The Obsidian Oracle

EIGHT THE BEAR

As the skiff crept around the craggy point, an unexpected wisp of dank air wafted over Agis’s face. In the blackness of the night, it took him a moment to locate the source of the breeze: the gaping mouth of a grotto, less than a dozen yards away.

The cave opened into the base of a rugged peninsula, a stony bluff that rose straight out of the Sea of Silt. From Agis’s perspective, its sheer cliffs appeared to stretch clear to the sky, but the noble knew better. Earlier that night, as Kester had poled the skiff across the dark bay, he had seen a ring of lofty ramparts crowning the summit. The walls stood twice as tall as a giant, with flying turrets at every bend and jagged crenellations capping the entire length.

Agis motioned toward the shadowy cavern. “This one looks small enough,” he whispered. “Let’s see where it goes.”

Nymos raised his narrow snout and sniffed at the draft, then a shudder ran down the entire length of his serpentine neck. “That wouldn’t be wise,” he said. “There’s a dreadful odor inside.”

“What’s it comin’ from?” demanded Kester, using her plunging pole to hold the skiff motionless.

“I’m not sure,” replied the jozhal. “But it’s foul and savage. There’s no other way to describe it.”

“Whatever it is, I doubt it’s any more savage than her,” said Tithian, looking up from his duties as floater.

The king pointed at a low isthmus curving out from the forested hills of Lybdos to connect with the rugged peninsula beneath which they hid. Directly behind the rocky neck, Ral’s golden disk hovered low on the horizon, silhouetting a chameleon-headed Saram against its golden moonlight. She paced along the treacherous crest with great care, studying the placement of each step before taking it.

“The less time we give her to spot us, the better,” Tithian said. “Go into the cave.”

“Let’s try another,” insisted Nymos. “Mag’r said the peninsula is honeycombed with grottoes.”

“That may be, but it could take us all night to find the passage we need,” countered Tithian. “We don’t have time to look for a cave you think smells nice.”

“I agree,” said Agis.

“You see, we can work together,” said Tithian.

“Agreeing is not trusting,” warned the noble, his hand brushing a coil of giant-hair rope that hung from his belt. As soon as Tithian’s freedom was no longer necessary to the company’s safety, he would use that rope to bind the king-and this time, there would be a choke loop to tighten at the first sign of trouble.

Tithian smiled at the noble’s gesture, then said, “But you must admit, it won’t be easy to find another cavern like this. It’s big enough to hide our skiff, yet small enough to keep giants away from it while we’re gone.”

“What does that matter?” objected Nymos. “This plan is ludicrous. It’ll never work.”

“Don’t ye start with that again,” growled Kester, pushing the skiff forward. “Sit down and spare us yer ranting.”

They were all familiar with the jozhal’s objections to the plan Tithian and Mag’r had worked out. Upon hearing that the Saram citadel sat upon a peninsula riddled with grottoes, and that caves opened both inside and outside the castle, the king had suggested they might sneak inside through a subterranean passage. Nymos had immediately pointed out that even giants were smart enough to seal off such a connection. Tithian had shrugged the reptile off, assuring him-and the others-that he could break any Saram seal and rescue the Oracle.

Mag’r had liked the idea, except that he wanted the companions to open the castle gates for his warriors so that they could rescue the Oracle. To make sure Tithian and the others kept their part of the bargain, the sachem had threatened to sink the Shadow Viper if the gates were not opened when he attacked at dawn.

As the skiff slipped into the grotto, it grew so dark that Agis could not see the bow of the craft, much less anything that lay beyond. Still, he did not kindle a torch, fearing that its flickering light would spill out of the cave mouth and draw the sentry’s attention to them. Instead, the noble borrowed Nymos’s cane and knelt on the forward deck. He swung the small rod slowly back and forth, searching for obstacles in front of the ship and softly tapping the walls to keep track of them.

They continued in this manner for many minutes before a low rumble shook the cavern, stirring up a choking cloud of silt. So deep and muffled was the sound that Agis felt it in the pit of his stomach more than he heard it.

“Far enough!” hissed Nymos. His twitching tail thumped softly against the skiff’s gunnels.

Kester stopped the boat, and Agis peered back toward the cavern exit. The noble saw nothing but deep, profound darkness. “Perhaps we’re in far enough to light a torch,” Agis suggested.

