two

will provide me with a bit more sport."

They dined at Rumpole's, a chic pub restaurant on Curzon Street, near

Shepherd's

Market. Kira, characteristically, had ordered hamburger. Jacqueline was

having

only soup and bread sticks. Wyrdrune was somewhat disappointed. He had wanted

to

order a steak and kidney pie and some Yorkshire pudding, not that he had the

slightest idea ' what Yorkshire pudding was or how steak and kidney pie was

prepared, just that he thought it was the sort of thing that English people

ate—only neither was on the menu. In fact, the menu offered nothing very

different from the average fare in most American fern bars. The most

British-looking thing on it was fish and chips, which was what he chose.

Makepeace was gorging on the same, having ordered four portions—all for

himself.

Wyrdrune watched with disbelief the way the food just kept going in

ceaselessly,

like coal being fed into a roaring furnace. A liberal sprite of vinegar on

the

fish, a messy gob of ketchup on the chips, a dinner roll torn in half and

slathered with butter, shoveled in and washed down with a hearty slug of ale,

all without the slightest pause in conversation.

"So all of his contacts each knew a different man," he said. 'To Jacqueline

he

was a Belgian named Phillipe de Bracy. I knew him first as John Roderick, of

New

York, and only later learned that he had also established a fully documented

identity as an Englishman named Michael Cornwall. That was after his

penthouse

in New York was destroyed in a fire and he was forced to abandon the Roderick

identity." He turned to Wyrdrune. "And to think that you first knew him only

as

a nameless professional assassin who had taken a contract on your life!

Incredible! But why! Who wanted you dead?"

"A fence named Fats," said Wyrdrune. "Kira and I met when we both tried to

steal

the milestones at the same time. At first we thought it was only a

coincidence

that we had both independently planned the same job, but the fact is that we

were under the influence of the runestones even then. Still, it was a long

time

before we understood what was happening to us. In the beginning we just

wanted

to get rid of the runestones and each other. So we tried to fence the stones.

When they magically returned to us after we had sold them to Fats, he thought

we'd pulled a fast one and he hired Modred to track us down, kill us, and get

back the stones."

"This is what I do not understand," Makepeace said, frowning. "How would a

lowly

dealer in stolen goods have access to someone like Morpheus? This Fats person

must have been more than just a fence."

"Fats?" said Kira with a snort. "Not in a million years. He was about as

low-rent as they come, but he claimed he was connected."