'We shouldn't be here.'

Xindii held his head in his hands. The Xelofremanine was wearing off. He was prudent in asking the Don to take a trip to the God House. He flipped the lid of his cane and produced his comrade in arms; the undiluted milk of the Kraken.

'We shouldn't be here.'

Undiluted! It had never been so. Centuries ago Josiah Kahn had synthesised Sandman, the medication to keep him sane and lucid and his dreams shackled to the id, and for a while the ingenious cocktail had worked brilliantly. But his body's dependency to the drug had started to produce a greater need. Fiction and reality had started to blur, the voices in his head more frequent. The tendrils of his insanity seeping through. He needed something stronger.

Xindii took to the streets under cover of darkness, ashamed. Prodding the sleeping hides of people and addicts, looking for an outlet, a chemist who could deliver what Josiah – so long ago – had preached.

His midnight meanderings led him to a hilltop in the district of Sanis-Rhae and an encounter with the strangest individual he had ever met. But he delivered on his promise, fulfilling Xindii's need, filling him with his old friend Xelofremanine. Blocking the voices and grounding his lucidity. But, much like the way of the synthesised Sandman, holes started to appear in his mind, the voices broke through the barriers and the tendrils returned. He needed more.

The pale and gaunt chemist sat him down one day and confessed his sin. That the Xelofremanine he was taking couldn't be synthesized no more. That the substance he was taking was from its purest form. The dose could be doubled but he advised against it, suggesting the ramifications could be undesirable!

Xindii told him to up the dose. And for a while it worked, but even now the voices returned, plaguing him throughout the night and hanging from his ears by day. Taunting, goading. Telling him the universe ended centuries ago.

'We exist on borrowed time.'

The chemist had told him that perhaps it was time to listen to the voices. That, perhaps, in their litany his sanity could be salvaged, instead of immersing it in the milk of a leviathan from fathoms deep.

Xindii recalled his time with Jia, when they had ran from Hadigan and he had swam in her thoughts, made love in her id as the colossal creatures looked on. Perhaps this was his payment! He had took of the flesh and rapture of the Kraken Brood, merged not just sweat and fluid but dream. Xindii had took of their brood, and now, finally, their leash was tightening. The debt would soon be paid.

He placed the phial into the syringe and then tightend the belt around his left bicep, pulling it tight, finding the vein which needed to please him the most. But it was an arduous task looking for a willing vein in a minefield of bruises and scabs. He found one and didn't hesitate, pressing down with his thumb in case his mind drifted and the vein scampered.

'Burn it, Xindii. BURN IT ALL.'

'We shouldn't be here.'

'We exist on borrowed time.'

The face of Hadigan leaned over him. 'You'll run, you always run.'

'Not this time, Hadigan. No more running.'

The man of pockets disappeared and the Mapper fell into a comfortable stupor, the milk of the Kraken carrying him on waves of warm black.

He woke half an hour later and pulled himself from the chair, aware of the deed ahead. He walked over to the bookcase and reached for the top shelf where he pulled out a copy of The Lizard King and opened the ancient tome and sifted through the first thirty pages to reveal the rest of the book had been hollowed out. He pulled out the black bag from its grave-like aperture and slotted the book back into its slot.

Xindii reached into the bag and produced a vial of the darkest onyx and the syringe that accompanied it. Babar shifted on the couch, his eyes sad and sorrowful.

'Now don't look at me like that old friend.'

The Nelly-Doose averted its gaze, disgraced or saddened, possibly both. Xindii joined his loyal friend on the couch where he proceeded to rub Babar's ears.

'Oh, Babar. I never like to walk into a fight without an ace up my sleeve.'

The Nelly-Doose groaned and tilted its head away.

'I know, I wish I had one too.'

The Mapper sighed and brought the phial of Reaper up to his gaze. 'Desperate measures. Desperate times.'

Xindii shut the door to his quarters and locked it. He casually walked down through the cloisters, looking at the surroundings – which he had looked at a billion times before but never with any real interest – nodding to the occasional passerby. Professor or student it didn't matter. He held his head high and made his way toward the Varosium exit.

'It seems you haven't heeded my advice then?'

Xindii stopped in his tracks. He knew the voice.

'Do you really think I would?'

The slight and wizened form of Dom Janus emerged from behind one of the columns. 'I hoped. I sincerely hoped you would.'

'Well, I'm happy to disappoint.'

The old Mapper leant on his walking stick. The occasional sway of his hip revealing that the old man was finding it difficult to stand.

'They really have put the fear of hell into you, haven't they? You should be at home Dom Janus. Reading books and drinking tea. Your wife preparing supper in the kitchen. Yet you drag yourself out of your dusty old chair to come and see me again.'

'This course of action will be detrimental to your friends' wellbeing. And yours. The Guild will not take too kindly to see their plans sabotaged.'

'Their plans?'

Dom Janus remained stoic.

'My friends know the risks. And I,' Xindii looked to the floor. 'I have no aces left up my sleeve. Just a score to settle and an entity to meet.' the Mapper said, smiling. 'Josiah was fire, Dom Janus. But I am poison. And you take that back to the Guild and tell them to stay the hell out of my way.'

Dom Janus looked at the Mapper and smiled. 'Josiah would surely have been proud.'

'And he would have been disgusted with you, sir.'

Dom Janus nodded in agreement. 'I know. I know.'

'Whatever plans the Guild had for Gwendolyn – and I sincerely doubt they are for political gain – will have to be implemented through Reverie, if she survives. If the Guild has any questions, please feel free to make an appointment. My office hours are ten till four.'

Xindii started to walk away and Don Janus addressed him again. 'You are about to embark on a very dangerous path, Professor.'

The Mapper smiled. 'Oh, you really have no idea.'