Xar had appeared at the bottom of the stairs leading to the Star Chamber. Arms crossed over his chest, he was staring up at them, the expression on his face dark and grim.
“Party,” Rega repeated nervously. “Paithan! Xar’s here! Get up. Roland, come on! You look like idiots! Both of you!”
Still not able to see too well, but hearing the note of tension in Rega’s voice, Paithan left off hitting, staggered to his feet. His face burned with shame. He could imagine what the old man must be thinking.
“You knocked a tooth loose,” Roland mumbled. His mouth was bloody.
“Shut up!” Rega hissed.
The aftereffects of the bright light were wearing off; Paithan could see the wizard now. Xar was trying to look as if he found them amusing, but though the lines around his eyes were crinkled in a tolerant smile, the eyes themselves were colder and darker than the well in the Star Chamber. Staring into them, Paithan had the same sort of queasy feeling in his stomach. He even found himself taking an involuntary step backward, away from the edge of the staircase.
“Where are the other ones?” Xar asked, voice pleasant, benign. “I want all of you to come to my party.”
“What other ones?” Rega asked, hedging.
“The other female. And the dwarf,” Xar said, smiling.
“You ever notice how he never seems to remember our names?” Roland said out of the corner of his mouth to Paithan.
“You know”—Rega gulped—“Aleatha was right. He is ugly.” She reached out, clasped hold of Paithan’s hand. “I really don’t want to go to this party.”
“I don’t think we have much choice,” Paithan said quietly. “What excuse could we offer?”
“Tell him we just don’t want to go,” Roland said, edging behind Paithan.
“Me tell him? What’s wrong with you telling him?” Paithan snapped.
“I don’t think he likes me.”
“Where is your sister, elf?” Xar’s brows came together over his nose. “And the dwarf?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen them. We’ll... go look for them!” Paithan offered hurriedly. “Won’t we?”
“Yeah. Right now.”
“I’ll help.”
Roland and Rega and the elf clattered down the stairs. At the bottom, they stopped. Xar stood before them, blocking their way. The two humans shoved Paithan to the front.
“Uh, we’re just going to find Aleatha... my sister,” Paithan said faintly.
“And the dwarf. Drugar. The dwarf.”
Xar smiled. “Hurry. The food will grow cold.”
“Right!” Paithan wormed his way around the wizard and bolted for the door, Rega and Roland were right behind him. None of them stopped running until they were out of the main building, standing on the wide marble steppes that overlooked the empty and deserted city below. The citadel had never appeared quite so empty or so deserted as it did now.
“I don’t like this,” Rega said, her voice shaking. “I don’t like him. What does he want with us?”
“Hush, be careful,” Paithan warned. “He’s watching us! No, don’t look. He’s up there, on a balcony.”
“What are we going to do?”
“What can we do?” Roland demanded. “We go to his party. Do you want to make him mad? Maybe you don’t remember what he did to those tytans, but I do. Besides, how bad can it be? I say we’re all jumping at our own shadows.”
“Roland’s right. It’s only a party. If the wizard wanted to do anything bad to us—and there’s no reason why he should—then he could do it from where he’s standing.”
“I don’t like the way he looked at us,” Rega said stubbornly. “And he seems too eager. Excited.”
“At his age and with his looks, he probably doesn’t get invited to a lot of parties,” Roland suggested.
Paithan glanced at the dark-robed figure, standing still and silent on the balcony. “I think we should humor him. We’d better find Drugar and Aleatha right away.”
“If they’ve gone into that maze, you won’t find them at all, much less right away,” Rega predicted.
Paithan sighed, frustrated. “Maybe you two should go back and I’ll try to find Aleatha—”
“Oh, no!” Roland said, latching on to Paithan firmly. “We’re all going.”
“Well,” Paithan began, “I suppose then that we should split—”
“Look! There’s Aleatha now!” Rega cried, pointing. The broad steppe they stood on overlooked the back of the city. Aleatha had just appeared around the corner of a building, her tattered dress a bright spot of color against the white marble.
“Good. That only leaves Drugar. And surely the old man won’t mind if we’re missing the dwarf—”
“Something’s wrong with her,” Roland said suddenly. “Aleatha!” He went dashing down the stairs, racing toward Aleatha. She had been moving toward them—running toward them, in fact-Paithan tried to remember the last time he’d ever seen his sister run. But now she had stopped and was leaning against the wall of a building, her hand pressed over her breast as if in pain.
“Aleatha!” Roland said, coming up to her.
Her eyes were closed. Opening them, she looked at him thankfully, and with a sob reached out to him, nearly fell into his arms.
He clasped her, held her fast. “What’s wrong? What’s the matter?”
“Drugar!” Aleatha managed to gasp.
“What did he do to you?” Roland cried, clutching her fiercely. “Did he hurt you? By the ancestors, I’ll—”
“No, no!” Aleatha was shaking her head. Her hair floated around her face in an ashen-blond, shimmering cloud. She gasped for breath. “He’s... disappeared!”
“Disappeared?” Paithan came up, Rega alongside. “What do you mean, Thea? How could he disappear?”
“I don’t know!” Aleatha lifted her head, her blue eyes wide and frightened.
“One minute he was there, next to me. And the next...” She put her head against Roland’s chest, began to cry. He patted her on the back, looked questioningly at Paithan. “What’s she talking about?”
“Beats me,” said Paithan.
“Don’t forget Xar,” Rega inserted quietly. “He’s still watching us.”
“Was it the tytans? Thea, don’t go getting hysterical...”
“Too late,” Rega said, eyeing her.
Aleatha was sobbing uncontrollably. She would have fallen but for Roland.
“Look, something terrible must have happened to her.” He lifted her tenderly in his arms. “She doesn’t normally come apart like this. Not even when the dragon attacked us.”
Paithan had to agree. He was now growing anxious and upset himself. “But what should we do?”
Rega took charge. “We’ve got to get her calmed down long enough for her to tell us what happened. Take her back into the main building. We’ll go to the stupid party, get her a glass of wine to drink. If something dreadful did happen—like the tytans broke in and snatched Drugar—then Lord Xar should know about it. He may be able to protect us.”
“Why would the tytans come in and snatch Drugar?” Paithan asked—a perfectly logical question, but one which went unanswered.
Roland couldn’t hear him over Aleatha’s gulping sobs, and Rega gave the elf a disgusted look and shook her head at him.
“Get her a glass of wine,” she repeated, and the three returned in a procession back to the main building.
Xar met them at the door, frowned at the sight of the hysterical elven woman.
“What is wrong with her?”
“She’s had some sort of shock,” Paithan said. Rega had elected him spokesperson with a jab in his back. “We don’t know what’s wrong because she’s too upset to tell us.”
“Where is the dwarf?” Xar asked, frowning.
At this, Aleatha gave a strangled scream. “Where is the dwarf? That’s a good one!” Covering her face with her hands, she began to laugh wildly. Paithan was growing more and more worried. He had never seen his sister this upset over anything. “He’s been going into the maze—” Rega chimed in nervously. “We thought a glass of wine—” Both realized they were talking at once and fell silent. Xar gave Rega a sharp look.