shooting the Duchess, or setting her on fire.
“No trick,” Balan called from the center of the round chamber. “Consider it a gesture of good faith. Are anyone else’s eyes feeling misty?”
“Where is the Wizard, Balan?” Nesha-tari demanded, and Tilda turned to look at her over Claudja’s arm.
“Nesha-tari?” she asked.
“What?” Nesha-tari said, still glaring at Balan.
“I understand you.”
Nesha-tari’s blue eyes turned to Tilda, and her fine brown eyebrows raised.
“I understand you as well.”
“That would also be my doing,” Balan called. “A simple enough spell, but one that greatly eases communication. In answer to your question, Madame Nesha-tari, the Circle Wizard is here. In my custody.”
Claudja released Tilda and Heggenauer and spun on the devil, her clothes and face now dusty again from the hug.
“He is upstairs, in this building. A room on the fifth floor.”
“There you have it,” Balan held out a hand. “Your friend has seen him only moments ago, alive and well.”
“Why do I doubt you will simply permit us to retrieve him, fiendish one?” Uriako Shikashe said grimly, causing everyone to stare at him.
Balan nodded. “You are catching on, noble swordsman. First things first, we need to talk.”
“What if we just want to go up and get him ourselves?” Deskata asked.
“You won’t make it. Safe passage does not hold if you people attack us first.”
“Tilda, what is going on? Who are these people?” Claudja asked. Tilda sighed.
“Claudja…it’s such a long story. I don’t even know where to start.”
They had spoken quietly, but Balan plainly heard them.
“Take a minute and work it out. In fact, I think you all could use a little time before we get down to brass tacks.”
The devil waved a hand and across the tower a smaller pair of double doors opened beneath a balcony, revealing a brightly-lit room with a table and chairs in the center. Several open doors lined the walls.
“There are drawn baths waiting in the side rooms, enough for everyone unless you feel like doubling-up with a buddy. Help yourselves to the beverages and nibbles. Your friend can assure you that all of it is safe, as of course do I.”
“I do not need a bath, Balan,” Nesha-tari sneered. The devil clutched its lapels and looked solemn.
“Madame Nesha-tari, you know that I am unable to speak an untrue word. That being said, you do need a bath, Madame. The whole lot of you smell like a fire in a junkyard. No offense.”
The party glanced around at each other, but no one raised a word of denial.
“So there it is,” Balan clapped his hands. “Make use of our hospitality, or do not. I will leave you to your own devices for the time being, and return in an hour or so.”
The devil turned and strode for the stairs. Tilda did not know if she should try to stop him, and looking around it did not appear anyone else did either. Balan halted himself at the foot of the stairs.
“I should probably add that the various demons and daemons hereabouts are technically not my minions, nor are they under my control. Please do not go wandering around, for if you encounter any of them they will surely attack you out of hand.”
Balan bowed again, then put a hand on the end of the banister, spun around it, and disappeared with a rustle of his coat tails.
The party entered the rooms the devil had indicated, and though some of them may have had no intention of touching the food on the table nor of trying the waters, the temptation of it all was too much. Nesha-tari headed for a tub immediately and slammed the door shut behind her, and Zeb did not keel over after bolting several strips of salted venison. Everyone bathed and ate after that, and did what they could to beat the dust out of their clothes.
After she had washed, Tilda sat at the table with Claudja and the two hurriedly covered what had happened to them both over the last several days. Tilda said she was sorry about Sir Towsan, and assured the Duchess that the Jobians in Camp Town had taken the knight to their temple in honor.
“The men who killed him met justice,” Claudja said with her eyes hard, though she did not elaborate.
“John will no doubt be pleased,” Tilda muttered.
“Who is John?” Claudja asked, looking around the room. Zeb was trying to strike up a conversation with Shikashe, but the samurai was no less taciturn now that he could have communicated had he wanted to do so.
“Oh. That is…Dugan,” Tilda said. She looked around, but the man in question was not in sight at the moment.
“His first name is John?” Claudja blinked. “All that time on the Shugak raft, and I never knew that.”
“No, it is, but…his name…his name isn’t Dugan. He is not who I thought he was.”
“Where is John Deskata?” Nesha-tari asked from where she sat in a chair against the wall, showing little interest in the food. Tilda still heard her words as they were spoken, in Zantish, and it was a very strange feeling to be able to understand them.
“Is he not in there?” Heggenauer asked from further down the table, pointing at a closed door.
“That’s Amatesu,” Zeb said, then gave up on talking to Uriako Shikashe and knocked on the only other closed door.
“John,” he called. “The girls all want to wash your back.”
Tilda lowered her eyes and smiled, and Claudja noticed. The Duchess raised an eyebrow at her and gave Zeb a more appraising look than she had when Tilda had introduced them. Zeb Baj Nif looked scarcely less scruffy than he had before washing.
When there was no answer Zeb knocked harder, then pushed open the door.
“Empty,” he said, and Tilda felt a sudden disquiet.
Shikashe must have felt the same thing, for the samurai stood and barked Amatesu’s name at the one door that remained closed. The shukenja opened it and stepped out, looking embarrassed. Her long black hair hung straight to her waist, shining and clean, more lustrous and gorgeous than Tilda would have thought possible of the typically tangled mess.
“There were herbs and soaps,” Amatesu said, sounding more guilty than she had when talking about her past as a ninja. “I did not mean to, I meant only…”
“Is John in there with you?” Zebulon asked. Amatesu raised her eyes from the floor and frowned.
“What? Of course not.”
Tilda jumped up from the table, knocking over her chair. She called John Deskata’s name and rushed around to look in the other side rooms, but the man was nowhere to be found.
*
A short time after the Duchess Claudja had appeared in his doorway, there was a knock on Phin’s door. He stopped pacing and glared at the portal. The knock repeated.
“Enter,” he barked.
The door opened and a small devil with spikes all along its spine floated in, the same kind as those that had been coming and going all day. Phin could not tell them apart, and had no idea if he had seen this particular one before.
“Mr. Phoarty,” the devil said. “Please come with me.”
Phin stared. “You can talk? I have been asking questions all day!”
“We did not have anything to say earlier.”
“Where is the Duchess Claudja?” Phin demanded for the hundredth time.
“Downstairs, with the others. Please come this way.”
“What others?” Phin asked, as he was fairly sure the Sarge and the legionnaires had all been killed.
The devil gave no answer but only floated out through the door, then down the hall to the left.
Phin rushed to the doorway but stopped and peeked out. The spiny devil was floating away down the long
