By Anne Fraser and Barbara Zuchegna
With assistance from Sharon Pickrel and Jean Lamb
Copyright 1999

Chapter Eight

In this land of few roads and fewer railroads, the tracks that carried the train taking our intrepid group through the Pakistani countryside had not been laid with their particular needs in mind. Richard, Adrian, and their fellow adventurers needed to go north and west to the Iranian border. The tracks went in those directions ... unfortunately, not at the same time.

The rail line followed a broad river valley almost due north from Karachi, bending east some hundred miles later to stop in the city of Hyderabad. Tickets were checked in each compartment as the train left here, as they would be after each subsequent stop from this point on. And there would be many stops. Ed Perry had shown Richard the route on his maps. They would travel a good 400 miles, generally north, before the tracks turned to the west, at a point far further north than they wished to be. But the tracks made a great loop across this part of Pakistan, eventually swinging south as well as west, and heading at last toward the Iranian border, which they crossed at a village called Mirjaveh before terminating at last at Zahedan a couple of hundred miles further on, the only sizeable city in this lost corner of Creation where almost nothing had changed in thousands of years except for the gradual erosion of the mountains and the shifting sands of the desert valleys between their ranges.

The entire journey would carry them over 800 miles, on a train that made many stops and climbed many steep inclines, and they would spend most of the next 24 hours closely-packed into their compartment, where daytime temperatures could well exceed one hundred degrees, and during which they would have to have the windows tightly covered for Adrian's sake. It was not a pleasant prospect.

The plan was to leave the train some fifty miles short of the Iranian border, where Ed Perry's old friends, the Baluchi tribesmen whose people had lived in these mountains since the dawn of time, would meet them with horses. Riding the train any further would only take them out of their way, as it was a curiosity of the uneven border itself that when they left the train, they would travel due south to cross into Iran as close as possible to the area where T'beth had been born so many years ago. The Baluchis could be expected to be sympathetic to her plight, whatever it turned out to be. She had been born among their ancestors and shared their blood.

Adrian and Richard had known, from their first conversation about making this trip, after finding T'beth's acidly-worded call for help, that their best chance of finding her would depend on the local Baluchi tribesmen. It was for precisely that reason that Richard had asked the man Putney to supply a guide who would have some familiarity with the Baluchis. Ed Perry was a godsend. He had lived among and worked with the Pakistani Baluchis for several years during the Afghan War and knew the area as well as any westerner could. And the Baluchis he knew could be depended upon to have contacts with their fellow tribesmen on the other side of the border.

They had been able to plan that far. Beyond that, they would have to improvise. Richard, Adrian was learning, was very good at that. Adrian, Richard would find out eventually, had some talents at improvisation himself that went far beyond the stage ... and some very special skills with which to implement them.

The next time that one of his friends got into trouble, Jake Fowler was thinking, it had better be in London or Paris ... or even Los Angeles. Somewhere where there was air conditioning. Somewhere where there was room service. Somewhere where there were no vampires or kings or ghosts or knights ... or silent, burned-out CIA types.

It was mid-morning, and the heat had been steadily climbing in their compartment until sweat was sheeting off the four human beings there with miserably uncomfortable enthusiasm. Ed Perry broke out salt pills and, of all things, plastic bottles of Gatorade from his carryon tote. "Don't drink it all at once," he said. "Just a few mouthfuls every hour or so. Otherwise, you'll get light-headed and doze off ... and keep sweating. And asleep, you will eventually stop sweating and get heat stroke. It can kill, in this heat and dryness, in minutes. So pay attention to how you feel, and stay awake. With the windows covered, it's absolutely necessary."

Adrian, shrouded in his chador with only part of his face showing, was propped up between Will and Jake and was profoundly asleep, his head leaning on Jake's shoulder. He would not be awake again until nightfall. But Perry had been instructed by Richard, from the beginning, that Adrian's behavior was to be none of his concern, and Perry had not asked anything further about him.

