[Rimbaud]

Maleficent found his way into the city in the usual manner. He was old and thusly tired after a fruitless day. He watched the evening's activity in the square with vast but measured interest and retired to his corner in the battlements.

He thought long and hard. Maleficent was older than anything he had encountered. Still searching for that Good Deed. Ahhh...this exile wearied him. He had lost count of the summers. For what purpose was this endless ageing?.

His old yet flexible mind moved smoothly up a gear and he achieved the familiar click of foresight. In the mists of events he sieved for answers. The city was shrouded in a fog that made any real prescience impossible yet shapes moved in the darkness. He closed his eyes. As the gloom of deep thinking opened ahead of his probing thoughts he saw clearly the bright shapes of the wolves. Why so many of the Old Race?

His thought surged ahead again and he felt vitality seeping from his body as his mind drew into itself. The city was attracting what it needed. Events were in flux... He found the febrile cunning of the mouse Fedwie and wondered at such a place for the Hidden Kind. He realised that for such companions to be in confluence, the purpose must be terrible. He threw his mind out further, beyond the city walls, finding the crow, at wing, purpose unknown. The gorilla drawn to the city by frces it could not understand. What role for the Great Ape?

Maleficent shuddered and came back to himself. The floor of his castle cranny was cold and hard. He drew some straw under himself but it was damp and he shivered again. The night would be a long one. He knew many things but he did not know the dark hand that was encircling the city. He did not know the part he had in this play. Yet he could watch and assimilate. Maleficent was good at watching. He knew the wolves would not come unless there were great need.

He slept.