t always rains in Oscuro City. Rainwater flowed from guttering to gutter via the hats and coats of bedraggled pedestrians, and then swirled down the nearest storm-drain with a sound like a trenchful of Tommies caught without their gas-masks. Thaumacetylene streetlights threw the glistening thoroughfares into sharp relief, monochrome silver alternating with penumbral blackness. The only splash of colour in the whole benighted scene was Sebek's blue and orange golf umbrella.

"My tail's wet," he informed me. "I'm all wet," I retorted. I'd already tried using the Pattern to make it stop raining, but we'd had to step into an entirely different Shadow just to reduce downpour to drizzle. Like I say... Trying to imagine Oscuro City without the precipitation is like trying to imagine Arden without the trees. So here we were back again, and Sebek still wouldn't share his umbrella. He didn't want to get rain on his nice new trenchcoat. He was however quite prepared to share his complaints, which were numerous.

"I want my statue," he said petulantly. "Well you can have it back when you get it back," I informed him, a curtain of water cascading from the brim of my fedora as I turned to speak. "You could find it with magick," he shot back accusingly, "Then we could go home." "I explained this when we started out," I said, as patiently as I could, "You lost it, so you have to find it." There was also the minor practical matter of magickal pollution – the technology of Oscuro City ran on a rather wasteful form of enchantment, suffusing the metropolis with an aethereal haze that had so far scuppered my attempts at scrying. However, trying to explain that to Sebek would be pointless. "Didn't lose it," he was muttering mutinously, "Got stolen." "And whose fault was that?" I asked. "The criminals'," he responded promptly, "They stole it. And they'll be sorry. I'll make them." "And would they have been able to steal it if you hadn't taken it into Amber to show to Gorobhal?" I demanded. Sebek scratched his nose. "No," he allowed grudgingly. "And would they have been able to steal it if you hadn't let Gorobhal get you drunk?" I persisted. "No," was again the reluctant reply. "So whose fault is it then?" I concluded. Sebek pondered this mystery for a moment. "Gorobhal's?" he suggested.

To elucidate a little background, then. Five months previously, Sebek had started returning home drunk just a little too frequently, with the result that Agrippina, with my approval, had grounded him for a week. When she let him out again, he failed to return before dark, and so Kerinne and Barvald were sent out to look for him. They found him in a ditch, singing loudly and incoherently, and had to carry him home. Inevitably, he was sick over both of them. The next day I went down into the city to see who was defying my ban on deinonychian dionysia. It didn't take long – Felicity's Baker Street Irregulars soon directed me to the man with the spigot. "I can't stop them," pleaded the landlord of the Moonrider's Head, "They buy him beer, and if I don't serve them, they break the place up." "They" were Siluridae, heavy-set reptilian humanoids from a Shadow on the fringes of the Golden Circle, who in olden days had apparently enjoyed what passed for Oberon's favour, and who still turned up once in a while to barter in Amber's bazaars. In appearance they put me in mind of a carnotaurus forcibly evolved into the shape of a Neanderthal, with some, but not much, adjustment of scaling. They were bombastic and aggressive, and now that Oberon was gone they were afraid of nobody. Their leader, Gorobhal, put their position to me succinctly. "Piss off," he told me. I pointed out to him that while I was perfectly happy for Sebek to make new friends, I was still responsible for his welfare, and I didn't want him drinking alcohol unsupervised. Gorobhal suggested that it was none of my business. I reiterated that there was a strong argument to the contrary. Gorobhal recommended that I came on if I thought I was hard enough. I deduced that I was, and so I did.

A few bruised snouts, naturally, did not spell an end to the problem. Being few in number and surrounded by humans, the Siluridae were delighted to have found a companion not too taxonomically distant from themselves. If I wanted to stretch a point, I might have said that they were lonely, but if they were, the root cause was their own clannishness and their largely deserved reputation as troublemakers. For his part, Sebek was delighted to meet people who bought him beer and sang songs with him. They also played the bagpipes and the bodhrán, in imitation of which Agrippina once caught him doing unspeakable things with a half-eaten goat. Keeping them apart, it quickly transpired, was going to be a problem. I didn't want to revoke Sebek's privileges solely to keep him away from them, nor did I want to discourage him from making friends. Against that, I didn't want him falling in with the wrong crowd. Fortunately, Gorobhal and his brood-clan were only occasional visitors to Amber, rendering the problem moot most of the time. When they were in town, however, they made it a point of honour to ignore my every warning, and Sebek would amble home happy and intoxicated, and then spend the next day with a raging thirst and moaning that his head hurt.

