The empire that preceded the Karentine state fell ages ago, but there's still an imperial family hanging around awaiting the call. Its only influence on today's world is it provides some small funding for the Bledsoe charity hospital. Nobody but Barking Dog could imagine them being secret masters of anything.

Interesting.

"Entertaining. In small doses. But if you get too close you'll get grabbed and told the whole story of how his noble family got defrauded of its title and estates. Hell. His father was a butcher down on Winterslight. His mother was some kind of breed out of the Bustee. The only conspiracy that victimized him was the one that got us all. Conscription and the war. He started his barking after they mustered him out."

Then the man is harmless, a deluded fool?

"That'd cover it. As harmless, deluded, and foolish as they come. One of our more entertaining street characters. Which is why they let him hang out with his megaphone."

How did this harmless fool get himself thrown into jail? Why would anyone want him shadowed? Can he be more than he seems?

I was working on that already.

It had been a while since I'd seen the Barking Dog in action. But then, I hadn't been onto his turf.

I hadn't missed him. He wasn't the sort anyone would miss if he disappeared. Maybe once in a while somebody would ask: whatever happened to that cacklehead what used to howl on the Chancery steps? He'd get a shrug and forget it. Nobody would get excited and go looking.

I was sure Barking Dog would have inventive things to say about his prison time. Maybe devils from another world were after him now. He'd never rattled anybody from this world enough to get himself locked up. Maybe it was Venageti secret agents. Or the little people. Or the gods themselves. The god gang don't need excuses to turn malicious.