The two floating lords returned their attention to Ambius.
“You have not taken advantage of our offer of surrender,” said the Basileopater. “We shall therefore commence the entertainment at once.”
At that instant, an ice-blue bolt descended from the sky, aimed directly at Ambius. Without indication of surprise, Ambius raised an arm to display an ideograph graven on an ornate bracelet, and the bolt was deflected into the ground near Vespanus. Vespanus was thrown fifteen feet and landed in an indignified manner, but otherwise suffered no injury. He jumped to his feet, brushed muck from his robes, and directed a look of fury at the two placid lords.
“I note only for the record,” said Ambius, “that it was you who accused me of treachery, but were the first to employ it. I also remark that the employment of an aerial assassin, equipped with Aetherial Boots and a Spell of Azure Curtailment, is scarcely unanticipated.”
The Exarch scowled. “Farewell,” he said. “I trust we shall have no more occasion to speak.”
“I agree that further negotiations would be redundant,” said Ambius.
The illusory sphere brightened again, more brilliant than the old Earth’s dull red sun, and then vanished completely. Ambius searched the sky for a moment, perhaps in anticipation of another flying assassin, then shrugged and walked toward the Onyx Tower. Vespanus scrambled after, anxious to retrieve his lost dignity…
“I hope you are not offended,” he said, “that I attempted to remove myself from the scene of conflict.”
Ambius gave him a cursory glance.
“In our decayed and dying world,” he said, “no one can be expected to act with any motive other than self-interest.”
“You analyze my motives correctly,” said Vespanus. “My interest is in remaining alive—and in repaying those two dolts for their dismissal of me. Therefore I shall throw myself immediately into the defense of the fortress.”
“I await your contribution with breathless anticipation,” Ambius said, and the two ascended the tower.
No further attacks took place that day. Through the tower’s windows, which had the power of adjustment, so that they could view a subject from close range or far away, Ambius and Vespanus watched the two armies as they deployed into their camps. No enemy soldier approached within range of the castle, and, in fact, most seemed to remain out of sight, behind the crests and pinnacles of nearby ridges. Vespanus spent the afternoon trying to cram useful spells into his brain, but found that most were far beyond his art.
As the great bloated sun drifted toward its union with the western horizon, and as the first stars of the Leucomorph began to glimmer faintly in the somber east, Vespanus opened the compartment on his bezeled thumb-ring and summoned his madling, Hegadil.
Hegadil appeared as a dwarfish version of Ambius, clad in the same extravagant blue armor, with a round, vapid face gazing out from beneath the crested helm. Vespanus apologized at once.
“Hegadil has a tendency toward inappropriate satire,” he concluded.
“In fact,” Ambius said, “I had no idea the armor looked to well on me.” He looked at the creature with a critical aspect. “Do you send him to fight the enemy?”
“Hegadil is not a warlike creature,” Vespanus said. “His specialties are construction, and, of course, its obverse, demolition.”
“But if the army is guarded by sorcery…?”
“Hegadil willl not attack the army itself,” said Vespanus, “but rather its immediate environment.”
“I shall look forward to a demonstration,” Ambius said.
Vespanus first sent Hegadil on a whirlwind tour of the enemy camps, and within an hour the madling—reappearing as a caricature of the Basileopater of Pex, a tiny white-haired man dwarfed by his voluminous robes with their blazons and quarterings—gave a complete report as to the enemy’s numbers and deployment. Both armies proved to be larger than Ambius had suspected, and it was with a doomed, distracted air that he suggested Hegadil’s next errand.
Thus it was that, shortly after midnight, a peak overhanging part of the Exarch’s army, having been completely undermined, gave way and buried several companies beneath a landslide. The army leapt to arms and let fly in all directions, a truly spectacular exhibition of firepower that put to shame the morning’s demonstration by the castle defenders.
At the alarm, the army of Pex likewise stood to its arms, though in silence until, a few hours later, a bank of the river gave way and precipitated a part of the baggage train into the ice-laden river, along with all the memrils that had drawn the supplies up the trail. Then the camp of Pex, too, fell into disorder, as soldiers tried to get themselves and their remaining supplies as far from the river as possible. Scores got lost in the dark and fell into hidden ditches and canyons, and some into the river itself.
Pleased with the results, Vespanus complimented Hegadil and promised him three months off his indenture.
In the morning, the besiegers attempted revenge, the armies’ spellcasters hurling one deadly spell after another at the castle. The air was filled with hoops of fire, with viridian rays, with scarlet needles, and with the thunder of prismatic wings. All was without effect.
“Countercharms are woven into the very fabric of this place,” Ambius said with great satisfaction, and then—thinking doubtless of Hegadil and others like him—added, “and into the rock on which it stands.”
Hegadil’s next nightly excursion was less profitable. The enemy were encamped with more care, and magical alarms placed in vulnerable areas that would alert enemy sorcerers to Hegadil’s arrival. The madling managed to brain a few sentries with rocks spirited from out of time and dropped from above, but on the whole, the evening’s venture had to be scored a failure. It was with a dispirited tread that Vespanus took himself to his quarters for a rest.
He awoke mid-afternoon, broke his fast, and joined Ambius in the Onyx Tower. There he found the Protostrator talking to a green twk-man, even smaller than the miniaturized wife in Ambius’ quarters, who had flown to the castle on a dragonfly.
“My friend brings news that an army from Pex has come to attack the castle,” Ambius reported.
“The news seems somewhat delayed.”
“It came as soon as the dragonfly permitted,” Ambius said. “Insects do not fare well at altitude, and in a chilly spring.”
“I should like to have salt now,” said the twk-man, in a firm voice.
Ambius provided the necessary nourishment.
“In summer,” he said, “there are never less than a dozen twk-men here at any one time. I see to their needs, and they provide perfect intelligence of the movements of armies and traffic on the Dimwer.”
And, Vespanus thought, gossip about the voivodes of Escani and the Despoina of Chose.
“Our enemies seem to have anticipated this,” Vespanus said.
“True. They came ahead of the dragonflies and their news.”
“And behind me,” Vespanus muttered in anger.
Vespanus peered out of the tower’s windows and saw that the enemy deployments had not changed.
“They’re waiting for something,” Ambius said. “I wish I knew what it was.”
Vespanus stroked his unshaven chin. “The two lords are proud. Can we cause discord between them, do you think?”
“In this,” said Ambius, “lies our greatest hope.”
“Allow