A Mage is Needed

"What, and just abandon me here?" she exclaimed.

"I don't have any choice, my lady. I'm sure that my sword would make no impression on your chains. But I will ask the mage to give me a magic key or something similar, and I promise that I will come back for you and your large chest."

Irena looked at him suspiciously for a moment, but he gave no hint of having cracked a joke, and she decided that it had been merely an infelicity of expression on his part.

"By the way," Fred went on. "Something's been worrying me. Are you sure that your name begins with 'I' and not with 'A'?"

"Of course I'm sure. What sort of question is that?"

"I'm sorry. I don't know why, but I felt sure that it ought to be an 'A'. Oh well, I suppose I'd better be off."

But at that very moment, by the most remarkable coincidence, a man wearing a tattered robe and a tall conical hat came into view. There seemed to be something shambolic about him. "Wincerind the wizard, at your service," he said.

1. Irena spoke first: "Please release me."
2. Fred spoke first: "Please would you translate this scroll for me."
3. Neither Irena nor Fred trusted the competence of this new arrival enough to ask for his help.

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