The others agreed. Nymos fumbled about in the bottom of the boat for a moment, then passed a rancid smelling torch forward.

“What about fire?” asked the noble.

“Allow me,” said Tithian. The king rummaged around in his satchel, then said, “Kester, strike this stake over this plate.”

The noble heard what sounded like a stick being drawn over a rock wall, then the acrid stench of brimstone filled his nose, and a white sparkle of light momentarily blinded him. When his vision returned to normal, he held a burning brand. In the bottom of the boat lay the greasy skin from which the torch oil had come, while Kester held a slate of white pumice and a blackened stick in her hands.

Nymos snatched the implements from the tarek’s hands and sniffed them with his twitching nose. “Magic?” he asked, his tone covetous.

“Hardly,” replied Tithian. “A simple bard’s trick.”

Kester retrieved her plunging pole from across the beam. “Magic or not, light is light,” she said. “Now we can go on.”

The tarek pushed on.

By the light of the torch in his hand, Agis saw that a stain of milky white calcium coated the ceiling of the grotto. Slender gray stalactites pierced the veneer in a hundred places. The tips of the pendant spears had snapped off at a height half again that of a man, leaving the ends sharp and jagged. The breakage puzzled the noble, but even after studying the formations carefully, he could not determine what had caused it.

As the company passed deeper into the gloom, the calcium stain began to cover the cavern sides as well as the ceiling, until the whole passage was coated in milky white. At regular intervals, the skiff passed limestone curtains flowing out of wall fissures, or shelf formations covered with knobby constellations of dripstone. Like the stalactites, many of these were scraped and broken, as if something just barely small enough to fit occasionally passed through the tunnel.

“The odor’s getting stronger,” Nymos warned. “Can’t you smell it?”

Agis sniffed the breeze, but smelled only stale air and the acrid stench of burning torch oil.

“It’s just a rotting animal,” Kester said, her nostrils flaring. “Nothing to worry about.”

In spite of the tarek’s reassurances, the noble drew his sword. The passage meandered back and forth, growing larger and less cramped with each turn, until the noble could not have touched his blade to either wall. At the same time, the milky ceiling sloped gradually upward, and the stalactites were broken nearer and nearer to their tips. The skiff’s hull scraped over several buried obstacles, and the caps of broken stalagmites started to jut from the dust bed.

Agis was beginning to fear that the skiff would go no farther when the cave intersected another passage, this one so large that his torch did not illuminate the ceiling or far wall. The floor, which sloped upward from their tunnel, was littered with broken stalagmites, weathered ship timbers, and graying skeletons-both beast and human.

“We’d better take a closer look at this,” Agis said. He raised his hand, and Kester stopped the skiff just a couple of yards shy of the larger cavern’s entrance. “Is the channel too deep for me to wade?”

The tarek eyed the length of plunging pole still showing above the silt. “It’s possible,” she said. “But I wouldn’t fancy stepping into a hole.”

Agis sat down on the bow, preparing to slip into the silt channel, and suddenly found himself gagging for breath. A thick, rancid odor filled the passage, so insufferable that it made his knees tremble with nausea.

The noble felt an eerie shiver at the base of his skull, and his entire body began to tingle with spiritual energy. The torch flame flared brilliant white, then abruptly turned black, plunging the companions into darkness. Had it not been for the soft hiss of burning oil, Agis would have assumed the fire had died away. But he could feel its heat against his skin, and, instead of tossing the stick back into the boat, he had to hold the useless thing in his hand.

“Light, Nymos!” said Kester, her alarmed voice echoing off the cavern walls. “Everything’s gone dark.”

Nymos’s claws ticked nervously, and he uttered the incantation of a spell.

“What’re ye waiting for?” growled Kester.

“Agis’s sword isn’t glowing?” the jozhal asked.

“No,” reported Agis. “We’re fighting the Way, not sorcery.”

“I feel it, too,” said Tithian. “And the skiff dome is crackling with energy.”

A deafening growl rumbled out of the larger passage, so sonorous and low that it made the skiff tremble beneath the noble’s feet. A wicked presence, as black as the torch flame and just as scorching, tore into Agis’s mind. The invader rampaged through his thoughts, attacking from behind its mask of darkness. In its wake, it left nothing except searing anguish and unnatural fear, a fear such as he could not remember feeling before.

