The reading room had walls lined with bookshelves, decorative ornaments and pot plants, and had about a dozen comfortable looking leather chairs, some of which were arranged about two small tables. Only one of the chairs was occupied, by a small, mousy looking man reading a large, heavy book. Parkus gently closed the door behind them before stepping softly forward.

     He was three paces from him before Bantrey realised he had company and looked up to see the evil looking guard creeping up on him with terrible purposefulness. He leapt out of the chair with a shriek and made a mad dash for the door, but Parkus grabbed him easily, slapping one hand over his mouth and holding a knife to his throat with the other. “One sound and you’re dead! Understand?”

     Bantrey tried to nod against the force of the guard’s hand.

     “Good.” Parkus released him but kept a tight hold on his shoulder in case he tried to run again. “Don’t worry. Just do as you’re told and you won’t get hurt.”

     “What do you want?” quivered Bantrey fearfully with a pleading glance at the Tharians. “I’ll do whatever you want, I promise!”

     “We want the keys to the treasure rooms.”

     Bantrey turned as white as milk. “I can’t!” he pleaded. “Lord Basil would have me executed! You’re asking me to commit suicide!”

     “He needn’t find out,” replied Parkus. “Come on, I know you’ve done it for other people. How many people have you let into the treasure rooms over the years? How many people have taken the odd little trinket for their own use?”

     “It’s a lie!” exclaimed Bantrey desperately. “I’d never betray my Lord’s trust in me!” He looked towards the Tharians again. “Tell him!” he begged. “Tell him I’d never do a thing like that!”

     “Were you visited by another guard a couple of weeks ago?” asked Lirenna. “A guard named Duncan?”

     The small man stared in astonishment and then slumped in hopeless despair. “All right, you win,” he said, his head lowered. “I’ll lend you the keys, but you must give them back to me as soon as you’ve finished with them, or I’ve had it.”

     “I promise,” replied Parkus. He then turned to the Tharians. “You’d better wait here,” he said. “If you’re seen near the treasure rooms, it really will be over.”

     The questers agreed, and so remained in the reading rooms as Parkus and Bantrey left.

     “What a strange man to have such an important job,” said Diana when they were alone. “Weak willed and easily bullied. Not the sort of man I’d choose to keep the keys to my treasure rooms.”

     “Lord Basil must know that he lets people in to steal things,” agreed Thomas. “He can read his mind with that ring of his. What in the world is he up to?”

     “Who knows how his mind works,” replied Jerry. “Maybe it’s his way of finding out who he can trust. After all, you may be able to steal something, but you couldn’t take it very far away. He can get it back any time he wants.”

     “Who cares,” said Lirenna. “Whatever the reason, it gives us a chance to get our things back and that’s all that counts.”

     “While we’re waiting,” said Jerry, “would this be a good time to pop down to the kitchens and grab a few provisions? After all, we don’t know how long we’ll be wandering around in the caverns before we find the moon trogs, assuming they exist at all.”

     “We’d have to be quick,” replied Jerry. “We don’t know how long Parkus’ll be.”

     “You three go,” said Lirenna. “I’ll stay here in case Parkus gets back before you do.”

     “I'll wait with you,” said Thomas. “I'm not leaving you alone, not among people like these.”

     “I can take care of myself,” the demi shae protested.

     “I know, but you're the only one who can cast enchantments. If you're forced to use up all your magic defending yourself…”

     “He's right,” said Jerry. “One of us should stay with you. Di and me’ll be fine on our own.”

     Lirenna glared stubbornly, but then she nodded. Thomas sat down in one of the comfy armchairs and the demi shae sat down in another as Jerry and Diana went back to the door. They checked to make sure the coast was clear and then slipped out into the corridor.

☆☆☆

     The kitchens were on the ‘ground’ floor, next to the huge main banqueting hall, and was full of busy cooks and maids bustling around preparing the next big meal. All the usual kitchen furniture was there. Tables, work surfaces, ovens, grills and shelves full of jars and bottles of herbs and spices. Over in one corner, though, was something not to be found in any kitchen on Tharia. A large object that had been invented by the wizards who had designed and created Kronosia’s life support system. It was the Pantry. The extremely magical device that was the source of all the food in the mansion.

     The Tharians had come to understand Kronosia’s Pantry system quite well in the time they’d spent in the moon city. All waste organic matter, whether it was bodily wastes, uneaten food or the bodies of the dead, went down chutes into a large cavern beneath the city where it was treated with death spells to kill any germs or mould it might contain. This organic matter was then used by the Lifegiver, the magical globe in the centre of the city, to make fresh food which it placed in the Pantrys. There had originally been twenty Pantrys in the city. One in each of the eight mansions and another twelve scattered around the outer residential ring for the use of the common people. Many had been destroyed or rendered non-functional by the great disaster, though, and all the rest had been taken over by the noble families who now used them as their main way of maintaining their hold over the commoners; doling out food or withholding it as they saw fit.