One Silurid tradition that seemed to have sealed their friendship was the boasting competition, usually revolving around matters of martial prowess. Sebek regaled them with meandering tales of his Circus exploits, his skill as a bounty hunter, and last but not least, his victories in Memphis, masticated pharaohs and all. It was to illustrate his high standing in the latter Shadow that he had removed his statue from the inner sanctum of his Museum, and taken it down into the City to show it off. By the end of the evening he was well and truly inebriated, and the votive figurine had been mislaid.

My first inkling of the crisis was a wavering Trump call that kept on fading every time I tried to answer it. Eventually, the contact had solidified into an unfocused but evidently distressed velociraptor half-sprawled across a rough wooden table from which cascaded miniature rivulets of beer. "My shtatue'sh gone," he wailed. Joining him through the link turned out to be a major test of agility and co-ordination, the main loser being my carpet as he followed up this news with a spectacular display of projectile vomiting. "What would the children say if they could see you like this?" I had demanded, whilst casting a quick eye over my surroundings. Most of the inn's denizens were in the process of calling it a night, aided by the Siluridae, who were waving their obsidian claymores and shouting "Where's 'is fookin' statue then?" "They'd shay 'Find Shebek'sh shtatue'," said Sebek, rallying sufficiently to rediscover his natural petulance, before lapsing back into despair. "Criminalsh shtole it," he snuffled piteously, "I want it back. I'm not well." His snout hit the table with a clunk and stayed there. Gorobhal and his merry lizard-men were making their contribution complete by breaking chairs over the heads of any stragglers. "Oh bloody hell," I said.

And so, nearly two weeks later, here we were, standing on a darkened street, in the rain, in one of the shadiest freetowns outside the Liberty Isles, made all the shadier by its outward façade of urban sophistication. Sebek's loss had garnered him rather more sympathy than he deserved, from some quarters at least, but nobody other than Sebek himself had objected to my decision that he had to learn to make good his own mistakes. Agrippina and I would help him, but he had to track down the missing sculpture himself. Sebek didn't understand at first why I couldn't just produce it out of thin air, but the appeal of turning detective soon gained admittance to the citadel of his ego. Detectives were clever, and outwitted criminals. Ergo, he, Sebek, would be the best detective there was. Detectives also, unfortunately, required the virtue of patience and the ability to correlate seemingly unrelated facts. Every false lead, indeed every part of the jigsaw that didn't come pre-assembled, would send him back into a sulk. He was sulking now.

Headlights swept round the corner, and a taxi hissed its way towards us through the rain-cratered puddles. It stopped to disgorge a trenchcoat-clad Agrippina, before rumbling off again, thaumacetylene exhaust fumes flickering like dying fireflies in the night air. Sebek started forwards eagerly, almost spearing her in the eye with the spokes of his umbrella. "Where's my statue?" he demanded, "Have you found it?" Agrippina deflected the umbrella out of her face. "No," she said, "but I do have news. The woman gave the detective the slip for a few hours and went down to the harbour. She was asking after a ship called the Lapal Urma. It's due in later tonight. I think this means that she's got the statue and she's going to make a run for it." I frowned. "I don't think so," I said. "Is she the thief then?" asked Sebek, "I didn't think she was the thief. She gave me presents. I thought the dead man was the thief." Agrippina rolled her eyes. "You're hopeless, both of you," she snorted, "Five minutes of those brimming blue eyes and that shy, sweet manner and you're ready to rule her out of the investigation entirely. Believe me, I know her type. She's a snake." "No," I said, "If she already had the statue we'd know about it. She's still waiting." "And she's got legs and doesn't stick her tongue out," added Sebek helpfully. "Exactly," I said briskly, "We can investigate this ship when it arrives. In the meantime, are you ready to go and talk to Mr Ghastman?" Sebek blinked. "Who's he?" he said. "He's..." I began, and then stopped. Was it time for yet another recap? "Sebek," I said gently, "Do you actually understand what's going on here?" "No," said Sebek without hesitation. On his sliding scale of the cardinal virtues, being clever and being well-informed weren't even contiguous.