Agis tried to form an image of the crimson sun, determined to expose his attacker. The red disk had barely formed when a huge black claw rose from the murk and swatted it away, plunging the noble’s mind back into darkness.

Nymos shrieked in terror, as did Kester, and even Tithian let a groan escape his lips. Their reactions did not concern Agis so much as amaze him. He had never faced a mental onslaught of such raw power and could not imagine an attacker strong enough to press four such assaults at once.

A loud scrape sounded ahead as something huge forced its way into their small cavern. From the grating rasps that shuddered down both walls, it seemed to Agis the thing filled the passage from one side to the other. The noble tried to lift his sword and found that his arm would not obey his wishes.

“Push us back,” Agis said. “I could use a little distance.”

The skiff lurched into motion. It moved a few yards to the rear, then suddenly stopped.

“Kester?” Agis asked.

No answer came.

“I think the tarek is paralyzed with fear,” Tithian said. “This thing must be powerful.”

A loud snort whooshed through the cavern, sending a rancid wind washing over Agis’s face. The scraping ahead grew louder and deeper, while the muffled clatter of claws on stone rose from beneath the dust.

Agis called, “Everyone, imagine my sword glowing inside your minds. We all have to fight, or this thing will beat us.”

As the creature clawed its way toward him, the noble followed his own instructions. For a moment, the blackness in his mind seemed to grow thicker in response, and he could do no better than to visualize the faint gray outline of his blade. Then, as the others joined in, the beast was not strong enough to keep them all plunged into darkness. The noble’s sword, both inside his mind and outside it, illuminated the grotto in glorious white light.

Still, Agis could not concentrate on the cavern around him. Now that the neatly ordered halls of his mind were illuminated, he saw the reason for his paralysis. On the bloody floor of a corridor lay his body-or at least he thought it was his body. The corpse had been terribly mauled, so that the noble could recognize it only by his long black hair and the Asticles sword clutched in one bloody fist, now glowing with Nymos’s light spell.

From the gasps of his companions, the noble could tell that each had found a similar image inside his own mind.

“See yourselves standing,” Agis said, still fighting to keep the sword lit in his mind. “We’ve tired the beast, and now we can defeat it-but we must work together!”

A throaty growl rumbled through the cavern. A heavy paw slapped at the skiff’s bow, filling the passage with silt as it fell just a few feet short of its target. The foot sank into the dust with an ominous silence, then a loud scraping sound once again filled the passage as the beast dragged itself forward.

Agis focused his thoughts inside his mind, bracing his mutilated corpse to rise. The clawed foot of a beast materialized out of the ceiling and stamped down on his chest, pressing him back to the floor. He hacked at the leg with his glowing sword, showering himself with hot blood as he cut through ropy tendons and arteries.

Still, the foot did not move.

The noble stopped attacking and spread his arms out to his sides. He visualized his body changing into a spring-loaded leg trap, such as those used by slave trackers, lirr hunters, and others who preferred to catch their quarry without fighting it face to face. A surge of spiritual energy rose from within himself, then his arms became the jaws of the trap. They sprang up and clamped their sharp teeth into the massive leg that had pinned him to the ground.

The claw jerked back, but Agis’s trap held fast. The paw twisted and pulled in every possible direction, tearing the flesh away until raw bone lay exposed on all sides. The thing continued to struggle for a few moments, until it became apparent the foot could not be freed.

The leg fell abruptly motionless, and the wounds on Agis’s corpse began to heal. The terrible weight on his chest slowly eased, and the paw faded from his mind.

“I’m free!” Tithian reported.

“Me too,” Agis replied.

As the noble spoke, the torch in his hand returned to its normal color, lighting the cavern in flickering yellow. Agis’s sword, too, was glowing with the white light of the spell Nymos had cast on it earlier.

The noble shook his head clear, then raised his eyes to the creature that had so nearly used the Way to kill them. When he saw what had crawled into the passage after them, Agis almost wished that the passage had remained dark. He was staring at a fanged behemoth with a black nose the size of his own head and a squarish snout longer than the skiff’s bow. The beast’s enormous jaws hung parted in exhaustion, the tip of a scarlet tongue just showing from between its lips, streams of drool running off the flews of its mouth. At the other end of the muzzle was a pair of tiny, fatigued eyes, set into a round, thick-boned skull covered by brown fur. Atop the head sat a pair of perky round ears, eerily gentle in their juxtaposition to the rest of the fearsome mien.

