The new arrival coughed, wiped a hand across his face to reveal himself as one of the guards, and held up the cracked, dust-caked upper half of the decanter the servant girl had been waving so mockingly.
"She must have been plying us with plague-laced wine these last two days," he gasped, "that grauling Serpent-worshipper!"
"If she's been doing that all over the palace," Hawkril growled, reaching for his dazed lady, "Raulin could be dead already!"
"Too high a price to pay for ridding Aglirta of excess courtiers," Craer agreed with a twisted smile, appearing out of the murk.
He turned to Blackgult. "Nicely done. I was almost up to them when the top of the stair broke. Let's find the next way up; 'tis the far side of yon cross-passage, I recall."
"Yes," Blackgult agreed. "Yell when you reach it. Then perhaps Embra can get herself healed without Dwaer-magic tearing her insides out, hey?" The procurer gave him a reproachful look. "I ran as fast as I could." "And you will again-right now. Why, you'll be getting good at it, soon!" Craer's reply was a very rude gesture-but he obediently hastened, and Blackgult was puffing too severely to join in his signal shout when they
reached the stair they'd been seeking: a flight of marble steps strewn with dead bodies and witless, drooling men.
Craer glanced up it, waved a hand at all the slaughter and ruin, and said to the onetime Regent of all Aglirta, " Would you store a king up yonder, amid all this?"
"Get going," Blackgult told him grimly, "and we'll see, won't we?"
"Who knocks?" a voice asked suspiciously, from the other side of the door. The small, slender man flattened against the wall as far away from the door as he could get and just reach the edge of the door with his fingertips called back, "Craer Delnbone, Overduke of Aglirta. I've another overduke-Blackgult by name-with me."
There was a period of silence, then the voice declared with flat and very unwelcoming finality, "Any man can claim to be an overduke."
"Ah," Craer replied almost delightedly, "but can they correctly mimic my arch overduchal knock? The maid-enchanting lilt of my voice? The stunning beauty of my hand you're staring at through yon spyhole you so fondly believe I don't notice? Come to think of it, who else would come knocking-instead of using a spell or an ax on your door, or stuffing snakes under it to hiss their welcome for them, hey?"
They heard faint laughter from behind the door, then an order, a voice raised in tones of objection, the snap of another order, and then the sounds of a doorbar being lifted and bolts being thrown.
In a rattle of chain, the door opened just wide enough for a guard in full armor, with the visor of his helm down, to peer out. "Who else stands with you?"
Craer preened like a maiden, and then ran his hands over his hips like a strumpet. "Aren't we enough?"
Blackgult rolled his eyes. "Let us in, Greatsarn, before he gets worse. And believe me, he gets worse."
The guard withdrew, the door was opened just wide enough for both overdukes to slip through-and slammed shut behind them by guards who hastily fumbled the bolts and bars back into place.
"Imprisoning yourself to save some foe the trouble?" Craer demanded of the young, smiling man sitting at a table at the back of the room. "Raulin, d'you mind telling me just who this most puissant enemy is?"
If Macros Delcamper or any of the handful of old, trusted warriors in the stout-walled upper room-the stub of a long-vanished turret, sporting but the one door, a roof-hatch, and two narrow archers' windows-were shocked at hearing the King of Aglirta addressed so abruptly by only his first name, none of them showed it.
"Anyone and everyone," Raulin Castlecloaks replied with a sigh, slapping the table in weary exasperation. "I hope you brought food. We're starving up here, and hardly dare mount more armed expeditions to the kitchens. It cost us Ilger and his three underguard trainees two days back."
"No, Raulin," Blackgult told him darkly, "as a matter of fact we didn't, but if you stay here, I'll fetch the rest of your wayward overdukes, and we'll scour the kitchens for you. Embra might even be able to purge any poisons in whatever provender we find there. I take it the Serpents don't quite openly rule the palace yet?"
"Well," the young king replied ruefully, "not this chamber of it, at least."
Blackgult rolled his eyes again. "Remind me to leave you alone in Flowfoam Palace less often, lad. At least you had enough sense to choose a room a handful of willing swords have some chance of defending-but that's about it."
"Lord Blackgult," the bard from Ragalar said quietly, "might I remind you that you address your King? More respectful words would be advisable."
"No, Lord Delcamper, you may not remind me of such matters," the Golden Griffon told him flatly. "I'm getting too old to have time left for such foolishness-but not yet so age-enfeebled as to become respectful of anyone. That way lies ruin for all Aglirta, just now, no matter whose backside warms the throne."
The king pretended to be shocked, but as Flaeros Delcamper started to sputter with indignation, Raulin burst into whoops of laughter-the rather wild laughter of someone seizing on mirth after too long with nothing to laugh at-and told the room, "May the Band of Four live forever!"
Craer grinned. "Well, that's one more sharp difference of opinion between you and the Snake-lovers, to be sure. I-"
His face changed, and he clutched at the saddlebag slung over his shoulder. It was rising, the worn leather shifting, and as he caught at it, a sudden glow spilled from under its flaps.
"What have you there?" a guard growled, hefting his blade.
"A Dwaer-Stone, and its doings right now tell me another Dwaer's being used close by."
"Somewhere on Flowfoam?" Flaeros asked sharply.
"Somewhere within a few chambers of right here," Blackgult answered. "Have you a spyhole, or the like, looking in this direction?" He waved at the barred, bolted, and chained door behind him.
"No," Raulin replied. "Why?"
The Golden Griffon smiled. "I'm fairly sure the Lady Silvertree is coming up the same steps we did, but I'd rather not fling the door wide to see if that's so-just in case I end up welcoming someone else who can casually flatten overdukes and palaces alike with a Dwaer."
"There's no need," Embra's voice said crisply from the empty air beside him, causing Craer's saddlebag to tremble wildly and light to flare from it as if a whirling inferno of flame spun within. "The enchantments of my childhood are still useful for some things-and finding known sources of mighty magic is one of them. We're all here; open the door."
Blackgult turned to do so, and Greatsarn moved to help him, but a guard barred their way, sword raised, and said coldly, "I don't recall hearing the King give his permission regarding any use of this door-'tis barred for a reason, y'know."
"Either we open it," Blackgult told the armsman, reaching for the first doorbolt as if there wasn't a swordtip in his face, "or she'll blast it down and all of us with it. Unless, of course, she gets irritated."
The sword drew back a little. "And if she is, what then?"
The Golden Griffon shot two bolts and reached for a third. "Then," he told the guard, "she'll do something much worse."
The guard regarded Blackgult expressionlessly for a moment, as the oldest Overduke of Aglirta went on tossing aside bars, lifting pins, and unhooking chains, and then silently stepped back, taking his sword with him.
"No," Blackgult said to the king not much later, as they watched one of Tshamarra's spells cook a roast from the kitchens without need of hearthfire or spit, "I'd best remain here on Flowfoam with you, to defend and advise.
Tshamarra can take my place in the Four whilst they go forth to strike down Serpent-priests the length of the Vale-and, I suppose, the usual mercenary warlords or nobles who're taking advantage of the plague to set themselves up as war leaders against you."