"All right," I said, "Now, you remember how we took you round all the art dealers in Amber to see if anyone had tried to sell them your statue? Nobody had, but they told you that three people had been asking about artefacts from Shadow Memphis. There was a man called Thursa Bey, another man called Jule Kahira, and a woman called Raith van Darley. Do you remember that?" "Thursa Bey!" exclaimed Sebek, "He's the dead man! I was stalking him and he got shot. And she's the woman who's not a snake, only she's got a new name now." "That's right," I said, "We'd gone to look for them, and we found out that they had left Amber in a hurry, which made us think that they either had the statue or they knew where it was. So we traced them here to Oscuro City, but during the voyage the three of them had a falling out. Bey and the woman tried to ditch Kahira in Shadow Diega, but he managed to catch up with them at about the same time as we did. We decided to watch all three of them, to see which of them would lead us to the statue. But while you were following the late Mr Bey, someone did indeed shoot him stone dead."

"Yes," said Sebek, "They went Bang! Bang! But I didn't see who it was. And there weren't any proper trails because it was wet. I looked for ages. But they went Bang! and he fell over just like that." Sebek liked things that went bang. "I'm sure he did," I said, "Unfortunately, it seems likely that he was also the one who knew where your statue was hidden." I tried not to wince at this. I'd guessed that the woman had been the brains of the now dissolved partnership, and Thursa Bey merely the muscle. Letting Sebek tail him had seemed safe enough at the time, but it now transpired that Bey had been the high wire act in the travelling circus of betrayal, and Sebek's easily distracted eye had proved an insufficient safety net. Now our best lead was lying on a mortuary slab with a tag on his toe, and frankly, the fault was mine.

"But anyway," I continued, "the interesting thing is that on that very same night, a private detective called Milo Arcarius was also shot and killed. He had just been hired by a woman called Brigita Asanci, who we know is really Miss van Darley, and he was following Thursa Bey for her. We think that Bey shot Arcarius, but we're not sure yet who shot Bey. Miss Asanci has now hired Arcarius' partner Espatha to protect her, but it seems likely that she's also using him to locate the statue for her. She obviously doesn't have it, and we know that Kahira doesn't have it either, because he's also offered Espatha five thousand crowns for it. Neither of them seem to have told Mr Espatha very much, though, which hasn't been helping his investigations. We went to talk to him as well, remember?"

"He was stupid," said Sebek scornfully, "He wasn't a proper detective like me. And he called my statue a dingus. But his secretarary was nice. She gave me sandwiches." "Er, quite," I said. In fact she had given him her entire lunch just to get him to go away and stop staring at her, but I decided not to complicate matters by pointing this out. "However," I went on, "we have also discovered yet another person who is interested in the statue. You remember Weimar, the boy in the big overcoat who's been following everybody about? Well, he works for a fellow called Kantar Ghastman, and Mr Ghastman is staying in that hotel across the road. And now you're going to go and talk to him to see if he knows where your statue is." "Oh," said Sebek, " You mean the Fat Man. You should have said. Is he the thief, then?" "We don't know yet," I said firmly, "Look, all you have to do is talk to him and ask him questions, just like you did with the others. We'll be listening in again, and we'll come and join you if you need help. Are you wearing your wire?" Sebek hooked a claw into the collar of his trenchcoat and peered inside. "Yes," he said. There was a small magickal transmitter taped to his chest, for which Agrippina and I possessed receivers. This was partly so that we would be forewarned if things were about turn pyriform, but mainly so that we could evaluate potentially critical conversations without them being garbled by Sebek's subsequent testimony. "And remember," said Agrippina suddenly, "Just because someone gives you presents doesn't mean that they're not one of the thieves." Sebek nodded understandingly. "So if the Fat Man gives me a present, he's the thief and I can eat him," he acknowledged, "Can I keep the present anyway?"