Alexis, unaffected by the heat, was glancing idly through a fashion magazine she'd picked up in Karachi, and making occasional small sounds of disgust at the things she saw there. Fashion, she had mentioned to Adrian earlier, seemed to have died when she did. Richard, sitting beside her, had annoyed her by appearing to forget her existence. He was staring blankly at the black-curtained window at his shoulder with no expression at all on his face, but with the very definite air of a man who was rigidly controlling himself to endure the almost unendurable. Richard was an intensely private man. To be confined, for this length of time, with so many people in quarters so close, was an ordeal as difficult for him as physical torture.

"There are open platforms at either end of the car," Ed Perry said suddenly. "We need to take turns going out there for air and to cool off a bit." He looked at Jake, and then at Will. "You two should go now."

Will heaved his great bulk up at once and opened the door into the corridor. Light spilled into the compartment from the open windows of the facing compartment, but it was not enough to disturb Adrian. Jake let him down carefully ... it wouldn't have mattered if he'd dropped him hard enough to bounce, of course, since nothing was likely to wake Adrian now ... and followed Will eagerly.

The door, closing behind them, provided its own torture as the brief ventilation it had allowed was cut off. Alexis slipped over to the opposite seat, beside Adrian, to give Perry and Richard more room to stretch out, and Richard, noticing her at last, smiled briefly in thanks.

His face was flushed, and his hair clung in damp tendrils to his forehead. Alexis thought he looked magnificent. And she was moved, oddly, she thought, to concern. "You've been very far away," she said.

He regarded her very seriously. "Forgive me," he said. "Of course you deserve any man's undivided attention. But it is difficult to feel moved to pay court to a lady when one is both disheveled and, I'm afraid, beginning to be less than fragrant. It is ... disadvantageous."

She smiled. She was enviably cool. "Do you think so?" she said. "But there is a certain primitive appeal about it, for most women."

"Perhaps." He was being courteous, but she could tell that his heart wasn't really in the game right now. "I find it hard to believe that you are among them, lady."

Well ... occasionally, she thought, but didn't say. Instead she tilted her head and studied him for a moment. He was not being flirtatious, but quite serious. "You should go outside, too," she said after a minute. "There are two platforms. On one of them, you should be able to be alone for a few moments."

There was faint surprise in his eyes. He longed for solitude almost desperately, but clearly thought he had hidden it better. "Thank you," he said, "but I can wait until the others return."

Alexis didn't push it. At least, she could give him the privacy of returning her attention to the idiotic magazine ... really, it seemed that every designer in Paris had taken leave of his senses ... and so she did.

The platform at the end of the car was only just large enough to accommodate Will and Jake. Their dual bulk filled up the available space. Jake put on his sunglasses, blinking uncomfortably at the sudden exposure to daylight. It was hot out on the platform, too. He plucked at his sweat-soaked shirt, trying to de-cling it from his chest. The illusion of air caused by the train's passage wasn't enough to give relief from the sweat or the smell of hot human.

"It is somewhat better out here," Will observed.

"Not much, though," Jake replied. "God, I'd kill for a shower."

"I am afraid we must all do without such amenities for some time, Jake."

Jake shrugged. "It will be worse for Adrian," he said. "Heightened sense of smell, you know."

"No, I didn't know. He has my sympathy, then."

"I don't think he's enjoying this trip much," Jake said wryly. "I guess I haven't been helping," he admitted.

"You had the good sense to stop taunting him when you had gone too far," Will told him. "And when we left the compartment just now ... I saw your actions. You care for him very much."

Jake started to automatically deny it, but something in Will's expression stopped him. He watched the scenery blurring behind them, listened to the sounds of the train making its weary way through the mountains of Pakistan.

"It is no shame, Jake," said Will gently. "Rather, it does you credit."

