“Oh they are,” said Bauchelain, reaching out without looking and taking one. He bit it in half, chewed and swallowed, and then plopped the second half into his mouth and followed that down with some wine. Sighing, he settled back. “Delicious, but of course that does not surprise me. I speak not from a dearth of modesty, as the kitchen was impressively stocked, Lord Fangatooth. Most impressively.”
“It is nonetheless a shame,” said Fangatooth, “that the sacred notion of host and guest must be dispensed with before the dawn.”
“I fully understand,” said Bauchelain. “After all, we are two sorcerors under the same roof. High Mages, in fact, and so see in each other the deadliest of rivals. Like two male wolves in their prime, with but one pack awaiting the victor.”
“Just so,” Fangatooth said, pouring himself some wine-all the servants were gone, it seemed, or perhaps in hiding. The lord lifted the goblet and then made rolling motions with his other hand. “Rivals indeed. Tyrants in the same bed. Rather, the blanket, only big enough to warm one of us. While in that bed. Two fish in the same basin, and only one rock to hide under.” He faltered for a moment, and then said, “Oh yes, just as I said, Bauchelain. Rivals, in the midst of deadly rivalry. Foes, already locked in a contest of powers, and wits.” Then he blinked and looked round. “Why, it seems we shall have ourselves an audience as well! Excellent. Dear strangers, make yourselves at home as my guests!”
“Right,” said the woman in a drawl, “at least until you decide to kill us.”
“Precisely.”
She faced Bauchelain. “Whereas you are prepared to let us go, is that right?”
“Why, so it is.”
“All right, then, we’re with you, and not just for that, but for healing Gust, too.”
Smiling at her, Bauchelain said, “Why, you grow warmer in my eyes, my dear.”
“Keep it up,” she said, “and I might melt.”
“You do understand, don’t you,” said Bauchelain, “that I see little of the negative in dissolution?”
She grunted. “Why, that makes two of us. Which is why you’re too upright for me. Sorry, but we won’t be rolling in a wedding bed anytime soon, I’m afraid.”
“Hence my earlier sadness.”
Fangatooth cleared his throat, rather loudly. “I see, Bauchelain, that you have commandeered my chair at the head of the table.”
“My apologies, sir. An oversight. Or, perhaps, impatience?”
“No matter. In any case, you will not leave this room alive, I’m afraid. I have sealed the chamber in the deadliest of wards. Death awaits you at every exit. I note, of course, that your friend, the eunuch, is not here. But so too is the kitchen sealed, and should he endeavour to return here, intending to assist you once he hears your terrible cries, he will die a most terrible death.”
Bauchelain reached for another cookie. Bit, chewed and swallowed.
“The sorcery I have perfected,” Fangatooth continued, “is solely devoted to the necessities of tyranny. The delivery of pain, the evocation of horror, the agony of agony-Scribe!”
“Milord?”
“Are you writing all this down?”
“I am, milord.”
“My last line, get rid of it. Devise something better.”
“At once, milord.”
Emancipor filled up his pipe and lit it using one of the candles on the table. He drew deeply and filled his lungs with smoke, and then frowned. “Oh no,” he said. “Wrong blend.” The scene sagged before his eyes. Oh, and that was uncut, too. His eyes fixed on the plate of cookies. Sweat sprang out under his clothes. He could feel his heart palpitating, and saliva drenched his mouth.
As Bauchelain reached for a third cookie, Fangatooth held up a hand and said, “Please, you have well made your point, Bauchelain! I know well that these cookies are no more than a distraction, a feint, a not-so-clever attempt at misdirection! No, I imagine you have secreted about you an ensorcelled sword, or knife, as you clearly appraise yourself a warrior of some sort. But I am afraid to say, such things only bore me.” He reached out and collected up a cookie. Examined it a moment, and then used one fingernail to scratch loose some icing, which he then brought to his mouth, and tasted. “Ah, very nice.” He bit the cookie in half, chewed and swallowed, and bit the next piece in half, and then the next, and so on until the cookie was gone, except for a single crumb on one finger, which he ate whole.
He sat back and smiled across at Bauchelain. “Now, shall we begin?”
Bauchelain’s brows lifted. “Begin? Why, sir, it is already over.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that I have won, Lord Fangatooth.”
The man leapt upright. “It was poisoned! A double blind deception! Oh you fool, think you I am not also immune to all poisons?”
“I am sure that you are,” Bauchelain replied. “But that will not avail you, alas.”
“Prepare to defend yourself!”
Bauchelain sipped at his wine.
Emancipor, trembling to keep from stealing a cookie, started as Fangatooth suddenly clutched his stomach and gasped.
“What? What have you done to me?”
“Why,” said Bauchelain, “I have killed you.”
The lord staggered back, doubling over in pain. He shrieked. Then blood erupted from him, spraying out from his body. He straightened, arching as if taken by spasms, and his torso bulged horribly, only to then split open.
The demon that crawled out of Fangatooth’s body was as big as a man. It had four arms and two bent, ape-like legs with talons on the end of its toes. Beneath a low, hairless pate, its face was broad and dominated by a mouth bristling with needle-like fangs. Smeared in gore, it clambered free of Fangatooth’s ruptured corpse, and then coughed and spat.
Lifting its ghastly head, the demon glared at Bauchelain, and then spoke in a rasping, reptilian voice, “That was a dirty trick!”
Bauchelain shrugged. “Hardly,” he said. “Well, perhaps, somewhat unkind. In any case, you will be relieved to know that I am done with you, and so you may now return to Aral Gamelain, with my regards to your Lord.”
The demon showed its fangs in a bristling grimace or grin, and then vanished.
“Mister Reese!”
Bauchelain’s hand slashed down, knocking the cookie only a hair’s breadth from Emancipor’s mouth.
“Beneath the icing, my friend, you will find pentagrams of summoning! Ones in which the demon so summoned is already bound by me, until such time that the pattern is broken by someone else! Now, step back, Mister Reese, at once. You were one cookie away from death, and I’ll not warn you again!”
“I was just going to lick off the icing, Master-”
“You were not! And that is not rustleaf I am smelling from that pipe, is it?”
“My apologies, Master. It didn’t occur to me to think.”
“Yes,” Bauchelain replied, eyeing him, “upon that we are agreed.”
The dissolute woman stood. “Glad that’s all over with, then,” she said. “Lord Bauchelain, would you be so kind as to disperse all those deadly wards surrounding this chamber?”
Bauchelain waved a hand. “Korbal did so already, my dear. But will you not stay the rest of the night?”
She turned to her squad-mates. “Find beds, soldiers. A dry and warm night until we greet the new dawn!”
At that moment a loud crashing sound came from the stairs. Blearily, Emancipor turned to the doorway beyond which was the wide hallway that led to the staircase, in time to see that door burst apart in splinters and shards, with a dented, broken golem tumbling into the chamber. Its bucket head rolled away from its leaking body, rocked back and forth for a moment and then fell still.
From somewhere atop the stairs came Korbal Broach’s high, piping voice. “It was an accident!”
Yowling in frenzy, Witch Hurl fought among herselves just outside the door to the King’s Heel. She cursed that infernal barrier, and the pathetic claw-clattering paws sadly lacking in thumbs, a detail that made the door stand triumphant and mocking before her glaring, raging eyes.