Algernon and his companion, Astrid, travel by train to the Tamarian town of Desperado Falls.  There, while transferring to another line, Algernon meets an unusual person.

    Astrid nervously followed Algernon to a baggage car where they waited among a large group of travelers for their bicycles to be unloaded.  Teams of workmen checked each of the wheel-bearing packs while the locomotive took on fuel and water.  Moments before the porters brought the bikes out, Algernon felt the weight of his pouch leave his pocket and whirled around just in time to see a small figure flee, weaving through the crowd gathered on the loading platform.

    “Stop!” he yelled repeatedly, leaving Astrid, their bikes and backpacks, to pursue the thief.

    Although the pickpocket moved with impressive agility, Algernon’s longer legs propelled him far faster than the thief could run.  He raced out of the train station, downhill along the main street that ran toward the waterfront.  The young monk could tell from the thief’s flowing hair and shapely hips that she was female, from her stature that she was tiny as a child, and from her knowledge of the street layout that he’d most likely not been her first victim.

    When he followed her around a corner near the edge of town, he found himself in an alley lined with garbage cans and populated by a handful of dirty, ill-tempered street dogs.  Algernon felt something small and very fast whisk by his head as he struggled to catch his breath, and heard the dangerous growl of canine rage echo across the cobbled pavement.

    The girl seemed familiar to the dogs, who ignored her.  She backed herself into the alley with a drawn and battered short sword in her left hand.  Her right hand held a sling, and already another stone lay in its leather pocket.  A grim, angry expression shone on her unusually-proportioned face as she whirled the sling overhead.

    “Take it easy, little girl,” Algernon warned.  “I don’t want to hurt you!”

    She didn’t reply, but strangely, Algernon heard the articulatory voice in his own head telling him that she was, in fact, older than he, and that if he didn’t let her go, she fully intended to kill him and feed his flesh to the hungry dogs.

    He smirked, raced forward, dove and rolled toward a garbage can.  The thief seemed to anticipate his move, and Algernon felt a stone smack hard off of his left hip as he reached for the trash bin.  Hearing the dogs charge forward, Algernon grabbed the trash can and hurled it toward the thief and offending dogs as hard as he could.  Litter flew and dogs scattered, but as the can noisily bounced across the alley, the girl deftly leaped over it, switched her sword into her right hand and slashed at him.

    Algernon dropped and rolled to avoid the blow, but another came at him so fast he barely had time to react.  The young monk grabbed the trash can’s lid by its handle and used it to bash aside a thrust that would have slain him.  With a presence of mind developed by years of martial training, he managed to hook his left leg behind his attacker’s knee and slide his right leg in front of hers.  As the girl swung at his body again, Algernon rolled to the left, smacking her weapon hard with the garbage can lid.  He caught both of her legs between his own and twisted his body with all his strength.

    This action dragged the lightweight girl to the pavement, where he pinned her weapon arm down with the garbage can lid, and grabbed her throat with his right hand.  Her pitiful, unintelligible cry of pain stopped short as his strong hand squeezed her airway.  He forced his body into position over hers, with his right knee holding her body down.

    “Your life is in my hands, little girl!  Drop the blade!  Now!”

    A look of surprise mixed with terror flashed upon the thief’s face, and he sensed an overwhelming feeling that she’d not expected him to fight with such fury, but she didn’t let go of her weapon and desperately clawed at his arm with the dirty fingernails of her left hand.  One heartbeat later she felt his weight lift as one of the dogs leaped toward Algernon with slavering jaws open wide and he turned to honor the threat.

    Twisting to the left, Algernon brought the trash can lid up in a perfectly timed bash that crushed the half-wild canine’s teeth and knocked it aside.  Algernon leaped to his feet, adjusting his grip to hold the girl around the neck with his forearm, and lifted her completely off the ground.  He tossed the trash can lid at the next dog and forced the girl’s right hand up with his left hand, using her weapon to defend himself.

    Though she resisted his command of her sword, Algernon was far bigger and stronger.  The girl only managed to irritate him as he lunged forward, skewered an attacking dog in the chest, then slashed right and left to maim and kill the feral creatures.  An unwilling blade cut canine flesh, leaving great gashes and gaping holes in its wake, while Algernon snapped bone crushing, left-footed front kicks that shattered jaws and rib cages.  The injured yelped and retreated, their cries serving to warn the others that attacking this particular human quickly resulted in pain or death.  Growling and snapping, the dogs retreated, disappearing down the street.