The sunglasses hid Jake's eyes from the other man when he turned to look at him. "We've been through a lot together," he said finally. "But there's a problem you don't know about."

"I am listening," Will said. "And it will go no further than this platform if you do not wish it to."

"I'm not gay," Jake said, "and I'm not bi. Guys don't do a damned thing for me. But that's the way Adrian wants me. If I show the least sign that I care about him, he wants to jump my bones. And I'm not interested."

Will looked off into the distance. "He has never..." He was trying to be delicate.

"Oh, no," said Jake. "He respects my wishes. Most of the time. Sometimes he'll hint that he'd like a different arrangement than we have, but he would never force it. He says he's only interested in the willing."

"Indeed? A rare quality. It is good that you are still friends, despite this unwelcome interest he has."

Another shrug. "Adrian makes my life interesting. As in 'may you live in interesting times', which is a curse." Jake chuckled. "I'd certainly never be on a train going through Pakistan, with an illegal passport, in a car full of basically dead people, without him." He sighed. "I think I'd better go back in. The sunlight is starting to bother me. I need more sunscreen."

Will saw that what little skin Jake had exposed was showing signs of turning red. "Are you part vampire yourself?" he asked.

He'd meant it as a joke. He didn't expect Jake's reaction.

"Well, yeah," Jake answered. "Didn't you know?"

As soon as Will and Jake returned to the compartment, Richard Plantagenet excused himself and made his way out to the platform at the rear of the car. The wind of the train's passage against his overheated skin was incredibly luxurious. He pulled his shirt out and unbuttoned it, allowing the air to circulate all around his chest to his back. The brief sensation of coolness was intoxicating, but in the fierce aridity of the wind, he was quickly dry, and it was little cooler here than in the compartment. But at least it was, for the moment, private.

Richard had listened carefully to Ed Perry. A general, if he was wise, made use of those who knew what he did not. Perry told him that the Baluchi people among whom they would be travelling soon dressed in layered tunics and robes and turbans ... not for protection from the heat, but so that their sweat would not dry too quickly. Sweat cools the body, but in the aridity of the desert mountains, drying as soon as it emerged onto the skin, it could not do so, and body temperature would continue to rise. So the desert people wrapped themselves in clothing that would retain their perspiration, and it was the gradual drying of it, through their clothing, that prevented heat stroke. Richard and his companions would have to adopt the same tactic if they intended to move around at all during the daylight hours. For someone not used to it, it was extremely uncomfortable, but necessary for survival.

Richard had come to believe that comfort was something none of them would know until this trip had ended. Privacy, though, even small moments of it, was something he didn't know if he could do without. The Pakistani passengers showed no inclination to loiter on the outside platforms, and none had come out while he was there. But Ed Perry came, a few moments later, to ask, "Can I speak with you for a moment?"

Richard didn't know it, but the effort he made to be polite was clearly visible. "Certainly, Mr. Perry. How may I help you?"

Perry studied him with careful eyes. "By calling me Ed, for starters. We're going to be in close quarters for quite a while. And I would prefer to call you Richard, if that doesn't bother you."

"It doesn't." Richard's expression was patient. But his wish to be alone was obvious.

"Your friend in the chador ... he isn't sweating. The other guy ... Jake, insists he's okay, but in this climate..."

"It is a symptom of his condition," Richard said, "as is his allergy to sunlight. We have what we need to see to him, and it is better if he sleeps through the daylight hours."

Perry hesitated. Then he said, "Richard, a man in ill health won't survive where we're going. You might want to think about leaving him in one of the larger towns up ahead. He would be better off in a hotel."

Richard wasn't deceived. Perry was curious. His life had been spent in the business of gathering information, and it was a habit too deeply ingrained to allow him to travel with this peculiar group without at least trying to learn more about them. Richard had always known that, sooner or later, he would have to get Adrian to wipe Perry's memory of this trip; otherwise, when it was over, he would continue to investigate his clients ... for no other reason than insatiable curiosity. They could not leave Perry behind them, rummaging about in the affairs of Richard himself, and especially those of Adrian Talbot.