We wasted another five minutes explaining interview etiquette to him again, but finally we waved him on his way. We watched as he splashed off through the puddles, trenchcoat flapping behind him, umbrella wobbling overhead. The latter accessory, which he still wouldn't relinquish, gave him a few problems getting through the swing doors of the hotel, but eventually he managed to get inside the lobby and was lost to view. We donned our ear-pieces just in time to hear him address the receptionist: "Hello my name is Sebek. I've come to see the Fat Man."

"Isn't there a better way of doing this?" asked Agrippina as we huddled into the shelter of a doorway. "Oh yes," I replied, "If it had just been the two of us we could have found the wretched thing days ago. But as long as the other statue-seekers are blundering about in the dark, we can afford to take our time. This is Sebek's show, and I think he's starting to learn something from the experience. In any case, letting him do the questioning generally keeps the suspects off balance. I thinks it’s the way the good velociraptor/bad velociraptor act keeps seesawing back and forth at random. Kahira's now terrified of him, and the Asanci woman ended up changing her story five times in one conversation." "But most of those stories were lies," pointed out Agrippina, "He got her to admit that Thursa Bey knew where the statue was, but she kept on distracting him with bribes. Now he's half-convinced she's his friend, and she's probably the most dangerous of the lot of them. You're asking too much of him, Damien. He's not cut out for this."

Over the ear-piece came a dinging sound, followed by Sebek's voice: "Ow. That was my tail." There was another ding. "Ow. Stupid doors." "Sebek, get out of the lift and use the stairs," I groaned. Agrippina gave me a quod erat demonstrandum look. "And another thing," she said, "Why can't we use his Trump to stay in touch with him, or those communication rings Prince Ibrahim makes? We can't talk to him this way." "We tried that before," I reminded her, "and he kept on talking back to us over the link. A one-way connection may leave an awful lot to be desired, but it's considerably easier than teaching him to sub-vocalise so that he doesn't give the game away." A rhythmic thump of claws on carpet indicated that Sebek had taken the stairs on his own initiative. "And you have to admit that his interview technique has improved," I added, "He's a lot less self-conscious about it." "That's only because he forgets we're listening in," said Agrippina darkly. "Hmm," I mused, "I wonder if we could get him a wire that works in Amber... Wait, he's met someone."

"Hello," Sebek was saying, "What's that there?" There was a scream, followed by the sound of rapidly receding footsteps, as the hotel maid or whoever it was he was addressing took one look at him and fled. For all Oscuro City's cosmopolitanism, some of its inhabitants still reacted to him as nature intended. I'd say that they needed to get out more, but maybe they were waiting for the rain to stop first. "What's he doing?" hissed Agrippina. There were some metallic clanking sounds and a faint squeaking of wheels. "Oh, it's a food chariot," realised Sebek. More clanks and clatters followed, and then a distinctive chomping sound as he tucked into some luckless hotel guest's evening meal. My companion opened her mouth to pour yet more scorn and disapprobation on my velociraptor-led investigative strategy, only to shut it again. Another voice was wafting over the enchanted eavesdrop. "Hey, Jack," it said in tones of reedy menace, "Whaddya think you're doing with Mr Ghastman's dinner?"

"My name's not Jack," mumbled Sebek through a mouthful of food, "I'm Sebek." There was a loud gulp, and then he came through more clearly: "I know who you are! You're Weimar the Cheap Hood! He, he. I sneaked up behind you in the other hotel and made you jump." Weimar did not seem to relish the recollection. "Shove off," he snarled. "He, he," sniggered Sebek again, "I'm not scared of you. You're small, and your arms are stuck in your pockets." This all too apposite assessment evidently struck a nerve. "Keep on riding me and you're going to be picking iron out of your navel," hissed Weimar. "I don't have a navy," replied Sebek loftily, "And Altair doesn't let me pull bits off her ship." However, he seemed to be starting to lose interest in baiting the belligerent midget. "I want to see the Fat Man now," he said. There was a silent moment of what I took to be outraged disbelief. "You kidding me, Jack?" demanded Weimar in a barely audible whisper. I could almost hear his fingers curling around the triggers of the automatics he kept in his voluminous coat pockets. But before he managed to shoot himself in the foot, both literally and figuratively, a third vocal presence insinuated itself into the confab in the corridor.

