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well?”
    He had no answer for this and I was in no particular mood to wait for him to think of one. I cleaved his head from his shoulders.
    I stormed into the hut to see for myself the fate of my friend. True to his word, the barbarian had slain Karyos rather effectively; he’d been chopped up so thoroughly I hardly recognized him.
    I . . . did not react well to this.
    I have had my moments of poor anger management through history, and this was maybe one of those times when I should have taken a few breaths and counted to ten or something. Instead, I went back outside and killed each of the five prone men one at a time, slowly and with more relish than I should admit to.
    By the time I was done, I was covered in blood and not feeling much better about things. I considered moving on to the horses, but they took one look at me and ran off on their own. My first opportunity to learn how to ride a horse would have to wait.
    I buried what remained of Karyos in an unmarked grave at the edge of the campsite where, for all I know, he still lies. (The soldiers I left for the wolves.) It was an inadequate memorial, but we didn’t have headstones then, because unless you’re talking about merchant accounting, we barely had a written language. What we had was oral history, which was why, for centuries afterwards, I shared the story of Karyos’s death with everyone who got my wine recipe.

“BETTER THE STRANGER WITH WITS THAN A WITLESS FRIEND.”

    From the archives of Silenus the Elder. Text corrected and translated by Ariadne
    A long life and a good memory sometimes just means any creature comfort you want to name has a maudlin story to go with it. It’s gotten so I can hardly enjoy anything anymore. And I can still hear Karyos’s voice recommending moderation whenever I have a hangover.
        It took me only an hour to polish off the Greek wine-and-water combo that Ariadne—I was assuming it was her—had been good enough to set me up with, and when I was done I called room service and got some more. The next thing I knew, two days had passed and I hadn’t left my room except to put my empties down in the hallway. Management had to send someone up to make sure I wasn’t suicidal, and also to point out that the cash deposit I’d put down on the room was no longer adequate to cover my stay. So I threw the guy another grand and sent him off.
    Eventually, I passed out.
    *   *   *
    “Good to see you’re still alive,” said a man at the foot of the bed. It was late at night and I’d been asleep for either two hours or twenty-six, and I was banking on the latter. The room was pitch black, the shades drawn and the lights switched off. I couldn’t recall if I’d left it like that.
    I looked toward the sound of the voice, but I had no hope of seeing who had spoken. Maybe I was imagining things.
    I rolled into a sitting position. “I hope you’re right. If not, the afterlife has hangovers.”
    “There’s a bottle of water on the table to your right,” my visitor helpfully informed me. He had a low, gruff, but non-threatening voice that sounded not at all familiar. As dark as it was, I couldn’t tell whether he had a gun on me or not, so I assumed he did. If you ever find yourself in this situation, you should absolutely assume a gun is involved.
    “Thanks.” I reached out in that direction until I came upon the bottle. “How long have you been sitting there?” I knew he was sitting because of the direction of his voice. A standing midget seemed like a bad bet.
    “I dunno,” he answered. “A few hours.”
    I uncapped the water and took a deep swig. “Guess you’re not here to kill me or rob me.”
    “What makes you say that?”  
    “I’d be dead already. Unless you’re looking for a fight.” That would, incidentally, be incredibly stupid. I may not look like much, but you don’t want to deal with me in hand-to-hand. Just trust me; you pick up a lot of things when you live this long.
    “Maybe I need you