    Breathing hard from exertion, his spent rage cooling, Algernon gripped the girl’s forearm tendon with such force she dropped her sword and he kicked it out of reach.  Then he patted her body looking for his pouch and stopped, startled for a moment, when he realized that she had breasts.  He found his moneybag tucked beneath the hem of her skirt, and as soon as he regained it, the boy pushed her away with less force than he might have if she’d not been so obviously feminine.

    But she came after him again!

    Though he didn’t really want to hurt her, Algernon felt little patience for someone who’d stolen his money and put his life in danger.  He grabbed her right-footed kick in mid air and simply flung her leg aside, expecting that she’d land in a heap.  However, her left foot flipped up toward his face in a perfectly executed helicopter kick that very nearly hit him.  Algernon ducked and knocked her foot aside, slammed a hard hook punch into her thigh, then stepped back into a fighting stance as the persistent little thief landed awkwardly and slid into a fighting position of her own.

    “What is with you?” he snapped.  “Do you want me to kill you?”

    She stopped, her wide brown eyes staring at the fierce young man.  Then as her badly bruised leg wobbled, she dropped her hands and with a quivering lower lip, sat on the ground and began to cry.

    “Grief!” he groaned, relaxing.  When she looked at him again, he heard the voice in his head tell her she’d been hurt and was hungry.  A Gottslena verse flashed into his memory: “Let no one despise a thief who steals to sate his hunger.”

    Algernon felt no sympathetic regret and warily watched her as he moved from his stance.  He picked up her sword and put the garbage can back in place.  The girl looked at him and sniffed, but he glared at her.  “Stealing from a monk is pretty low!” he muttered, turning to quickly scan the alley with his eyes.

    “You have an awfully heavy coin bag for a poor monk!” she retorted, an accusing tone pervading her squeaky voice.

    “Oh, so you can talk!”  Algernon pointed the blade at her.  “And my life is only worth a little silver?”  Brenna had also given him a small, crystalline disc that she said would be important in proving his relationship to her, but he said nothing about this to the thief.

    The girl crossed her arms, pouting.  The tips of her soft, prehensile ears shifted rearward in a catlike display of irritation.  In her mysterious, psionic manner, she reminded him that she was hungry.  She complained that all she wanted was some food, and that she thought a holy monk wouldn’t mind sharing with her.

    “You went about it all wrong,” he said.  “Had you asked me, I would have helped you find something to eat.  You might find me more charitable if you hadn’t stolen my money tried to kill me first.”

    The girl seethed in impotent frustration.  She blasted his mind with laments that he’d used excessive force, and how she didn’t appreciate being fondled by a pervert.  She hoped he would meet a foul end soon, that his demise would be filled with suffering, and that in the end, his body would slowly rot in the hot summer, send up a foul stench and provide food for carrion birds, jackals and maggots.  She dreamed that his mother might stumble across his decaying flesh and weep for the rest of her miserable days!

    Algernon lunged for her, grabbed a handful of her dirty hair, placed the blade at her throat and pulled her face nose to nose with his.  She could smell the lentil soup on his breath, and he the hunger in hers.  “Leave my mother out of this!” he warned.  “If you want to hate me, that’s fine, but any other thought of my family will be the last your pathetic, decrepit little mind can muster.”

    And she, reading his thoughts and searching through his memory, felt a powerful terror grip her soul.  She realized that the clemency he extended toward her was a fragile restraint at best.

    “You’re hurting me!” she complained.

    Those had been Astrid’s words . . . Algernon dropped the girl and glared at her in deepening suspicion.  “What kind of a creature are you?” he wondered aloud.

    Though she said nothing, Algernon heard her voice in his mind warning that he could hide no secrets from her.  Then, looking away, her control over the voice in his head vanished.  When he looked at her again, he picked up her train of thought as if there had been no interruption.  She wanted her sword back.

    Algernon shook his head and looked her over.  The girl stood about four feet tall, with matted, greasy reddish-blonde hair in spiky strands that draped across an old, moth-eaten cloak.  Dressed in a stained, tattered blouse, a ragged skirt and well-worn boots, she looked like she’d been without a bath far too long.  Strangely, though her garments could have been collected from a dumpster, she didn’t stink.  Her face didn’t look quite human either, but Algernon couldn’t figure out what is was about her that seemed out of place.

    He looked away so that she couldn’t interfere with his thoughts, strode toward a tall, heavy garbage bin and tossed her sword inside.  Then, despite her virulent protests, he began walking away.  Just before Algernon reached the street he turned, opened his money pouch and tossed the girl a silver coin.  She caught it easily.

    “Get yourself some food, a bath and decent clothes!  You’d probably look better if you were clean,” he said, believing he’d reached the absolute limit of his charity.  Hoping to never again lay eyes on the tiny thief, Algernon trotted back toward the train station, not thinking that he might be followed.

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