She said, “Yes, I think we do. Let’s make the arrangements in the bar. I’m dying for a cigarette.”They had introduced themselves earlier, alon...g with the other six guests at the table. She knew his name was Mike. He knew hers was Em. They hadn’t met before. Plainly their business circuits did not generally intersect.“Mike,” he said again, when they got to the bar. He gave her a business card. Em saw that he was the managing director and CEO of a small engineering company with overseas interests.. "You said it was two years?" Yeah. The contest requires that all contestants live as a female for twoyears before becoming pregnant so to speak." So... you want to start dressing as a girl every day, and live likethat, for a year or more, then start this fake pregnancy?" Mom, the money is more than dad makes in two years! Even after buyingwhat I need it's still a lot of money!" That's true, and you might even be able to pull it off; I mean, you'renot that tall, and not very heavy..." So... can. "So much work needs doing and they still steal from travellers. A shame. For a room you could check at the Goose & Swan or maybe Widow Canby has an open room." Thank you again." Mark continued down the dirty road, avoiding the night waste dumped into the street, the animals running free and what the animals left behind. The odors now were more striking than those of his previous stops. There wasn't the daily or even weekly bathing or running water of Rome and there were still many more people. ***MALOTH – Lands of Angavar, Palistair***The air had long since grown cold as Maloth and Shenla entered the lands of the fabled Mor’tirith -- the Wardens of the Dead – and a strange fog eddied around the hooves of their mounts, first in patches, then thickening gradually as they pressed further into these dead lands.It was a region which appeared to be largely corrupted, Maloth noted as he scanned the landscape. The trees were stunted and bare, and leafless branches resembling long-fingered.