But now he said only, "Adrian's condition must be my concern, and his. He will be perfectly well when night comes."

Perry grimaced. "Sounds like some sort of vampire," he muttered, not seriously, and left.

Richard laid his head, briefly, against the steel wall of the train. Some sort of vampire. He must be mad, to have committed himself to this journey, and to the rescue of another vampire, one who was in some sort of trouble he knew nothing about. But he had been utterly unable to think of anything else he might do, and having something to do, something demanding that required all his effort, had been of great importance.

He was reaching a dangerous point of physical exhaustion, as well, and he didn't know what he could do about that but endure it until they had left the train and had traveled to whatever camping place Perry's Baluchi friends found for the coming day. He did not dare sleep where others might see him. He had not slept without dreaming of her ... of Liliana, since she had left him. And the dreams were becoming more and more vivid. On the plane, it had taken some moments after he awoke to realize that she had not been there at all, that she hadn't just stepped out of the room for a moment. He had fought the urge to go looking for her. She had not been there. But his body could still feel her lips, her hands...

He lifted his head and drew a deep breath. In time, he would gain control of this. He would gain control, or he would go truly mad.

He would make a success of this trip, and see to the rescue of the dark, dangerous woman he remembered from that night at Hoolihan's. He would get these people safely back to Toronto, somehow. And he had no idea what he would do then.

Night has at last fallen over the sun-scorched mountains of western Pakistan, where a train that has seen better days is laboring toward the Iranian border carrying, in one compartment, a peculiar group of travelers: one anthropologist, one ex-CIA spook, one actual spook of the feminine gender, one First Crusade knight, one 15th Century ex-king, and one exceedingly uncomfortable vampire in drag. Is Iran ready for this?

It was getting harder and harder to bear.

Adrian Talbot had often had reason to be grateful for his heightened sense of smell, but when he was confined in a train compartment with four men who had been sweating in one hundred degree heat all day, there was a definite disadvantage involved. Blessedly, it wasn't necessary, in Adrian's case, to breathe, and that helped. But not enough. Even with the windows wide open now as darkness descended over the dry Pakistani mountains, and cooler air rushing into the compartment, the aroma of unsanitary male bodies was overwhelming.

Finally, he said, "Richard? I gather, since I'm your 'lady wife,' that I'm not supposed to go wandering outside by myself, right?"

Richard pushed himself to his feet at once. "Forgive me, Adrian. I should have thought of it before. We can spend a few moments on the platform."

It wasn't ideal. But one sweaty male body was better than bunches of them. Adrian, swathed head to toe in the all-enveloping chador, followed Richard out the door and down the corridor toward the rear platform.

Richard was clearly sensitive to Adrian's problem ... perhaps not that it was worse for Adrian than for anyone else, but that Adrian had not been sweating all day, as he had. He was careful to place himself on the downwind edge of the platform. It occurred to Adrian that this was something he should have told Richard about, at that. He did have heightened senses of smell and hearing that might be useful. He mentioned it now.

Richard thought about it for a moment, filing it away with what he probably thought of as his list of possible weapons, but then he smiled. "It must be very difficult for you to be in the same compartment with the rest of us. I'm very sorry." But then, in a firmer tone of voice, "Adrian, is there anything else about you that is different from a normal man ... anything that might be either detrimental or useful to us? I noticed today, for example, that you were not perspiring as we did."

It had been so many years since Adrian had thought of these things ... the differences. "I'm not as sensitive to heat as you are, Richard," he said. "I never think of it ... but I'm not sensitive to cold, as you are, either. I have to remember that, often, so that I don't dress inappropriately for the weather."

Richard filed that away, too. You never knew what might be called for in a battle. Then he said, "When we were at the restaurant in Toronto, for a moment I thought that you might be speaking to Jake without words. At the Refuge, this is common, of course, but I had not seen it among others."

