This is remarkably enough writing itself. Which is nice, for a change. I even have a good idea how the plot goes.
So it’s the end of the world, hey? Only this bit of it’s lasted for three and a half centuries. When does the next part start?
I’m not saying that this part of the apocalypse isn’t interesting. You got your collapse of empires and strange powers arising, complete with monster-haunted ruins and the uncanny happening every darned day. There’s even a fairy-tale kingdom filled with unicorns and pixie dust to the east of us; and thank God for that, because there’s a nasty evil empire brewing up to the north. And that brings us back nicely to my first and second questions.
“His name is carefully hidden,” said Miss Serenity as she opened folders and spread out papers. “But he deigns to let non-mages call him ‘Kragnor the Ambitious.’ Technically Kragnor is a citizen of the Kentucky Free State, but he does not recognize your country as being anything except a placeholder until he gets around conquering it.’
There weren’t any photographs, of course. That costs serious money, even when you can get the chemicals. But somebody with a crystal ball and a set of good colored pencils had made a sketch of the target’s head, and that was good enough for me. Kragnor didn’t look ambitious as much as he looked surly and sneering; and he had the kind of face you only get from casting spells. Sometimes that works, but I could see the ugliness poke through even from the sketch.