"Ah, Mr Sebek." The tones were rich and cultured, redolent of bonhomie and sophistication, like a plum pudding doused in the finest cognac. The accent sounded English, which in Golden Circle terms probably meant that the speaker hailed from Roynova. "Come in, sir. Thank you for coming. Come in." There was a sound of shuffling, and then the acoustics changed. A door closed. "You're the Fat Man," said Sebek excitedly, "You are fat. You're all wobbly." "Well, sir," said Kantar Ghastman, with no discernible sign of having taken offense, "You have me there. I myself might remark that you are sub-adult of the Genus Deinonychus, those noble beasts famed throughout the Golden Circle for their sterling service to Prince Tristan of Amber. However, I suspect that the insight one might glean from so manifest an observation would be of paltry measure indeed. Might I pour you a small libation?" Cut crystal was clinking. "Yes," said Sebek, "but I want a big one instead." The throaty expectoration of a soda siphon drowned out his next comment, although it could have been: "Oh! Bubble-whisky!"

"I don't like this," scowled Agrippina beside me, "He's been expecting him, and now he's going to try and make him drunk." "Of course he's been expecting him," I replied, "Don't judge a man by the quality of his hired gunsel. And it could still work to our advantage. People will often speak without thinking when a velociraptor regurgitates their own dinner into their lap." "Damien!" she hissed. "Joke," I said placatingly, "But he's not drunk yet. We'll wander up if he starts slurring."

"Whurr-rr-rrr," said Sebek. A loud rustling sound indicated that he was shaking himself after the first slurp of whisky and soda. Ghastman chuckled. "We begin well, sir," he purred, "I distrust a fellow who says when. If he's got to be careful not to drink too much it's because he's not to be trusted when he does." "Damn it," said Agrippina, "Listen to him – he knows Sebek can't handle alcohol. And he's laughing at him. This stinks." "To high heaven," I agreed, "But I think you'll admit that we've already established that Mr Ghastman is a person to watch. Let's see what Sebek can get out of him before we have to mount a rescue."

Chink. Slurp. "Whurr-rr-rrr." So far the interrogation seemed to have been put on hold so that Sebek could enjoy his drink. Fortunately, Ghastman seemed eager to put himself under the spotlight. "Well, sir, here's to plain speaking and clear understanding. You're not a close-mouthed fellow, I trust?" "No," said Sebek, "I like to talk." "Better and better!" exclaimed Ghastman, "We'll get along, sir, that we will. A cigar, sir? By all means take several. The whole box, indeed. Now sir, we'll talk if you like. I'll tell you straight out, I'm a man who likes to listen to a velociraptor who likes to talk." "Good," said Sebek, "I like to sing, too." And that was all the warning that any of us got.

"Some talk of a leg sander," came the tinny squawk over the ear-piece,
"And some have her curlies.
Half egg-door and lice handler
And suck rats named disease."

Agrippina and I exchanged looks. "I told you this was a bad idea," she muttered. "Yes," I said, "I'm really going to have to start writing the words down for him."

"If falling walls aid ear-holes," continued the master of the lyrical malapropism,
"There's nuns that can dump hair
With a tow row row, row row row row
For the British Grinning Deers."

He massacred the next two verses in much the same fashion, although to be fair he'd done worse things with "Over the Hills and Far Away", and he always got the tow row rows right. The hotel room was silent for a moment. Then Ghastman started to chortle. "By Gad, sir," he said admiringly, "you are a character, that you are. There's never any telling what you'll say or do next, except that it's bound to be something astonishing." "I'm clever," explained Sebek grandly, "Where's my statue?"