The rest of the creature was even more horrifying than its head. Long tufts of brown fur rose from the joints of the articulated shell that covered its entire body. Its bulky shoulders touched the passage walls on both sides, its belly rested on the stalagmites in the dust bed, and the ridge of its spine pressed against the ceiling.

“Ral protect us!” gasped Kester. “A bear!”

Shaking the cavern with a great roar, the beast pulled itself forward and raised a massive paw out of the dust bed. Agis dropped his torch and leaped off the deck, bringing his glowing blade down in a wild slash. The bear’s paw came down behind him, splintering the skiff with a single crunching blow.

With the terrified screams of his companions echoing in his ears, Agis sliced his blade across the black tip of the bear’s snout. He saw a deep gash open in both nostrils, then felt his feet plunging into the dust. A gray cloud rose up to engulf him, and the beast roared again.

Agis’s ankle scraped down the side of a submerged stalagmite, sending sharp pain up his leg as it turned against the joint. Fearful of sinking past his head, the noble grasped at the rocky column with his free arm. He tried to inhale, and it seemed that he took in as much dust as air. Coughing violently, he swung his sword at the bear’s gullet. The blade clanged off the beast’s throat armor without penetrating.

“Kester, help!” Agis croaked.

No answer came.

“Nymos?”

The bear opened its maw and lowered its dripping mouth toward Agis’s head. He tried to fight it off with his sword, but the blade did no more than chip the thing’s yellow fangs. Wheezing down what he feared might be his last breath, the noble pinched his eyes shut, let his knees fold, and dropped into the dust. He pushed himself blindly forward, grasping at a stalagmite’s smooth stone with his free hand and kicking at the slippery floor with his feet.

With a ferocious snort, the bear thrust its huge maw after him. Agis felt a swell of displaced silt surge over his body, then a sharp tooth scraped along his ankle. He jerked the limb free, kicking madly with the other leg. His foot found purchase on the beast’s snout and sent him forward. The muffled scrape of tooth on stone rumbled through the dust, followed by the muted crack of a stalagmite being snapped off at the root.

Agis pushed himself another step forward and rose. His nose barely cleared the dust before the crown of his head touched the bony armor covering the bear’s underside. As soon as he opened his eyes, they were coated with silt and began to burn horribly, but he could still see well enough to make out what was happening around him. He turned to find a pair of bleeding nostrils sniffing at the dust where he had been standing a moment earlier. Beyond the beast’s muzzle lay a few shards of the shattered skiff that had gotten hung up on a stalagmite and failed to sink. The smashed bow had been ignited by the torch he had dropped earlier. By the light of its burning wood, he saw part of Nymos’s striped tail curled around the top of a stalagmite. The noble did not see any sign of Kester or Tithian.

A knot of remorse formed in the noble’s stomach. If the tarek had died, he would miss her. Even the thought of returning to Tyr without his prisoner sickened him. Assuming he managed to find the king’s body, it would be a poor substitute for the public trial he had promised to Neeva and the dwarves.

Determined to accomplish at least that much, Agis shuffled forward as fast as he dared. He moved his feet cautiously along the floor, feeling his way around sinkholes and submerged stalagmites, trying not to draw the bear’s attention back to himself. When he reached the shoulders, he took a deep breath and plunged the tip of his sword into the creature’s armpit, pushing upward with all his strength.

The blade sank to the hilt, and hot blood poured down Agis’s arm. The bear bellowed in fury and wrenched its head around, snapping at its attacker with slavering jaws. The noble ducked beneath the maw and, fearing the dying beast would collapse on top of him, dived forward. The bear’s paw sliced through the silt after him.

It caught Agis just as he passed the base of a thick stalagmite. The stone pillar snapped with a muffled thud, then the noble’s body erupted into pain, and his mouth opened to scream. He found himself choking as silt poured down his air passage. In the next instant, the bear’s paw lifted Agis out of the dust, flinging both him and the broken stalagmite across the cavern.

Agis crashed into the wall, then dropped back into the dust and sank like a stone. Fighting back black waves of unconsciousness, the noble tried to push himself upright. His feet slipped into a sinkhole, and he lashed out with his arms, hoping to catch hold of another stalagmite.

