Month of the Quill. Day one. Slaves restive. Hungry. Told them I was bankrupt. They thought I was lying.

Those muties will have to learn to believe me.

 Slavemonger T’Prin came onstage wearing his trademark leather and leopard skins and immediately broke into his hit single “Month of the Quill.” The throbbing beat reached into the audience like a grimy fist, grabbed every blood-meat heart, and squeezed with a grip that tore away candy-assed restraints. It was a sonic drug, an injection of Primo Primeval that mixed with the other chemicals in the mob’s bloodstream to make a groin-grinding stew. Maybe the preachers were right when they said T’Prin was morally bankrupt; but bankrupt boys could still kick ass and the preachers shouldn’t forget it. When Slavemonger played, the audience demanded  to be slaves; and they were, by God, they were.

 How many times had T’Prin walked down this narrow lane? How many times had he slunk away, from the law courts, avoiding the high street for fear of meeting someone he knew, someone who would ask about the proceedings against him? How many times had he come this way with his head reeling, wondering what tricks he could use when the bailiffs served him with another summons? Yet in all those times, he’d never before noticed the little shop tucked between the out-of-business bakery and the run-down travel agency: a little shop with its window caked in dirt and a door sign reading EXOTIC CURIOS.

 In the land of Ithlandril, at the confluence of the rivers Udalanar and Surandimir, not far from the Plains of Occlanoue where Garth One-Finger