idea of where anything was.
By the time Saltaja stalked in, Fabia had organized the girls enough to get fires set in all the hearths. She was lolling in an almost hot bath, inspecting clothes being held up for her approval.
'These,' Saltaja proclaimed in her magnificent voice, 'are my quarters. You will be shown to yours. Remember that my brother has a seer to help him. You cannot escape!'
'What—and miss my own wedding?' Fabia said sweetly. She was confident that Horth was up to something, although he had refused to say what. She had less faith in the mysterious and well-named Mist, who might or might not be around somewhere.
¦
The day grew only worse for Saltaja and consequently more entertaining for Fabia. Demands for the satrap were met with the excuse that he was busy. Demands for food produced some tasteless gruel from the slave cellars; there would be meat later when the Heroes were fed. Even Darag could not be found. If he still had Saltaja's pelf bag, he might be halfway home to Kosord by now, trailing a white wake.
Saltaja arose, terrible as a black sun. 'I am going to see the satrap.'
Fabia looked interested. 'Yes, my lady?'
'And you will come with me.'
Saltaja knew her way around the palace. Four times Werist guards tried to block her, then flinched and let her pass—armed men twice her size and a third her age. That might be a useful technique to learn, Fabia thought, but it was a dangerously obvious use of chthonic power.
When they reached a stone staircase, steep and narrow, Saltaja motioned for Fabia to go first. The treads were worn, uneven, and poorly lit. Suspecting that her own abilities were being tested, Fabia was careful to stumble a few times, but she kept up a pace that soon had the older woman puffing. The stair curved continuously, periodically passing narrow window slits on the right and closed doors on the left.
The door at the top stood ajar. Fabia pushed it wide and walked into the Vulture's Nest, which was larger than she had expected, a circular room with many windows, bright with sunlight but also windy and cold, for all the shutters stood wide. It was just as unkempt and neglected as the rest of the palace—rugs and mats littering the sleeping platform in the center; discarded clothes, clay tablets, and wine bottles scattered around the floor among disordered stools and tables. There were two men there.
Or one man and a thing.
'Who are you?' it cried in a warbling, high-pitched voice. Then, 'Oh, it's you!,' as Fabia recoiled and was pushed aside by Saltaja.
Upright, the Vulture would have been grotesquely tall, but he was bent at the hips until he was almost horizontal, his leathery head thrust forward on a bizarrely elongated, leathery neck. He wore a brass collar and a dirty orange pall. With his hands behind his back, he came strutting forward, glaring at the visitors with sunken yellow eyes. He moved like a barnyard rooster, lifting each clawed foot high.
'Yes, it's me!' Saltaja advanced two steps to meet him.
He stopped. For a moment they glared at each other. Therek backed off first, jerking his head away. He unfolded a ropy arm to point a taloned finger.
'Who's she?'
Belatedly recalling Fellard's advice not to stare, Fabia lowered herself in a deep curtsy. He detoured around Saltaja to approach her. She found herself gazing at scrawny bare legs, perhaps the strangest part of him—thighs of normal length, shins and feet grossly extended. He stood on long, scaly toes, and each heel bore a deadly spur.
'Fabia Celebre,' Saltaja said. 'Daughter of the doge of Celebre and future wife of Cutrath Horoldson. Where is he?'
'Don't grovel. Up!' croaked the monster. 'Pretty!' Beaming toothlessly, he touched Fabia's cheek with a talon just to see her flinch. 'Celebre, you said? Well! Holy Cienu is playing tricks again! Right, Leorth?' Cackling, he swung his head around to peer across the room.
Fabia had vaguely registered the other man as slumped on a stool and gazing out a window. Now he looked around, casually. He was a young Werist, his sash a flank-leader's blue. 'It would seem so, my lord.' Still taking his time, he rose, stretched, and only then began to stroll over.
'Where is Horoldson?' Saltaja repeated.
'The maggot? You want to see?' Therek demanded of Fabia. 'I'll show you where. Here.' Gripping her arm in scaly fingers, he moved her around the room toward an easterly window. Smiling, Leorth stepped aside to let them past, but not quite far enough, as if he intended to rub against her. She managed to avoid him, squirming in the satrap's harsh grasp.
The tower room stood high above the sawtooth roofs of the town, looking out over rolling, snowy moors, painfully bright under an indigo sky. To the northwest they opened up to display the winding Wrogg and its endless plains, with faraway storms as lines of white froth on the landscape.
'There, child, up there?' Therek cackled again, pointing east. 'No, you can't see Nardalborg from here. Even I can't see Nardalborg from here. But that's where he is, behind those hills. If it wasn't for the hills, I could see Halfway Hall. You couldn't. That's where your dear betrothed was last night, or else he froze to death.' He uttered his absurd laugh again. 'I couldn't see him, not even me. I saw a mammoth this morning.'
'Release her!' Shouldering Leorth aside, Saltaja strode over. 'Call the boy back here. I want to see the girl married and bedded before they leave.'
'No time.' Her brother tossed his nightmare head and stalked away.
Saltaja was smoldering dangerously. 'Very well. We'll leave first thing in the morning—you, me, your Witness, the girl—'
