“After, Jinian. After,” he whispered. “My suggestion is that you depart northward now. I am expected to leave by the south gate when this affair is over. Is there a path from north to south outside the walls of this place?”
“Dungcart Road,” answered Chance. “Along the western wall. Shall we wait for you then, Queynt? Outside the north gates?”
“Wait for me there. Except you, Peter. You might slip along Dungcart Road and offer me help, if needed. Hard to say how many there’ll be in company when we leave. I’ll have to get away from them somehow.”
Thus quickly were we determined. Two of us three putative Zinterites began hitching the birds while one talked with highly irritated krylobos. “We’ll come back, Yattleby,” I kept saying. “If we stay now, it will attract attention, and some of your kin may end up getting killed. If we leave, they’ll all go to sleep thinking there’s no danger. Wait until dark. Come on, now. Take the harness and quit kicking. We won’t leave your kinsmen—ah, kinsbirds behind.” Eventually the giant bird agreed, though I knew very well he wouldn’t go far from the walls. His eyes were red and furious. I had never seen them like this before. He was too angry even to talk to me.
Queynt went to the residence, nimbly bowing and smiling, full of quirky gestures and fulsome words, echoing the universal greeting. “All honor to the Duke of Betand.” I know from him what he learned there and will tell it here.
Inside the gate he encountered Willome once more, and they made their way to the tables where liquid refreshments were provided. “Will we be introduced to the guests of honor?” Queynt asked offhandedly, seeming to pay attention only to the spitted chime birds he had been offered.
Willome shook his head. “I think not. Hoorah for Valearn. They have not done so on any occasion heretofore. We are here to fill the grounds, I think. As is proper.” He bit a crisply toasted bird in half, spluttering bone fragments in all directions. “Hail Huldra.”
“Hail Valearn,” said Queynt. “I must find a place to relieve myself.”
“ ‘Round back,” said Willome. “Near the stables.” But it was to the residence itself that Queynt repaired, carrying with him, so he said, the worried look of a man seeking a necessary with a view to immediate utilization. He carried the expression only so far as the deeply carpeted corridor leading to an ornate audience chamber he had located from outside. Here, sheltered from the glow of midday but visible to the mob on the terraces, the guests of honor and their more highly placed attendants eddied to and fro in a swirling slosh of sidling waiters. Here, hidden from observation behind heavy portieres of gold-crusted velour, Queynt came to rest, poised on one foot to flee if necessary, ears pricked and one eye applied to a judiciously located crack between the hangings.
The Dream Merchant, seen only at a distance that morning, was less than a manheight away, his long face still as a carving, the looming upper lip immobile as stone, undisturbed by the words that sprayed from its foot.
“Well, Betand! Tho you have come to Fangel at latht.”
“Well, Merchant! So I was invited at last. Little wonder I came.”
“Invited for what, I wonder. Has the Backleth Throne determined upon thome action? Ah?” The Merchant regarded his guest with suspicion. “Thtorm Grower and Dream Miner, my lovely parenth? Have they told you why you are thummoned?” The Duke belched lovingly, threw bones over his shoulder which struck the hangings before Queynt’s nose, almost startling him into betraying movement.
“Have they told me? Come now, Merchant. Do they write me letters? I got this!” And he waved a bezel-mounted crystal in the Merchant’s face. “This. As did those three crones with me. Give it a lick and you’ll know everything I do. We’re off to That Place, higgypiggy, as may be, and Devils take him who lingers. I am much bewitched in this endeavor, may I tell you, Merchant, with three such ugly dams as you have yet to dream ill of. I will tell you that Valearn is enough to give a child nightmares for all his life, whether she threaten to eat him or no, and the lovely Dedrina does the same for me.”
“And yet, even in thuch company, you go?”
“Do you hear me preaching rebellion? There is profit in following the Backless Throne. They suggest this alliance, and so we ally. I do well by the Throne and they by me. I have always felt well paid.”
“And you are taking all thith entourage with uth?”
“Unlikely, Merchant. That lizard of Dedrina’s is only something Huldra called up and will as easily let go. The others ... well, when I go hence tomorrow night, I will leave most of the traps and booty here in your charge until I return.”
“Not in my charge, Betand. I am to go with you. I am thummoned ath well.”
“We will be six, then. Valearn will go, and that Witch, and the serpent queen, Dedrina Dreadeye, with her lackadaisical brother, Bloster. He wants only a minor catastrophe to kill himself over, so depressed he is. Well. We will go and find out what’s wanted and then return.”
“I take it you have not been there before,” said the Merchant, sulky and offended at the Duke’s offhand tone. “If you knew what you will find there, you would thound leth casthual. I have not been there for a very long time, but I do not ekthactly look forward to the vithit.”
“So much the better for us, to have your company. Though I am told some visitors don’t come out as well, I suppose we need not fear that. So long as they need us to distribute the crystals they send.”
“They require enough of that,” he replied sulkily. “More and more crythtalth, more and more every theathon.”
The Duke turned at