Instead, he found a burly leg. A pair of powerful hands slipped under his arms, then he was pulled out of the dust and spun around in one quick motion. Agis found himself grasped securely in the burly arms of a tarek, his back to her brawny chest and two large fists clasped together over his abdomen.

“Kester!” The name did not escape his lips, for his lungs were burning from the lack of air, and his throat was clogged with silt.

The tarek pulled the heels of her hands into the pit of Agis’s stomach, at the same time bearing down on his torso and sending bolts of agonizing pain through his battered ribs. The last few breaths of air in his chest rushed out of his mouth, carrying along the silt that had been obstructing his air passages. The noble coughed several times, wracking his body with more pain, before the breath returned to his lungs. With it came the terrible pain of the three deep gashes that the bear’s claws had opened along the side of his body. Agis could only imagine what would have happened to him if the beast had not been forced to tear a stalagmite out by its roots to reach him.

Once Kester allowed Agis to return to his own feet, he realized that he had been knocked a short distance down the passage. By the dim glow of the burning bow, he saw the bear’s huge silhouette a few yards away. The beast had collapsed on its stomach, its lifeless muzzle buried beneath the dust and its immense bulk blocking the exit to their small passage. So completely did the creature fill the grotto that only a few feet remained between its back and the ceiling.

“Sorry to let ye do all the fighting,” Kester said. Beneath the silt, her hand was still on the noble’s elbow. “But by the time I got myself out of the silt and cleared my lungs, ye were under the damned beast, and I didn’t want to startle it.”

“It was a remarkable battle,” said Tithian, moving into the light of the burning bow. The king, shorter than either Agis or Kester, barely managed to hold his chin above the silt.

“Where were you hiding during the fight?” Agis demanded. He winced as a fresh bolt of pain flashed through his body. “A little magic might have been helpful.”

“And interfere with such an artful display? Never,” Tithian replied. “I saw Rikus kill a half-dozen bears during his time in the arena, and not one of those kills was as clean as yours.”

Agis narrowed his eyes, but he saw no point in commenting on the king’s cowardice. Instead, he said, “Let’s get Nymos and go.”

“We can go,” said Tithian. “But there isn’t much of Nymos to take along.”

“What do you mean?” Agis asked.

Kester’s eyes grew sad, and she shook her head. “The bear’s first blow took us amidships, right where he was sitting.”

“If you want to bring him along, you’ll have to collect the pieces first,” Tithian added. He moved past the noble and picked the jozhal’s tail off the other side of a stalagmite, then offered it to Agis. “Personally, I don’t think it’s worth the time.”

“Let’s hope the dwarves are as kind to you as the bear was to Nymos,” Agis spat. The noble slapped Tithian’s hand away and turned to see if he could climb over the bear’s corpse.

It was then that he saw two huge eyes in the shadows between the bear’s spine and the cavern ceiling. “I’m afraid we have company,” the noble whispered. Of its own accord, his free hand dropped to his empty scabbard.

“So I see,” said Tithian. He was already reaching for his enchanted satchel.

Kester grabbed the plunging pole and stepped forward. “Mind yer own business, beasty!” she growled, thrusting the tip into the gap.

The eyes vanished, then a mighty groan rumbled through the cavern, and the bear’s carcass started to slide back into the larger passage, filling the air with billowing clouds of dust.

“Bad men!” growled a familiar voice. “Kill bear!”

The jaws of the three colleagues fell open, then Agis cried, “Fylo? Is that you?”

The bear stopped moving. “Me Fylo,” came the muffled reply. “So?”

“Do you know who this is?” Agis called.

“Bear killers,” the giant returned, again tugging on the bear. “Fylo take you and throw you into Bay of Woe.”

“This is your friend, Agis.”

The pink-gleaming eyes appeared in the gap beneath the ceiling. “Agis? What you doing here?”

“Don’t answer that,” Tithian whispered, pulling a glass rod from his satchel.

Fylo’s eyes darted to the king’s form, then they narrowed angrily. “Tithian!”

The eyes disappeared. An instant later, a long arm shot over the bear’s back and tried to pluck Tithian from the dust channel. Kester quickly raised a dagger and jabbed it into a huge fingertip. Fylo’s muffled voice uttered an angry curse, then he pulled his hand away.

“You and I are supposed to be friends, Fylo!” Agis yelled. “Is this how friends treat each other?”

