘How do I get there? Can you scare up a transport for me?’ I asked.

Wagneer laughed at the idea. ‘In this? All right, I’ll see what I can do.’

The local militia took me overland to the pass in a Centaur, hooded against the rain and bulked out with yellow swim-bladders to allow for the fording of flash floods. The crew was not at all happy about the outing, but bit their tongues because of what and who I was. After twelve hours grinding along mud tracks and waterlogged gulches, they got me through the pass, over the iron bridge, and into Kulbrech Town.

As we crossed the old, rusting bridge, I watched the corposant crackle and dance across the posts and stanchions.

In Kulbrech Town, an odious shanty backwater, transit was arranged to carry me on the next leg of my journey. The Centaur turned back to Foothold. I went on in a cargo-8 that had seen better days.