Ghastman reacted to this probably unintentional but otherwise near perfect verbal ambush with unalloyed delight. "You're the velociraptor for me, sir, a fellow cut along my own lines. No beating about the bush, but right to the point. 'Where's my statue?' Where indeed? I like that, sir. I like that way of doing business. Let us talk about the whereabouts of the black raptor by all means, but first, sir, answer me a question, please, so we'll understand each other from the beginning. You're here as Lord Mortlake's representative?" A faint rasp of claw against scale as Sebek scratched his nose in puzzlement. I was puzzled too. Why would Ghastman suppose I had any particular interest in the statue over and above Sebek's sentimental attachment to it? "I'm not here for Damien," Sebek was saying, "Damien says I have to get my statue back myself. I'm here for me." "That's wonderful, sir," came Ghastman's avuncular reply, "I do like a fellow that tells you right out he's looking out for himself. Don't we all? I don't trust a man who says he's not. And the man that's telling the truth when he says he's not I distrust most of all, because he's an ass and an ass that's going contrary to the laws of nature." "Yes," agreed Sebek scornfully, "They're not proper horses at all. They're small and go honk. Is my statue here? I can't smell it. I'll eat you if you stole it." The threat was water off a duck's back, although possibly not one of the ducks of Oscuro City, who were probably as possessive of their umbrellas as Sebek was of his. Ghastman's tone, however, became marginally less sardonic and correspondingly more business-like.

"Now, Mr Sebek," he said, "I do not have your statue, nor do I know where it may be found. However, it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that this may change in the future. Were such a change to come about, I have no doubt that we could come to an arrangement, you and I. Have you any conception of how much money can be made out of that black raptor?" Ah. His earlier question made more sense now. He was hoping to be able to bamboozle Sebek behind my back. Agrippina was looking alarmed again, obviously thinking the same thing. "Don't worry," I told her, "Sebek's too focused on regaining his property to make any kind of deal." "Is it lots?" said Sebek with every sign of interest, "I didn't know my statue could make money. Is it more than my allowance? How does it work?" "And in any case," I added wearily, "He'll forget the terms and conditions the moment he walks out of the room."

"How does it work?" repeated Ghastman rhetorically, "It works, sir, because it hides beneath its sable surface a secret of great price. But of course you know whereof I speak. A word to the wise, you understand." "What secret?" asked Sebek in bewilderment. Ghastman sounded genuinely amazed. "You mean you don't know what it is?" he asked. "Of course I do," said Sebek huffily, "It's my statue. My priests made it for me." "That they did, sir," agreed Ghastman, "That they did. But there is a greater tale behind its manufacture, and one of which I now see you have not been fully apprised. Perhaps I might relate it to you, sir, as you have already established yourself as a legitimate player in this business, and I would not do you the discourtesy of suggesting that you commit yourself uninformed to any transaction." "I like stories," said Sebek eagerly, "I like bubble-whisky too." "By Gad, sir, your glass is empty," noted Ghastman, taking the less than subtle hint entirely in his stride, "I neglect our nourishment." More clinking and splashing, and the soda siphon gargled again. A click of claws on cut crystal, and then a slurp. "Tell me a story," said Sebek.

There was a creak of wood and leather as Ghastman resumed his seat. "This is going to be the most astounding thing you've ever heard, sir," he began, "and I say that knowing that a velociraptor of your calibre must have known some astounding things in his time." "Oh yes," said Sebek, "Beltaine walked through a wall once, and Damien threw a rat on the Pattern." A snort of laughter from the Fat Man. "You are indeed a velociraptor of the world, sir, so doubtless the question I would put to you is an unwarranted one. What do you know, sir, about the Acolytes of the Crawling Chaos, also called the Cult of Nyarlathotep?" "They're bad people," said Sebek, "I ate some of them when they wouldn't tell Damien where Narly-hotep was so we could make Nitocris not be so dead any more. That was on the Gâteau of Lung. I ate a yak too." "Very good," applauded Ghastman, "Now you don't remember that Queen Nitocris was amongst the most favoured of those Acolytes?" "Nitocris wasn't an echo-light," objected Sebek, "She made Narly-hotep do things for her, like storms and things, only he turned her into someone else so she had to go away without me. But she blew him up and made a big hole." "You correct me, sir," said Ghastman indulgently, "You were of course much closer to these events than I. Yet there is a singular truth in what I tell you, for Queen Nitocris had access to many secrets granted to her by the avatar known as the Faceless Sphinx, and not least of these secrets was that which the priests of Shadow Memphis concealed, on her orders, in a statue of the living incarnation of the God of the Nile. A statue of you, sir."

