"So, boy, where are we?" Miranda wanted to know.

"Um, at a guess I'd say somewhere dark," he noted astutely, where they were standing being of the dark persuasion.

"Beef Surprise, squire?" a man asked, sweeping a canopy to one side and offering a dubious-looking tray of assorted foodstuffs to the pair.

"You can see us, right?" Miranda asked cautiously.

"As far as I know," the man replied. "Generally, people underneath my mobile stall tend to be visible."

"And you would be?" Joxer said warily.

"Cross My Heart Doppler, loveable street Merchant and colourful background, at your service," the man introduced himself. "Master of culinary delights and invaluable artifacts to be found nowhere else in the Known world. Now sir, would you care to sample one of my Beef Surprises? Only 3 groats, and it's unlike anything else you've ever tasted, cross my heart and hope to die."

Joxer took another look at the snack in question - it seemed ok on sight, though the smell was less than appetizing. He shrugged and handed over the coins, reaching for the meat in a roll.

Doppler, passing a pot of sauce to him halted his hand. "A word to the wise sir, best to try it with horseradish sauce - the Beef Surprise is a rather unique taste and it does take a little getting used to, if you haven't tried one before."

"Sure." He doused it liberally with a good helping of sauce, and bit hungrily into it.

It was immediately evident why it was called Beef Surprise - the cow would have been very surprised to find that the rarely used parts of its anatomy were not only in demand, they were lording it over usual cuts of meat and doing a happydance in the roll as well.

"Um, yess," he commented, his face gurneying while his liver and tastebuds argued over whether the horseradish masked the Beef Surprise enough.

"For Madam, we have a special offer," the merchant said, swiftly changing his spiel to match his next customer. "The very latest in dieting and low fat food fads - the Germanica minor fresh salad reliability machine."

"Neat-O!" Miranda enthused, pleased at the idea of not having to fish through the garden's grasses and algae-covered water for any decent herbs and leaves to make up a salad.

"It's a jar of caterpillars," she said tersely, on observing the contents of the jar.

"Guaranteed to ensure salads free of all germs and harmful fungus!" he countered. "The caterpillars will ignore the bad greenery and concentrate on the good."

"But to get any benefit out of these caterpillars, I'd not only have to feed them a non-stop supply of greens, but then eat the caterpillars afterwards!"

"There you go then - two great bargains for the price of one - a guaranteed-tested healthy salad and a protein-filled snack all in one juicy meal!"

"Oh grody!" she grimaced, not totally taken with the idea of munching a horde of caterpillars to get the benefit of a fresh salad.

"Death detector, squire?" he enquired of Joxer, producing yet another 'gem' from his stall.

"A Death detector??" the apprentice echoed, his stomach having drawn a discreet veil over the beef surprise and not wanting to discuss it anymore

"Only ten groats will buy this unique device and guarantee the approach and presence of Death herself, cross my heart and hope to die."

"It's a mirror, isn't it?" Joxer said in a resigned tone.

"Not just one mirror - two mirrors, cross my heart and hope to die if I'm doing you short. Guaranteed to see Celesta on arrival and allow the potential victim to escape."

"But Death isn't visible to Mortals until they die!"

"You've put your finger on a minor problem there, squire," Doppler conceded. "Tell you what, anyone who does die and is not satisfied with this product, can have their money back, cross my heart and hope to die. Applications in person only, of course."

Miranda and Joxer exchanged glances; It wasn't that Doppler was actually selling dodgy merchandise - most of his goods had a niche in the market, even if the unsuspecting public didn't know they wanted it - but that they had distinct drawbacks in one way or another, which negated all possible usage.

"I'll get back to you on that one," Miranda said impassively.

"Right you are, madam - don't be a stranger!" Doppler hailed them as they left his stall, and proceeded to call out his wares to passers by. "Get your Beef Surprises! Beef inna-roll!

"Well, where next?" Joxer asked cheerfully.

"How about meeting someone above the life style of a mollusc?" Miranda asked sweetly.

"You're not really a people person, are you Miranda?"

"As long as they're the creme de la creme, I'm good," she said airily.

He led her on at a brisk walk through a maze of ways and alleys, his eyes blinkered and clearly looking for something. He'd stopped a few residents, whose normal reaction to an unarmed stranger would be to rob them blind and leave them lying in the gutter, but their well-honed survival instincts told them that the only time to see this man was through a telescope. A powerful telescope.

