To Lirenna's vast relief, the guard's eyes began to glow with adoration and he dropped to his knees before her. “My lady, forgive me!” he begged. “I meant no disrespect!”

     You are forgiven,” said the demi shae, breathing a sigh of relief as she pulled her shirt closed again. “Now unlock this cell and let them out.”

     “No, wait!” said Shaun urgently. “Di’s right. Even if we did escape from here, there’s nowhere to go without the key. We’ve got to stay here for the time being.” He turned to the guard. “Do you know anything about a key that opens the door to a teleportation chamber leading back to Tharia?”

     The guard ignored him. “Answer his question,” Lirenna told him. “You will obey all my friends as you would obey me.”

     “Yes, Mistress,” the guard replied. “I’ve never heard of any such thing. I’m sorry.”

     “Damn!” said the soldier in disappointment. “That’s it, then. We definitely can’t leave this cell. There’s no point leaving this cell if we can’t get off Kronos. They’d just catch us again.”

     “So what do we do?” asked Jerry. “We’ve got a secret ally in this guard until the spell wears off, so how do we use him?”

     “Sorry, Jerry, but we haven’t got a secret ally,” replied Thomas. “You’re forgetting his Lordship’s Ring of ESP. He already knows all about it.”

     “Not necessarily,” pointed out Lirenna excitedly. “He can’t use it all the time. To use a ring like that, you have to be left alone, free to concentrate. You can’t use it if you’re doing something else at the same time. What if he’s occupied at the moment, attending a staff meeting or something? He won’t know about what we’re doing yet.”

     “But he will,” replied Shaun. “The next time he reads our minds.”

     “Unless...” broke in Jerry excitedly, “Unless we’re wearing those Amulets of Mind Protection! Then he can read our minds as much as he wants to, and he won’t read anything except what he expects to find there.”

     “But they took them from us, along with all our other stuff!” wailed Diana. Then she brightened as a new thought struck her and she turned to the guard. “Do you know where Lord Basil keeps all the things he took from us? And what’s your name, by the way?”

     “My name’s Duncan Sowly, Mistress. The things you want will probably be in one of the treasure rooms, which are locked and guarded at all times. No-one gets in there without his Lordship’s permission.”

     “But if you had to get in there without anyone knowing, could you do it?” asked Lirenna.

     “For you, my lady, I would try anything,” replied the guard, bowing low before her.

     “It has to be soon, as soon as possible,” pointed out Thomas. “Even if he hasn’t used his ring on us yet, he could do so at any moment. Every second counts.”

     “I’ll go immediately,” replied the guard, “and I’m afraid you must leave your friends now. The others will know something’s wrong if I come back without you.”

     “He’s right,” agreed Diana, squeezing her brother’s hands. “We have to go, but we’ll be back every day to check up on you, and we’ll make sure Duncan here brings you some decent food. I love you!”

     “We love you too,” called back Matthew. “Good luck.”

     “And don’t forget what we said about escaping if you get the chance!” added Shaun.

     The others made their hurried goodbyes. Diana and Lirenna kissed them both, and then they dashed off, filled with a sudden sense of urgency. They slowed down and forced themselves to walk calmly as they came back in sight of the other guards and Duncan acted his old self, sneering and leering and giving Thomas a cuff about the head, apologising profusely for it once they’d left the other guards behind.

     They returned through the narrow passage back to the mansion, where Descius was still on duty. “Got a special duty,” he said to the Hewlak man as he passed him by. “Don’t leave your post.”

     “You guards aren’t normally allowed in the mansion, are you?” asked Thomas once they were out of earshot. “What if someone sees you?”

     “We’re sometimes allowed in the mansion,” replied the guard, though. “Not very often, only under special circumstances. They’ll just think it’s because of you.”

     “Which it is,” said Jerry.

     The guard grunted his agreement. “Well, I’ll give it my best shot," he said. "I know where the keys to the treasure rooms are kept, and the man who guards them owes me a favour. He’ll lend them to me and ask no questions. Then I’ll tell the guard at the door that Lord Basil wants them to reinforce the kitchen pantry guard, to counter a suspected Traldian sabotage attempt.”

     Kitchen pantry guard? thought Diana in bemusement, but she let it pass. “Won’t they be suspicious?” she asked.

     “Possibly,” replied the guard, “but we’ll just have to take that chance. If I had a day or two I could probably come up with a better plan...”

     “No,” said the cleric decisively. “Lord Basil may have begun reading our minds in the time we’ve been talking here, so go with the plan you’ve got. You’re looking for six amulets in the shape of flat disks of metal with strange designs and patterns on both sides, attached to long chains. Okay?”

     “Got it,” replied Duncan. “If they’re in there, I’ll find them.”

     “Bring them to our room,” said Lirenna. “We’ll be waiting there. And good luck.”

     The guard bowed again, his eyes glowing with adoration. “Thank you, my lady. I pray that I don’t let you down.” He then turned and strode down the corridor, walking with purpose and determination towards the stairway up to the first floor.

     The questers stood in a tense, fearful silence for a few moments, too afraid to speak as they thought about how much depended on the enchanted guard. “Do you think it’ll work?” asked Jerry at last.

     “It might,” said Thomas. “If his Lordship hasn’t been reading our minds all along. If he doesn’t take it into his head to read them now before Duncan gets back. If his friend guarding the keys is as predictable as Duncan says he is. If the guards guarding the treasure rooms don’t get suspicious and if the amulets are, in fact, in there. This is where we find out if the Gods really are with us or not.”

     “I wish we could have asked him to bring our spellbooks as well,” said the tiny nome. “I feel naked without it.”

     “No way,” replied Thomas. “His Lordship might not miss six tiny amulets, but he’d sure as hell miss our spellbooks if they went missing.”

