“Please, Rikkie, let’s go find some place to do it.  I need sex now!”

            “That’s Rikkard, Mesmira.  I wish you would remember that,” her companion replied curtly.  “As far as sex goes, I want another drink or two.”

            From a distance, Verançia appeared a city out of fairytale.  The outer walls were made of pink marble fashioned into great blocks that were smooth-dressed and stacked four cords high, presenting an image of wealth and refinement that had long since dwindled in reality from those days when the city-state had maintained vigorous trade with the Northlands. 

            The two figures met as if by happenstance in a seldom-traveled corridor of the Daughters Residence.  Nondescript in appearance and dress, they had little to fear that anyone might remember them or their meeting, wherever it happened to occur.  Still, it was best this way.

            “You will wear this dress tonight when you meet with the Duke,” Mattew stated, holding out a bundle of black silk that Natiyah took gingerly, expecting some new humiliation her love had in store for her.  Natiyah grasped a shoulder strap and set her teeth as she let the rest of the shimmering gown fall towards the floor. She quickly turned it about to view the creation from every angle, expecting the worst from Mattew. 

            Dobrin Malthar carefully deposited his loaves of savory bread on a wooden sideboard near the large stone oven they had just come from.  Bread of all varieties, as well as myriad cakes and pastries, issued day and night from his treasured baking oven. 

.

THE BIG TRIP UP is a book about a strange place called The Domain. And the story is sort of like that Who Killed Roger Rabbit movie, because it is about characters who I don't think could ever be alive in a World that is REAL like this one, except these are puppets and not Toons, and also there aren’t any regular human people in this book until the very end and then only one, and he is dead but then he is alive again...

            “They tried to kill Mattew tae’Verança!  Some bastard from Mirandy got too greedy and decided he could deal with the Northlands directly, my Lord!”

            “And I should care because…?”

            Tiri approached Marah’s bedroom door with growing trepidation. 

            “How much?”

            “You’re not concentrating, student.  Again!”

            “Look here, Strophie! Can this be right?  A kind of printing press was developed over a thousand years ago, using plates of individual pages, yet no one has ever developed movable type?  Books must be incredibly rare and expensive.  How do the common folk afford them?”

            Lisle Davith watched the Princess Heir with growing concern.

Rough part of town, even for a demon!

            Alexandra gazed in awe upon the scene greeting her at Crossroads waystop.  Fully two hundred horsed women arrayed for battle with weapons and talismans awaited the small company of which she was a part.  Behind her, the survivors of Clan Mizan and Sanctuary trickled into the large clearing, accompanied by the score of Singers that Clan Ys’drac had lent the Daughters.

            “Go back to sleep, my pretty ghatta’ita,” Daemus purred, caressing Natiyah possessively on her flank.  “You’ve earned a few more hours rest.  I must attend the Council.  If only I could stay here with you all day!  But duty calls.”

            Phillip was nervous. 

            He could not See this moment and so had no idea how he actually looked.  But he knew how he felt.  He felt like a fool.

After midnight, Quillian lets it all hangout...

            There was a sound.

            It came again.