"Nitocris gave me a secret in my statue!" blurted Sebek excitedly, "What is it?" "Is this true?" asked Agrippina. I shrugged, sending a trickle of rain-water down my collar. "I doubt it," I said, "although it's not entirely impossible. There's nothing magickal about the statue, but I suppose there might be something concealed inside it." "A key," replied Ghastman, "No ordinary key, mind you, for there is no physical lock in all of Shadow in which it fits, but a key nonetheless. A key to unlock the paths between worlds, a key to great wealth and power for whatever enterprising individual possesses it." "If it's in my statue then it's my key," said Sebek, quick to capitalise on the logic of uti possidetis. "There is merit to that hypothesis, sir, that there is," allowed Ghastman in generous tones, "Yet I must run the risk of offending you by pointing out that the statue is not in fact in your possession. And even were it so, I beg to relate, you would accrue no benefit to yourself in this regard. There is another secret, sir, the secret to extracting the key from the statue, and there is nobody in all this whole wide sweet universe knows what it is, saving and excepting only your humble servant, Kantar Ghastman, Esquire."

"Oh." Sebek sounded momentarily disappointed. "Is there more of the story?" he asked hopefully, "I thought there'd be fighting. There's fighting in the stories Damien tells me, and I always win. I wasn't even in this one. I should be in it, because it's my statue." "Of course, my dear fellow," Ghastman chortled, "of course our tale is not yet done. Queen Nitocris, I must tell you, was engaged in an endeavour of quite monumental scope, whereby she might rival the Great Old Ones themselves in accomplishment. Central to that magnum opus was the Clavicle of Biahmu, which you will apprehend is the self-same key to which I have already alluded. No-one fully knows whence it came, but I have it on good authority that she cozened the late Dweller in Darkness into revealing its location to her. Quite a character, that young lady, quite a character indeed. However, lest it betray her to her fellow acolytes before she was ready to make use of it, she neutralised its most overt manifestations of power and commanded the priests of the Temple of the Crocodile God to conceal it within a votive figurine of black granite. Of course, her unintended and indefinite sojourn in Shadow left languishing both statue and key, until that day when the priests presented the statue to your good self as a token of their affection and esteem, whereupon you brought it to Amber, in which fine city it resided for a good many years, until persons unknown feloniously extracted it from your custody." "But do I get it back?" persisted Sebek, "Do I get it back at the end of the story? Hic." "The remaining pages, I regret to say, are as yet unwritten," Ghastman informed him, "However, we may still inscribe those closing paragraphs ourselves, you and I, should you be willing to consider my proposition."

"Here it comes," I muttered to Agrippina. "I have two proposals to make, sir, and either is fair," Ghastman enucleated, "Take your choice. Let us work in concert, and should we reacquire the black raptor, I will give you twenty five thousand crowns if you permit me exclusive access to it in order to extract the key, and another twenty five thousand as soon as the latter is safely in my possession; or I will give you one quarter – twenty five percent – of what I realise on the key. There you are, sir: an almost immediate fifty thousand crowns or a vastly greater sum within, say, a couple of months." Scratch, scratch. "How much vastlier?" Sebek wanted to know, "Hic." "Vastly," the Fat Man repeated, "Who knows how much greater? Shall I say a hundred thousand, or a quarter of a million? What would you say, sir, to half a million?"

"That's a lot of allowanshesh," said Sebek wonderingly, "Hic. Ishn't it? Ish it more than ten? Hic. I could buy a new mushic boxsh. Hic." "He's going," warned Agrippina. "Yes," I said, "He's actually done rather well so far, but let's go and join the party before he spoils it." We started to slosh our way across the street towards the hotel entrance. "Well, sir," Ghastman was saying, "What do you say? I think you'll find it a most equitable proposition." Slurp. Hic. "Dunno," mumbled Sebek, "I'm shleepy. Hic. Where'sh my blanket?" There was a thump of something velociraptor-sized hitting a carpeted floor. "Oh, Juno," said Agrippina, and started running. I ran after her, one finger pressing the receiver into my ear so that I could still hear what was going on. "Num num num," muttered Sebek, "Hic." Then everything was drowned out by the sound of snoring.