“What then?” she asked. “We’ll never get him out through this little hole.”
“At least he might not die while we’re looking for a way to remove the cover,” Agis replied.
“It’s already past dawn!” objected Kester. “How long do ye think Mag’r’ll wait for the gates to open before he sinks the Shadow Viper?”
“He’ll wait,” Agis replied. “If he sinks your ship, we have no reason to open the gates-and he’s smart enough to know that.”
“Ye can’t know for sure!”
“I agree with you,” Tithian whispered. He knelt at Kester’s side, holding one end of the rope out to her. “Perhaps we should open the gate for Mag’r-now.”
Kester bit her lip, neither meeting the king’s gaze nor taking the rope from his hand. “What about Agis?” she asked.
“He can look after Fylo,” the king suggested, being careful not to look into the pit. “We can come back for him later.”
Kester fell silent and motionless. Like Tithian, she avoided the noble’s eyes, though it seemed to her that she could feel them watching her from the shadows, like the black gaze of an owl.
“I can imagine what Tithian’s whispering to you,” said Agis, his voice rising through the crevice clear and steady. “Don’t listen to him. We have many things to do this morning: make sure that we all escape the pit, find the Dark Lens, save your ship. But if we panic and start jumping from one unfinished step to another, we’re doomed.”
Kester remained silent, wondering how the noble could think that everything on his list was still possible at this late hour.
“Weren’t you the one who said we had to work together to escape?” Agis pressed. “Did you mean it-or were you voicing the lies of a pirate?”
“Damn ye, and damn yer giant,” Kester growled.
“A wise decision,” Tithian said, starting to rise.
Kester grabbed his arm and pulled him back to her side. “Ye stay here,” she said, taking the rope from his hands and pushing one end down to the noble.
“Thanks for staying,” Agis said. “You won’t regret it.”
“No-but you might,” Kester growled. “If Mag’r sinks my ship, ye’ll buy me another-and a good crew to man it!”
“I’ll give you two ships,” the noble replied, smiling. “But you’ll have to man them yourself-with hired crews.”
Kester stood and looked at Tithian. “Ye stay here to keep the hole open-and don’t think about leaving. If I see ye step one foot off this circle, I’ll kill ye,” she said, fingering the two throwing knives left in her chest harness. “I’ll go tie off our end of the rope.”
With that, she leaped over to solid ground and walked toward the bridge footings, uncoiling the rope as she went.
Tithian watched the tarek leave, silently cursing her for a fool. Nevertheless, he did as she asked, summoning the spiritual energy to take over Agis’s duties. “Go ahead,” he said, glaring down through the crack. “But remember, you’re wasting precious minutes.”
“Minutes that are not as precious as my life,” the noble’s muffled voice replied. “I’ll wait until Kester returns.”
“As you wish,” Tithian said.
As the king spoke, the last of the Castoffs, Sona, drifted into view. She stopped at the noble’s side, casting a faint glow over his weary face, and began to thank him for freeing her and the others. Tithian, even less interested in her gratitude than in saving Fylo, stepped away to prepare his escape.
The king found Sacha and Wyan waiting for him, hovering at the edge of the black circle. He snatched them by their topknots and slammed their faces into the crystal lid.
“Why’d you do that?” demanded Sacha.
“Because I wanted to!” Tithian replied. He plucked the throwing dagger from Wyan’s cheek, then shook it at the two heads. “Just be thankful I’m not using this to pluck your eyes out!”
“This is not the way to treat your saviors,” objected Wyan, spitting out the broken nub of a gray tooth.
“Saviors!” Tithian roared. “By attacking Fylo, you almost got me stuck down there.”
“A small risk to take,” said Sacha, speaking in a voice quiet enough that no one beyond Tithian’s earshot could hear it. “You can’t have Agis or anyone else around when you recover the Dark Lens.”
Tithian held the heads up and frowned suspiciously. “Why not?” he asked. “After the way the Dragon lied to me, I’d just as soon let Agis kill Borys.”
“That would be acceptable,” replied Sacha. “Except that I’m sure Agis would want to keep the lens afterward-and you don’t want that.”
“Why not?”
“The lens is a tool,” explained Wyan, also speaking in a soft voice. “Like any tool, it’s only as powerful as the person using it. In Borys’s hands, it could never make you a sorcerer-king. But in the hands of someone else, someone even more powerful, it could.”
“No one’s more powerful than the Dragon,” Tithian scoffed.
“Wrong,” said Sacha. “There is one who could give you what you want: Rajaat.”
“Stop wasting my time with your stories,” the king hissed. “Rajaat’s dead.”
“Gone, but not dead,” Wyan replied. “What do you think Borys does with his slave levy?”
“He uses their life energy to keep the Shadow People imprisoned in the Black-at least that’s what Agis and Sadira think, according to my spies in the Asticles household,” replied the king. He cast a nervous glance down at the crack where Agis waited, but saw no sign that the noble could hear or see any of what was happening on top of the lid.
“What makes you think a fool noble and his slaves know what they’re talking about?” asked Sacha.
In a fawning voice, Wyan added, “Rajaat is not dead; he’s locked away-and Borys uses his levy to maintain the spells that keep him imprisoned.”
Tithian accepted the news with little emotion, for he had not yet confirmed its significance to him. “If I take the Dark Lens to him, Rajaat will make me a sorcerer-king?”
“It’s not our place to promise that,” Wyan said. “We’re only his spies in the city of Tyr.”
“But, through the Shadow People, we’ve told Rajaat of your ambitions,” said Sacha. “And we’ve received word back that if you aid him, you’ll be pleased with your reward.”
Tithian smiled and released his grip on the pair’s topknots. “What do I have to do?”
Before the heads could answer, Kester came rushing back from the bridge. She stopped at the edge of the pit, about two yards from the blade that had pierced Sacha’s temple. In her hands, the tarek held the last pair of throwing knives from her harness. Her eyes were fixed on the dagger in Tithian’s hand.
Inside his mind, Tithian heard Wyan’s voice. Get rid of her. She’s sided with Agis.
“What’s going on here?” Kester demanded.
“Not what you think, apparently,” Tithian replied, slowly extending the handle of his dagger to Kester. “I thought you might want this back.” When the tarek made no move to accept the weapon, the king shrugged and laid it on the ground. “I see Agis’s paranoia is catching.”
Kester seemed to relax, but did not sheath her own weapons. “What about them?”
“We came to apologize,” said Wyan.
“Sometimes our jokes get carried away,” added Sacha.
“That was no joke,” the tarek said, fangs half-bared.
“It certainly wasn’t. Fylo was hurt badly,” agreed Tithian. With a scornful look, he waved the heads back from the circle, then returned his attention to Kester. “You should come back over here. Agis doesn’t trust me to keep the crack open, and he won’t take the rope down to Fylo until he sees you.”
“What?” the tarek shrieked, sheathing her daggers. “He’s wasting time waiting for me?”
“He hasn’t moved,” Tithian said with a smirk. He leaned down and plucked the slack rope. “See? No weight.”
Kester leaped onto the black circle. She collected the dagger that Tithian had laid down a few moments before and knelt beside the crack. She started to put her face down to speak to Agis, then abruptly drew back as Sona’s glowing visage rose from the hole. Once the Castoff had drifted away, she leaned down and said, “I’ve had enough waiting, Agis!”