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Waiting in darkness-A bargain sealed-The hanging man-Golem with a blue dress-Crime and punishold-ish-No unkindness to bears-Mr Bent keeps time

THEY LAY IN THE DARK, guarding There was no way of e of time, nor any inclination to measure it There was a time when they had not been here, and there would be a time, presumably, when they would, once more, not be here They would be somewhere else This time in betas immaterial

But soone silent

The weight was increasing

So must be done

One of the

It was a hard bargain, but hard on whoetting an answer He would have liked an answer When parties are interested in unprepossessing land, itplots, just in case the party of the first part had heard so, possibly at a party

But it was hard to see what there was to know

He gave the woman on the other side of his desk a suitably concerned smile

'You understand, Miss Dearheart, that this area is subject to dwarflaw? Thatof the dwarfs You will have to pay him a considerable royalty on any that you remove Not that there will be any, I'm bound to say It is said to be sand and silt all the way down, and apparently it is a very long way down'

He waited for any kind of reaction from the woman opposite, but she just stared at hiarette spiralled towards the office ceiling

'Then there is theas h the haze 'The Low King has decreed that all jewellery, armour, ancient items classified as Devices, weaponry, pots, scrolls or bones extracted by you from the land in question will also be subject to a tax or confiscation'

Miss Dearheart paused as if to coarette and said: 'Is there any reason to believe that there are any of these things there?'

'None whatsoever,' said the lawyer, with a wry s with a barren waste, but the King is insuring against "what everyone knows" being wrong It so often is'

'He is asking a lot of money for a very short lease!'