     Jerry glanced at the Pantry in fascination as they looked around to make sure the head cook wasn’t in the room. They’d made good use of the past two weeks, making friends with some of the maids and junior servants in the hope that they might persuade them to do them the occasional small favour, but there’d be no chance of that if the head cook was around; a massive, formidable woman with a face as red as a beetroot and arms like a lumberjack who permitted absolutely no intruders in her domain. Fortunately, though, the cook from Hell was nowhere to be seen, so they made their way over to a rather pretty maid whose flyaway blonde hair was mostly tucked up under her white cap and whose hands were red from peeling potatoes.

     “Hi!” she said happily, dropping a half peeled potato back into the water and wiping her hands on her apron. She flexed her fingers to ease the cramp in her knuckles.

     “Why do you have to do that, Teena?” asked Diana, taking one of the maids hands in hers and gently massaging it. “Seems very wasteful. Can't the pantry produce finished meals?” She glanced across at an entire pig carcass sitting on a table, waiting to be gutted, dressed and cooked.

     “Tom thinks it's to keep people busy,” said the tiny nome. “The more the inhabitants of the city have to do for themselves, the more likely they’ll be to keep their sanity in the long centuries of confinement to come.”

     The maid was glancing around nervously, though. “Be careful, I think Spode’s coming back in a minute.”

     “Oh, we’re not afraid of her,” said Jerry in exaggerated bravery, and the little maid burst into a fit of giggles, bringing curious looks from the other maids and junior cooks. “Listen, Teena, we need a little favour. Can you help us?”

     “Er, depends what you want,” said the maid a little nervously.

     “Di’s brothers are in a bad way down in the dungeons,” continued the tiny wizard, fixing her with his most serious, most pleading look. “Poor Di here was almost in tears the last time she saw them, weren’t you, Di?”

     Diana caught on quickly and hung her head, trying to look as sad as possible. “They’re so thin,” she said, almost sobbing. “They’re just wasting away down there.”

     “Oh no!” cried Teena, her eyes wide in shock and sympathy.

     “Do you think you could let us have some food to smuggle down to them?” asked Jerry. “Something to keep their bodies and souls together that we can carry past the guards without being seen? Something that’ll last a few days so we don’t have to try it too often?”

     “Small but nutritious,” added Diana. “Like travel rations, if you know what that means.”

     “Funny you should say that,” replied the little maid. “Lord Basil gave orders for us to produce something called trail rations a few days ago. A form of food compact enough that a man could carry many days worth around with him wherever he went. I can’t imagine what he wants it for.”

     The Tharians exchanged worried glances. All of a sudden, they had no doubt at all that the moon trogs really existed. Lord Basil’s ambitions extended beyond Kronosia. He wanted to conquer the whole moon.

     “Have you made any trail rations yet?” asked Jerry.

     “Oh yes!” replied Teena, “Lots of it! Spode keeps trying different recipes, trying to get the taste right, and we keep it all just down the corridor. You can take as much as you like, I’ll make some more to make it up.”

     “You won’t get in trouble, will you?” asked Diana. “We don’t want to get you in trouble.”

     “Don’t worry,” replied the little maid with a conspiratorial smile. “I smuggle food out to my family now and again. We all do. What they give us is hardly enough to live on. I know how not to get caught.” She turned to a junior cook. “Jen, is it all right if I, you know?” She pointed to the door.

     “Go on then,” replied the cook. “And make sure you wash your hands before you come back.”

     “Thanks, Jen,” said Teena, and they left together. “She knows the real reason we’re leaving,” she explained once they were in the corridor, “but so long as we go through the motions and don’t get her in trouble, she doesn’t mind. The rest of us’ll look the other way when she does the same thing later on.”

     The room she took them to was just two doors down the corridor and contained shelves and cupboards filled with food. They saw bottles of wine, barrels of beer, cheeses, sausages, vegetables, jars of pickles and preserves as well as several boxes that weren't labelled. The little maid went to one of them and took out several small bundles wrapped in greaseproof paper which she placed on the nearby table. She opened one of the bundles to reveal the dozen or so biscuits it contained and offered one to Diana. “Will this do?” she asked.

     The cleric nibbled a corner. “It’s delicious!” she said, trying to sound enthusiastic. In fact, it was rather dry and tasteless. “How many do you have to eat a day?”

     “About three or four,” replied Teena, “so one packet will last a man three or four days. How many do you think you can carry?”

     They took a whole box with them, since they thought that would look less suspicious than stuffing packets in their shirts. It contained twenty packets, enough to last the six of them about ten days, if Teena’s estimate was accurate.

     “The only thing is, you have to drink a lot of water with them,” warned the little maid however. “They contain all the goodness and nourishment you need to live, but they do tend to dry you out.”

     Diana took the little maid by the shoulders and gave her a hug. “Teena, we’ll never be able to repay you for this,” she said. “We can only give you our undying gratitude.”

     She kissed her on the cheek, and the maid blushed in embarrassment, but she also glowed with pleasure and grinned happily. The cleric guessed that compliments and kindness in general were hard to come by in this place. Jerry then repeated the gesture, the tiny nome having to get her to bend down so that he could reach up far enough.

     “Take care of yourself,” Diana then said. “May the Gods go with you and keep you safe.”

     The two Tharians then slipped quietly away, leaving the little maid as happy as she’d ever been in her life.