Richard didn't miss much. But the reference to the Refuge was jolting. Silent communication was "common" there? What in the hell was going on in that place? Adrian had thought it was a religious retreat of some kind. But he said, "Jake and I can hear each other's thoughts when we deliberately direct them to each other. And I can hear Jake whether he wants me to or not, usually."

"Over how great a distance?"

Adrian had to think about it. He honestly didn't know. It just hadn't come up. "Probably not too far ... within a few hundred yards or so. I wouldn't count on it beyond that. There is something else, Richard. I have better hearing than you do, and I can 'sense' the presence of humans, even when I can't see them ... again, from a certain distance, but I wouldn't count on more than a few hundred yards or so there, either. I've found that very handy at times."

Richard shook his head with a wondering smile. "Adrian, with all the advantages your race has over normal humans, it passes belief that vampires have not taken over the world."

Images of the past came swarming into Adrian's mind. How could he make a "normal" human being understand? He said, "There are disadvantages, too. And a vampire who allows himself to be recognized as such among 'normal' humans does not survive for very long." There was, as well, the savage competition that so often surfaced between rival vampires and was always deadly, but he saw no reason to go into that.

"Because you are a predator," Richard said.

Adrian nodded. "And because human myth has always held that there is something especially significant about human blood. As human beings insist on believing that emotions arise in the heart, they insist on believing that some sort of identity is carried in the blood. So a predator who survives on human blood is held to be especially horrific. Blood cells, of course, carry no greater family or personal identity than any other cells ... but even in the modern world, you will still hear people speak of family members as being 'of the same blood.' The belief is deep-seated." He smiled. "The genetic identity of any human being is contained as much in his ... say, hair cells, as in his blood. But I doubt that we would have been hunted so vigorously throughout history had we been able to survive by clipping human hair and eating it."

"Taking all of a man's hair, however," Richard pointed out, "would not kill."

He had a point. But Adrian was beginning to feel a touch of annoyance. He said, "Richard, there have always been vampires. I'm not defending the race. I was born human and didn't want what happened to me. But vampires don't have to kill to survive ... and the truth is that those who do generally don't survive very long. They attract attention to themselves, and eventually they are hunted down and destroyed."

He sighed. "It's true that there is no vampire who has not killed. When we are first fledged, we have little control ... and it is very often young vampires who do attract notice and get themselves destroyed. With time, we learn ... and we disappear into 'normal' human society. We adapt to survive."

There was contrition in Richard's small smile. "Forgive me, Adrian. I don't mean to pry into personal matters. But I'm learning that I, too, must find a way to 'disappear' into normal society, and I think I am poorly prepared for it. Like a young vampire, perhaps."

Well, that was true enough, Adrian thought. Richard stood out, wherever he went. Something about the way he carried himself and spoke and moved ... his upbringing, no doubt. Adrian could remember noblemen he had seen in his own earlier days. Lording it over other people did give them an air that others just didn't have. One nobleman in particular ... Adrian squelched that train of thought. And Richard had lorded it over an entire country. So it wasn't too surprising that he tended to do it here. His saving grace was that he did it so damned politely that just when you were getting mad enough to tell him where to stuff his damned orders, he gave you that funny little self-mocking smile and apologized, and you would have to be a total asshole to be offended.

Adrian found himself liking Richard more and more. The man was so totally out of place, and trying so very hard to adapt. Adrian was aware, too, that Richard's appreciation of him had grown by leaps and bounds during this trip, and he had to admit that he was enjoying the admiration. Admiration from someone you couldn't help but respect was especially warming, even when you felt a little silly because you liked it. Jake, he already knew, though Jake didn't like to think about it, had ended up enjoying both the damned boat ride and Richard's approval of his help when they hit bad weather. Maybe, Adrian found himself thinking, that's what made a leader of men after all ... that he could make you feel good when you did something he approved of. Maybe that's how you got men to follow you into battle, hacking and slashing and being hacked and slashed at in return, an activity Adrian had always found incomprehensible. Richard had spent a large portion of his life at it ... and men had willingly followed him into it. Maybe it was for just that reason ... that he gave them that little smile and made them feel they'd done something exceptional.