The sharp pace and the less than salubrious surroundings was beginning to pall at Miranda, whose perception of Mortals was limited to the rich, the powerful and the famous, as anyone else clearly wasn't worth knowing.

"Hey, apprentice boy! What happened to the grand tour you were taking me on?" she demanded, pulling him up short, with a tug on his cloak.

"Hmm? I'm just keeping my eyes peeled," he said absent-mindedly.

"Well, do you mind looking in a better part of the city? This place gives me the creeps," she grimaced.

Joxer paused a moment and looked around him for the first time, his eyes actually seeing the slum they were in for the first time; it was the sort of place that made the shadows watch their backs, and where not only did curiosity kill the cat but tied bricks to it and threw it in the aquaduct. "Uh-oh."

"Uh-oh??" she echoed. "you bring me in to a totally grody part of Athens and all you can say is 'uh-oh' ?"

"Hi!" another voice sang out from the shadows, its owner emerging from a forbidding doorway and idly tapping a heavy spiked club within his hand. "Thieves Guild - 30 Dinars each please."

"Uh-oh.." Joxer said again..... "Oh no! I've been robbed!" Joxer said unconvincingly, feeling his nearly empty pockets. All eyes swivelled to Miranda who gave a Gallic shrug in response.

"Well, duh!" Miranda groused. "Of course we were robbed - like what Doppler sold us was in any way useful?"

She noted the man swishing his spiked club nonchalantly to their side for the first time. "Hey, thief-person!" she hailed him haughtily. "Isn't it time you upgraded your wardrobe - I mean, striped jersey and eye mask?? Oh pur-leaze!"

"Oh dear, I hate disappointments," the man said sadly, ignoring the crack about his clothes. "My colleagues however, like disappointment - they take it as a challenge for violence to solve."

"Colleagues? What colleagues?" Joxer echoed. "Oh, those colleagues," he answered himself, as two shapes emerged from the shadows to their right.

The two came into the semi-gloom of the street, cutting an instant impression of menace - both loomed, with scars in all sorts of unexpected places and an experienced leer that said a quick recheck of current cash would be a good idea; One however, was a bit shorter Ð half her size in fact, but the shiny, sharp Battleaxe in his hand made its own impression.

"A giant, huh?" Miranda said, taking in her adversaries who had suddenly multiplied in numbers and size.

"I'm a giant too," the smaller one snapped. "I've been sick."

"Riiiggghht," the girl commented warily, not taking her eyes off the battleaxe and nonchalantly easing her way backward. A casual movement by the larger giant, moving a foot forward so it now stood ten feet behind her, told her that any attempt to run would not only be fruitless but might also lead to becoming a greasy smear on the sole of a giant boot.

"As we were saying," the leader of the gang continued, "30 dinars each please."

"Umm," Joxer said after a pause, groping for his sword and finding to his dismay that he wasn't carrying it or the scabbard. "You'd better not hurt us!"

"Oh yeah? Wotcher gonna do then?" the leader queried.

"Well, I could do this, for a start," the Olympian apprentice announced, pulling his moneybag out, and throwing it through an open window of a nearby Temple to Poseidon.

The gang of thieves and Miranda watched open-mouthed as the bag of coins bounced off a bench, slid along the polished floor, straight past the queue of sailors and fishermen, jumped off a step and onto the Offerings table.

There was a brief silence as the assembled queue peered through the window and the half open Temple door, until the High Priest made the most of the interruption. "He'll be well taken care of on his next sea voyage!" The crowd bustled back into line inside the Temple to receive the blessing of the God of the Sea Ð or at least, his representative on land.

"Hey! You can't do that!" the gang leader protested, seeing his earnings vanish.

"Just did," Joxer answered nonchalantly, his arms crossed in defiance. "So there's no point in injuring or robbing us now."

The small giant and the gang leader went into a quick huddle, then emerged again with their weapons brandished. "We've decided to kill you both and take the money from the temple - we've got a reputation to upkeep after all."

"And you're going to take on Poseidon by swiping his Offerings?" Miranda said doubtfully. "Are you best friends with Ares or something?"

"We'll just give the sea a miss," the small giant announced casually.

Miranda kept her eyes peeled for her Mother, but there was no sign of her yet. Emboldened, she glared at her adversaries and gestured towards Joxer. "Anyhow, you can't hurt us - he's a god!"

