‘A friend of your son’s,’ answered Miranda.
Galain leaned upon his bow and said, ‘I thought your name familiar.’
Tomas’s expression remained neutral. He motioned for Miranda to come away from the dais and led her over to a table, where several elves had placed refreshments. Motioning for a few members of the Queen’s court to attend, he said, ‘How is Calis?’
‘Disturbed,’ answered Miranda. ‘Has he told you his mad plan?’
By the fearful expression on Aglaranna’s face, she could see he had. Tomas nodded.
‘Well, for better or worse, I’m helping him.’ Then she shook her head. ‘Though how much good I’m doing is …’ She picked up a pear and bit into it, chewed, and swallowed. ‘Now, the snakes know someone with some talent was snooping around their army.’ She explained what had happened: her scouting the advancing army across the sea, the encounter with Ellia and the boys, her escape, and the final attack at the bank of the river.
After she was finished, Aglaranna said, ‘It was unlikely they’d think their mad campaign would escape the notice of those with power for long. It may be they think you one of any number of magicians or priests.’
Miranda nodded. ‘And they have no way of knowing where I am. The one who found me is in no condition to tell them. The others might suspect I’m here, but they won’t attempt to breech your defenses … yet.’
Tomas said, ‘We can speak more of these matters in the morning. You should rest. Night is almost upon us and you look fatigued.’
‘Oh, that’s what I am,’ agreed Miranda, ‘but by morning I plan on being a great distance from here. There is much to be done and little time in which to do it. I must seek out your son and confer with him, and next convince some otherwise reasonable men to agree to a most foolish and dangerous undertaking. Then I can be about other business. I hadn’t planned on coming here straight away, but now that I’m here, can you tell me something?’
‘What?’
‘Where I can find Pug?’
Tomas glanced at his wife and said, ‘We’ve not seen him for years. The last message I had from him was seven years ago. He said he was concerned over the reports my son brought back from his last voyage to Novindus. He had consulted with the Oracle of Aal, and …’
‘And what?’ prodded Miranda.
Tomas’s blue eyes regarded Miranda for a moment, as if measuring her. He said at last, ‘He said he feared that his own powers would be lacking in the coming battle and he needed to seek allies.’
Miranda smiled and there was nothing of humor in that smile. ‘His powers were lacking.’ She shook her head. ‘Who else on this world matches him in power, save you?’
‘Even my powers pale compared to what Pug can do if need be,’ answered Tomas. ‘My arts are set by my heritage, and are as they were at the end of the Riftwar, fifty years ago. But Pug, he studies and learns and masters new things yearly, and it may be no one since Macros the Black can approach his might.’
At the mention of Macros, Miranda made a sour expression. ‘Much of what is alleged about his prowess was based upon his listeners being gullible, by all reports.’
Tomas shook his head. ‘I have been places you could only imagine, woman. And I stood at Macros’s side in the Garden of the City Forever, and I saw the creation of this universe. He may have been a man given to overboasting at times, but not by any great margin, I will avow. His powers approached the gods’, and his skills would be welcome in the coming fray.’
Miranda said, ‘Still, by all reports the Black Sorcerer is fifty years vanished from his realm. So then, whom could Pug be seeking?’
Aglaranna said, ‘Find the where, and that may tell you who.’
Tomas said, ‘If he is not upon this world, then I suspect you must go to other worlds. Have you the arts?’
Miranda said, ‘If I don’t, I can find those to help me who do. But where to begin the search?’ She looked at Tomas. ‘Reputedly, you and Pug were as brothers. You would know where to begin the search.’
Tomas said, ‘I can think of only one place, but it is much as if I said search the sea for a particular fish. For the place to begin searching is as vast as any place in all the myriad possible universes.’
Miranda nodded, saying, ‘The Hall of Worlds.’
Tomas nodded, too. ‘The Hall of Worlds.’
Roo stirred.
He felt a hand on his leg, and in his sleepy state he brushed at it weakly. He felt it clamp down and suddenly he was wide awake.
An ugly face loomed over his, leering and grinning. ‘You’re an ugly sod, boy, but you’re young.’ It was the nervous man with affected speech of the day before who was now fondling Roo’s leg.
‘Ah!’ shouted Roo. ‘Keep away from me!’
The man laughed. ‘Just having a joke, me lad.’ He shivered. ‘Damn cell will give a man his death. Now shut up and go back to sleep, and we can both get warm.’ The man turned over, back to back with Roo, and closed his eyes.
The brute called Biggo, who had regained consciousness an hour after being tossed into the cell, said, ‘Don’t terrorize the lad, Slippery Tom. This is the death room. He’s too much on his mind to be thinkin’ of romance.’ His speech had the lilt of Kornachmen of Deep Taunton, rarely heard in the West.
Slippery Tom, ignoring the jape and the accompanying laughter, said, ‘It’s a cold morning, Biggo.’
Seeing Erik now awake, Biggo said, ‘He’s not a bad sort for a liar and murderer, is Slippery Tom; he’s just scared.’
Roo’s eyes widened. ‘Who isn’t?’ he said with a frantic note in his voice. He closed his eyes tight, as if to shut out everything by force of will.
Erik sat back against the unyielding stone wall. He knew Roo had spent a fitful night, awakening several times shouting in his sleep as he wrestled with personal demons. Erik glanced around the cell. Other men slept or sat quietly in their place as the night wore on. Erik knew that the bravado Roo had exhibited since awakening in the cell the day before had been some sort of madness: he couldn’t accept the inevitability of his own death.
Biggo said, ‘Spanking young bottoms is common enough in the prison gangs, but Slippery is just looking for someone warm to cozy up to, lad.’
Roo opened his eyes. ‘Well, he smells like something died in his shirt last week.’
Tom said, ‘And you don’t exactly remind me of flowers, youngster. Now shut up and go back to sleep.’
Biggo grinned, and his bearlike face looked nothing so much as that of an overgrown child, one with broken and crooked teeth. The beating administered by the guards the day before had done nothing to enhance his appearance; blue, purple, and red lumps decorated his visage. ‘I like to sleep cuddled with someone warm. Like me Elsmie. She was sweet.’ He sighed as he closed his eyes. ‘Too bad I’ll never see her again.’
‘You talk like we’re all going to be convicted,’ said Roo.
‘This is the death cell, me lad. You’re here because you’re going to be tried for your life, and not one in a hundred who has sat here lived two days past his trial. You think you got a way to beat the King’s justice, boyo?’ asked Biggo with a laugh. ‘Well, good on you if you do. But none here are babes, and we all knew what the deal was when we took to the dodgy path: “get caught, take your