     “I know,” replied Jerry dismally. “I was just wishing, that’s all.”

     “Hey, I just thought of something,” said Diana suddenly in alarm. “What if Lord Basil reads Duncan’s mind? There aren’t enough amulets for all of us and him as well.”

     “Would he read the minds of his own guards?” asked Thomas, growing equally alarmed.

     “You bet!” said Jerry emphatically. “That type is paranoid, suspecting plots and treacheries from everyone around him, even his most menial servants! You bet he reads their minds!”

     “Then it’s all for nothing!” cried Thomas in despair. “Even if the amulets are protecting our own minds, Lord Basil will find out all about it the next time he reads Duncan’s mind.”

     “Not necessarily,” replied Lirenna thoughtfully. “If that ring of his is of the same kind as some I saw in the University then it only has a limited range, not more than a couple of hundred feet, so if Duncan’s outside that range...”

     “We could tell him to volunteer for front line action, well away from the mansion,” said Thomas in relief. “He’ll be well out of range there.”

     “He could be killed if he enters the fighting!” protested Diana. “Is that how we thank our benefactors?”

     “He’s not helping us of his own free will,” pointed out Jerry. “He’s acting under the influence of a magic spell.”

     “Doesn’t matter,” insisted the cleric. “We owe him and that’s that. We will not deliberately send him into danger.”

     “Well, we’ll think about it when, or rather if, he gets back,” replied Thomas. “In all probability the problem won’t arise. In the meantime, we’d better get back to our room since that’s where we told him to meet us.”

     Arriving back at their room, they found that the maids had been busy while they’d been away. They had changed the sheets on the beds and left changes of clothing for them which, Jerry was delighted to see, included a conical red hat almost identical to his own. He pulled it onto his head with great relief, throwing away the knotted handkerchief in disgust.

     Then they changed into their new clothes, even though they'd all gotten used, over the past year and a half, to wearing the same clothes for week after week, no longer noticing the stiffness of dirt and stale sweat. The clothes they stuffed into the washing hamper beside the door were still perfectly clean compared to what they'd become accustomed to wearing, apart from the missing buttons on Lirenna’s shirt. Jerry and Thomas moved next door into their own room to change before going back into the girl’s room to await Duncan’s return, none of them really expecting him to turn up.

     Against all the odds, though, he did indeed arrive about an hour later, beaming in triumph as he produced the amulets from inside his breast plate, where he’d hidden them.

     “You got them!” cried Lirenna joyfully. “You did it!”

     “It went without a hitch,” said Duncan, delighted by her response. “Better than I’d dared to hope.”

     “Did it?” said Thomas, suddenly suspicious. “You don’t think it’s a trap or something, do you?”

     “How could it be?” replied Jerry as they all took an amulet and hung them around their necks, tucking them down out of sight among their clothing. “He doesn’t need to trap us, he’s already got us! What possible reason could he have for letting us have amulets that prevent him from reading our minds?”

     “If these are the real amulets,” replied Thomas doubtfully. He pulled his back out and examined it carefully. It looked all right, but it could still have been a clever imitation, so he cast a reveal spell and was relieved to see it glowing as the magical field it generated was made visible. “It seems to be all right,” he said in relief. “I suppose I’m just being paranoid.”

     “I think we may have the solution to our other problem as well,” said Jerry, indicating the softly glowing haloes of light that surrounded the amulets, extending for about three feet in all directions. “If that indicates the amulet’s area of effect, then it could easily protect two people at once. Lenny, go and stand next to Tom.”

     The demi shae did so, and the tiny nome saw that she was almost completely enclosed by the halo generated by Thomas’s pendant, with only her head and feet outside it. “Closer,” he said, and she moved into his arms, resting her head on his shoulder.

     “That’s it,” said Jerry happily. “Now you’re both completely inside the halo. Now, assuming that means you’re both protected by it, we can give one amulet to Shaun and Matt to protect the two of them, and give the other to Duncan here. They’ll have to spend all day and night cuddling each other, of course, but they won’t mind that. They’re brothers, after all.”

     “But won’t the other guards be suspicious to see them hugging each other all the time?” asked Thomas as Lirenna stepped away from him again and hung her own amulet around her neck.

     “Nah,” replied the tiny nome. “They’ll probably just think they’re gay or something. Okay Duncan, wear an amulet yourself, keeping it out of sight at all times, and give the other to Shaun and Matt. Make sure you explain how important it is that they stay close together all the time.”

     “And make sure they have plenty of food and water!” added Diana. “And plenty of exercise, and change that awful bucket as often as possible, and...”

     “Di, he can’t do too much for them without giving the game away,” explained Thomas sympathetically. He turned to Duncan. “Make sure they’re fed well, but otherwise treat them just like any other prisoners,” he said. “Now go and get that amulet to them as quickly as possible.”

     “Right away,” replied the guard, and he hurried off to obey.

     “How long will that enchantment last?” asked Diana once he was out of earshot.

     “A few days perhaps,” replied Lirenna. “A week or two if we’re lucky. I’ll have to renew it every so often, every three or four days or so.”

     “Every two days,” said Thomas emphatically. “We daren’t take the chance of it wearing off unexpectedly.”

     “Right,” agreed Jerry, “and I don’t think we ought to talk about it any more, unless we’re in a place where we’re certain we can’t be overheard. We know they were watching us this morning, and probably listening as well, because they brought our breakfast just as we were getting up, and there’s no telling when else they may be listening. Let’s hope there’s no-one listening to us right now!”

     “Right,” agreed Thomas. “From now on, we talk only about harmless subjects.”

     And so they did, for the rest of the morning, until a maid came to summon them to their midday meal.