"Yeah right - Gods always dress like Mortals and walk instead of transporting themselves," the small giant scoffed.

"Ooo, I'm frightened! Save me lads, from the Man from Olympus!" the head thief said mockingly, and his comrades laughed nastily on cue.

"Aha!" Joxer cried triumphantly, and he snapped his fingers. A small raincloud appeared directly over the leader and opened up a torrent of rain onto his head, along with a mini-bolt of lightning for good measure.

"Well, that was effective," Miranda scoffed, watching the face of the thief match the colour of his personal stormcloud. "Hasn't being an apprentice to a Goddess taught you to do anything right?"

"Ha! Don't make me a laugh - he's just an amateur Shaman who's going to get his staff shoved where only customs men dare to probe!" the thief said testily.

The small giant and the thief advanced menacingly towards the pair, their taller colleague idly watching from his lofty height waiting to be told to do something else. Their weapons brandished, they gleamed in the light for dramatic effect which was somewhat spoiled by the two weapons going 'clunk' instead of 'ting'.

"Those weapons aren't tuned right, you want to get those seen to by a centaur," Joxer advised.

"How about we tune them on you instead?" the thief suggested.

"How about we not be here?" Miranda reminded Joxer forcefully with a hefty nudge.

The two weapons thudded down to their targets as Joxer snapped his fingers again, only to find the club and axe hitting thick, stale air - this was the Shambles, after all - and engulfed in a blue cloud of sparkles along with a belated drum roll sound effect.

A voice spoke from mid-air, seemingly without a body attached to it. 'Umm, can I come back and do that again? I don't think I did it right.'

There was a pause as the small giant and the thief looked at each other, then again at the space, which had just been vacated.

"Just a Shaman, is he?" the lesser Giant muttered grimly. "You were only one step away from getting a lightning bolt from Zeus!"

"What's with the 'you' business?" the thief snarled.

The giant Giant knelt down to gaze at the fading sparkles at his ankles, and everyone else's head height. "Huh. Gods in Athens. That's unusual."

"You're on your own pal, no way I'm messing with the Gods," the mini Giant muttered stroppily. "Bugger that for a game of soldiers!"

"I knew you giants had no backbone, knew I should have stuck with Thieves Guild! They don't sever partnerships when things get tricky!"

"Yeah? Well, how about I sever your head?"

"Yeah? You and whose army?"

"Just me - and Brian Battleaxe!"

The giant Giant managed to grab a few sparkles in a waft of his meaty fist, before they disappeared. "They're definitely Gods," he nodded with certainty. "Who d'you reckon they were?"

The sound of both weapons going 'ting' before settling for a 'squelch' grabbed his attention away from the sparkles. "Hey guys, you got those weapons tuned - how'd you do it?" he exclaimed, rising from his crouched position. "Was there a centaur Smith nearby?"

"Oh." He saw the non-moving figures and the realisation that they were his ex-partners and he was now alone slowly dawned on him. In the Shambles. On reflection, the Giant didn't fancy the idea of him being the subject of a new tavern - the Shambles' assorted inns and taverns didn't go for fancy signs much - the realistic touch was much favoured, particularly at the Giant's Head and the Hanged Man.

He ambled away at a quick jog, squashing a few hovels on the way and inadvertently doing his bit to help keep the city clean. His bronze helmet was keeping the rain off too, and it was quite a time before the lightning started...

Joxer and Miranda climbed out and down from inside the waterbearer's fountain by Poseidon's temple, now both totally drenched and dripping wet.

"Now," Miranda said after a measured pause. "are you going to get me to Palaces and luxury or would you prefer to sing soprano?"

"Palaces and luxury sound good," Joxer said hastily.

"Good boy!" Miranda said airily. She bent down over the corpses of the ex-gang, and retrieved a heavy bag of coins. "Well, they're not going to need it, and who's going to mind us borrowing it long-term?"

"Not you, that's for sure," Joxer replied with a shrug, and with a snap of his fingers, they vanished again...

As far as thatched roofs went, this was a goody for keeping the elements outside, but for keeping Miranda and Joxer out, it was a non-starter; the Palmyran household gazed in silence at their gatecrashers to their lunchtime, as they arrived in a heap on the floor covered in straw, and then upwards at the gaping hole in the roof.