If that's what it took to be a leader of men, Adrian decided, he would rather not pursue that line of work himself. Recalling his own abortive attempt at being a leader of ... uh, vampires, he figured it was probably just as well.

Richard and Adrian had returned to the crowded, rather smelly compartment on the train to Iran. Gratefully, Adrian had temporarily shed his now-hated chador/drag in the privacy of their own little hotbox. Alas, good things must end.

"They're coming to check tickets!" Jake warned.

"All right, all right," Adrian grumbled. "You're just having way too much fun with this." Though, to be fair, Jake had stopped teasing him. What he'd said on the plane had stopped the teasing. He put the chador back on, fumbling with the fastenings of the veil. "I'm Charlie's aunt, from Brazil, where the nuts come from," he said in falsetto, making Jake choke.

"Compose yourself, Jake," Richard snapped, patience with these games long since ended. "Laughter would be out of place and unseemly from an employee of mine."

Jake steadied himself, glancing once more at Adrian. If he hadn't known there was a man underneath that concealing black robe and black veil, he would have sworn it was one of those poor women in purdah. He was really beginning to sympathize with the plight of Muslim women.

"Everything in place?" Adrian asked, in low tones that only those in the compartment could hear.

"It's fine, Adrian," Alexis replied. She was free from the confines of a chador by grace of being an American woman -- of whom such liberties were expected. Richard had come under a little fire for exposing his properly raised wife to such a wanton creature.

"Remember not to look directly at the ticket taker," Jake said.

"You do not need to coach me in my role," Adrian grunted, then subsided as the door was opened and they came to check the tickets. He kept his eyes cast down, as if in modesty, never once looking at the men checking tickets. He was going to take this out of Jake's hide ... then he sighed to himself. No, he wasn't, because dammit, the boy was right. This had been the only way. How many ticket checks had there been during the day? Safe inside the chador, swathed with sunblock, hidden behind screens and blinds that blocked all sunlight ... these would have been called into question had he kept male garb, but a woman in purdah was expected to hide herself. He had slept safely, as secure as if he'd been in his own bedroom.

Okay, it was funny. Hidden behind the veil, Adrian's mouth twitched. This was the greatest role of his life. How Kit and Willem would have laughed, to see the foundling brat of Kit's in such a predicament! Willem would have made a great play out of all of this. Kit would have teased his young pupil for months.

Adrian only hoped that all this sham was not for nothing. That T'Beth was still in need of rescue. That she wasn't True Dead. He would be lost without her. What could have happened to her, in this bleak, hostile country? She was a vampire, a warrior, on her home ground and ready for trouble. Whatever had happened, it had to be something serious. Adrian's eyes surreptitiously scanned his fellow travelers. A king. A knight. A ghost. An anthropologist. A burned out CIA agent. And a vampire disguised as a woman. Some rescue!

If they found T'Beth, she was going to think that this was hilarious.

He kept his eyes down and his mouth closed even after the ticket takers had left, until he could no longer hear their footsteps ... or their breathing. They could sneak back and hope to surprise this odd compartment-full of suspicious strangers in some nefarious undertaking, such as allowing their woman to remove her veil. But they had moved on, and Adrian did unfasten the veil and push back the enveloping hood of the chador.

"How do they stand it?" he asked, still in low tones to ensure he was not overheard. "It must be incredibly hot in these things."

"If your alternative is being stoned to death," Richard said, "I would imagine you could inure yourself to anything."

"There is a movement to ease the plight of these poor women," Alexis said, "but I'm afraid it's rather an uphill battle."

