On Grok Square there were occasional street lamps burning. After all, it is one of the large central squares, and even if they were afraid, the lamplighters had to do their job. Encased in its glass armor, each flame cast a spot of flickering light around itself, and chaotic shadows danced in silence on the walls of the sullen buildings.

I wish the wind would drive its herd of gray, fluffy sheep back out across the sky, but for the time being I’ll have to stick to the shadow, huddling against the walls of the tall buildings. Only the shadow has turned pale and timid from all the light all around.

Grok himself stared at me mutely with his all-seeing eyes. I think he was a general who saved our kingdom from an invasion by orcs, or some royal adviser back in the hoary old days of antiquity. And there, right behind the plinth of his pedestal, is the goal of my nocturnal outing. A large house, surrounded by a wall with battlements, built out of immense blocks of stone quarried in the Mountains of the Dwarves in the times when that race was still on friendly terms with our kingdom. To my mind the building is in barbarously bad taste, but the Duke Patin who lives here would hardly be interested in my opinion. A cousin of the king who is in charge of the treasury is a very big wheel, and so people turn a blind eye to his whimsical taste in architecture.

The king tolerates his relative’s other caprices; rich aristocrats can get away with almost anything. But rumor has it that just recently he discovered a certain sum of money missing from the treasury. And that means that heads are bound to roll, since His Majesty is not very well disposed to individuals who expend the state’s money too liberally. Fine by me; one less fat cat.