The building was compact and bijou, with the sparsest of decorations; It had the stamp of the Athenian Builder's Guild though, who tended to get stroppy if you didn't employ their craftsmen Ð casual visitors came by and gave the stonework an experimental kick, sucked their teeth, and offered dark warnings of "you want to get that brickwork seen to by the Builder's Guild, mate - terrible shame if a War elephant ran amok and broke the house down, or that tree got blown over and collapsed your house..."

The head of the household looked doubtfully at Miranda and Joxer as they scrambled to their feet dusting off the bits of thatch and dust, and then back to a grim-looking shrine to Ares Ð but then, Ares was never the jolliest of the Gods. He decided to play safe. "Hail, O great ones!"

The other members of the clan - the mother and several small children watched on nervously with wide eyes; the elder of the family, however, took a different view; namely that a serving of food in his mouth was worth two offerings to a small shrine, even if any relatives of the God in question had popped by for a flying visit.

"Er, hi!" Joxer said nervously, with what he hoped was a welcoming smile. "I'm sorry about the roof, but we just sort of ended up on top, and well, we're passing through."

Palmyran, though normally a language as clear as mud, and each word sounding like a viscous curse, was now as clear as his own native Greek tongue to Joxer, and found he could speak and understand it like he'd been born there.

The Palmyrans were big on homage to the Gods, and the mother of the assembled brood proffered a mug of ale with a plate of stew and rice to both visitors with a dutiful bow. Joxer eyed it balefully as a ladle within the stew dissolved and vanished with a 'plop!' within the stew.

He shrugged and took the plate, taking another ladle and scooping some into his mouth before that too vanished. He lolled it around his mouth trying to determine the flavour, then regretted it, as his face turned red, his hair stood on end and steam was literally coming out of his ears.

"A hot one?" Miranda asked innocently.

Joxer didn't answer but reached for the mug of ale, downing it in one gulp and sighing with relief as the flames in his throat were quenched.

"Why does the God not eat all the curry, O Lion of the desert?" the woman asked her husband.

"He blesses our ale, O star of the desert night," he answered her. "Bring him more ale already!"

"Well, I'm not really a God, y'know," Joxer began, after downing another mug of ale to drown any other curry senses he might have missed with the first mug.

"Not a God?" the man growled, a scimitar magically appearing from nowhere and looking like it could cause some nasty damage, even to an apprentice of a Goddess.

"By the Gods, mere thieves masquerading as Olympians!! You dare risk Ares' wrath by impugning and desecrating his shrine?"

The shrine seemed to shudder at this, making the mother elder and assorted offspring huddle and gaze with fear, as though they expected a personal appearance from the God of War himself to deal with the intruders and desecrators.

"Hi! He's a Godling," Miranda butted in hurriedly "And brings you the warmest greeting from Olympus!"

At this interruption, the shrine stopped shuddering, the scimitar vanished again to wherever it'd come from, and all was smiles again in the household, the family bowing dutifully before Joxer as the representative from the Gods

"Welcome to our humble abode, O wonder of the-" the man paused in his prepared speech. "What shining path do you follow, O illustrious one?"

"Huh?" Joxer answered in befuddlement.

"He means which God do you follow?" Miranda muttered.

"Gotcha," he whispered back.

"You could say I leave Discord and Strife wherever I go," he answered with a wry smile.

"You are related to the God of War?" the father said in amazement.

"Me and Ares? Why, we're like that," Joxer commented, twisting two of his fingers round. "Many's the time he's called by to ask me for help, and called me Mate, and -"

"It's a big family, we don't meet very often, just one God passing through Olympus, y'know?" Miranda interrupted, before Joxer got carried away, and left a nice collection of coins in Ares' shrine bowl.

Well, a good offering to the Gods could never hurt.

"Way of the warrior, what service may we perform for you?"

"Well, I heard you had this cool light chariot in your workshop, and we've come to give it a test-drive," Joxer said confidently.

"Word is," he added conspiratorially, looking around furtively. "Hades might be looking for a new chariot to ride in the lands of the dead and the living. If your chariot matches up, you could have a personal visit from Ares himself!"

The elder of the family watched the very distant relations of Ares leave through the back, followed by the man of the household, with scorn.

"The Gods of Athens aren't a patch on the Palmyran Gods; They dropped in on all their temples and threw a major wobbly if the shrines and altars didn't have lots of nice poems, gifts and general offerings. He didn't even arrive with strobe light effects and a clap of thunder!"

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