"How much longer ‘til the rendezvous point?"

Will checked his watch, something he'd become accustomed to. How much easier than canonical hours! "Another half hour or so," he replied. "At least there should be no more ticket checks."

"Then I can get rid of this thing for good," Adrian said, preparing to remove the chador.

"Not yet," Ed Perry said. He rarely spoke up, but when he did, everyone listened to him. "Not until we meet with the Baluchi."

"But you could put on male attire underneath," said Richard, relenting a little at the dejected look on Adrian's face. "Simply keep the chador wrapped around you, and no one will notice. Then you merely have to remove it when we meet with the Baluchi."

Adrian nodded and accepted the clothing Richard handed him from the carry on bag. With a martyred look, he excused himself and went down the train corridor to the "head", remembering to use the ladies'. With a sense of relief, he removed the gorgeous teal dress and assorted jewelry, not to mention the fake breasts and the extra hair. The dark make-up he left in place, for there was still a chance of being seen.

He paused a moment and rested his head wearily against the wall. Gods, he was tired. And lonely. Jake's taunts had hurt, but Richard's approval of his performance had warmed him. And he hated both feelings, hated wanting the approval.

A knock on the compartment door brought him to his senses. "A minute, please," he called out in his Mrs. Plantagenet voice. He threw on the chador and veil and left the head, returning to the compartment where the other five waited.

The car rattled and shook as the train began to chug slowly up the mountainside. The six people inside the compartment were tensed, ready to make their escape when the train stopped. The equipment was quietly gathered, stowed into neat piles, lashed together for security. This was why Richard had insisted on all-modern, ultra-light camping gear that could be easily carried over rough terrain, and why they had all packed as few clothes and other belongings as possible. Above all else, the needs of one vampire now and two later had to be taken into consideration. Protection for Adrian and T'Beth was vital, the special tents and other things could not be neglected. There was little point in trying to rescue T'Beth only to have her exposed to the deadly sun.

Adrian gathered the folds of the chador around and wondered how the hell he was going to manage in the damned thing until they met up with the Baluchi tribesmen. But Richard had made it plain (and when the hell had he become the leader of this expedition, damn it? … it was Adrian's friend they were rescuing!) that the chador was not to come off until they were safe with the Baluchi. If they were seen leaving the train, or crossing the countryside, then with Adrian disguised they stood a chance of bluffing it out. Otherwise, they'd probably be shot on sight.

"I'm going to trip over it," he muttered, not caring who heard him.

"Be silent, my wife," said Richard, totally in his assumed character of the rug merchant.

Adrian subsided, but Jake caught some of what he was thinking and had to stifle a grin. He didn't want to push right now, with everyone so keyed up.

The train whistle hooted, echoing eerily in the cars. Brakes squealed, sparks flying from the tracks as the engineers were forced to slow and stop for an obstruction on the tracks. This was pre-arranged, and the signal to the six rescuers that the time was ripe to make their move. The train was old British issue, with each compartment having its own door to the outside world, complete with outside latch -- surely the most impractical design ever for train doors, but one that served the sextet well now. Will sprung the door open and the equipment was heaved out first. The huge knight then, without warning, easily picked up Adrian and carried him bodily out the door. Richard, Alexis, Ed Perry, and Jake quickly followed.

Adrian was glaring at Will as the knight set him down.

"It would not do for my employer's lady to trip and injure herself in descending from the train," Will said calmly. "I trust that my employer will forgive me for thus touching his lady."

"Forgiven," Richard said. "Now, let us gather our things and be off before we are seen."

The packs and tents were retrieved. Adrian was furious, but bound to silence by the chador he still wore. He found himself burdened with several packs -- which, of course, he could carry with no strain, but with some difficulty due to the hobbling garment he wore.

Someone, he swore silently, was going to pay big-time for this. Right now, his candidate was Richard...