“Good,” Tithian murmured, fingering the glass rod in his hands. “Draw him out. All I need is one chance.”

Agis pushed the king’s hand down. “No.”

“Tithian not friend,” Fylo said, peering back over the bear. He had pulled the carcass far enough into the larger cavern so that he could push his entire head into the gap, albeit sideways. “And maybe Agis not friend, either. Why kill Fylo’s bear?” The giant’s cavernous nostrils twitched as he sniveled in remorse.

“If you’re my friend, why did you let your bear attack me?” Agis countered.

Fylo furrowed his sloped brow, then said, “Fylo didn’t know it was Agis.”

“And we didn’t know it was your bear,” Agis replied. “We were just minding our own business when it attacked. We had no choice except to defend ourselves.”

Fylo considered this for a moment, then said, “You invade bear’s den. Him just defending home.” The giant frowned and began to withdraw.

Before the giant’s face disappeared entirely, Kester quickly asked, “What are ye doing living with a bear, anyway?”

Fylo pushed his head forward again. This time, there was a proud smile on his lips. “Fylo becoming Saram-Bawan Nal’s own clan,” he explained. “But first, Fylo need new head-big one, since him full grown. So Fylo make friends with bear, ask him to trade heads.” As the giant came to this last part, a sad frown crept across his lips, then he groaned, “But now bear dead. Fylo not join Saram. Him have nowhere to go-again.”

The giant slumped down on the other side of the bear and fell silent.

Tithian came to Agis’s side. “We don’t have time for this,” he whispered, holding his glass rod up. “Get that dimwit to show himself again. I’ll take care of him so we can get on with our business.”

“I know you’ll find this hard to believe,” said Agis, “but I don’t betray my friends.”

Tithian shook his head in disbelief. “Pardon me,” he sneered. “I didn’t realize your taste in friends had become so bad-though I suppose I should have, given your penchant for the company of ex-slaves and dwarves.”

“I find it preferable to that of kings,” the noble replied coldly.

Tithian’s eyes flashed in anger. “That’s your choice, I suppose,” he said. “But if you’re not going to kill this dimwit, at least get rid of him so we can get on with our business.”

“I don’t think that would be wise,” said Agis. “In fact, I think it would be better if I talked with him for a while. Otherwise, he may decide that it’s his duty to report us to the Saram.”

“Which is why you should let me kill him!” whispered the king.

Ignoring the king, Agis waded forward and grabbed the bear’s ear, then used it to help him climb onto its shoulders. The effort sent daggers of pain shooting through his ribs, and blood began to ooze from the dust-caked wounds on his torso.

“Fylo, I’m sorry about killing your bear,” the noble said. In the flickering firelight spilling through the gap from the burning bow, the noble could barely make out the giant’s bulging eyes. “Is there anything we can do to make up the loss to you?”

The giant glumly shook his head. “No.”

“If you take the bear back to the castle later, maybe you can still trade heads with it,” he suggested.

Fylo looked up. “Bear too heavy for Fylo to carry.”

Tithian suddenly stepped over to the bear’s head. “Maybe I can help,” he said. “With my magic, I can lift it for you. It would be difficult, but I could do it-if you showed us the way through these caves and into the castle.”

The giant looked at the king as though he were mad. “Fylo can’t do that,” he said, shaking his head. “Caves don’t go into castle. They go down, under Bay of Woe.”

“What?” demanded Kester. “We heard there were caves inside the castle!”

The giant nodded. “Yes. Magic caves,” he said. “Very pretty, in different kinds of rock-not like these caves.”

“That’s it, then,” the tarek groaned. “We’ll never get my ship back.”

Agis breathed a silent sigh of relief. The noble wanted to get inside the citadel as much as Kester and the king, but he would not use his friend to achieve that goal. If Fylo helped them get inside and the Saram found out about it, the giant would certainly meet an unpleasant end.

Tithian kept his eyes fixed on the giant, then said, “That’s no trouble, Fylo. I don’t need to take the bear through the caves.”

“Don’t, Tithian,” Agis said. “I won’t allow it.”

The king smiled up at him. “Won’t allow what, Agis?” he asked. “All I’m saying is that I can take Fylo’s bear into the castle through the gate.”

“Really?” the giant asked, a hopeful light in his eyes.

“Yes,” the king replied.

The giant’s expression changed from hopeful to sad. He shook his head sadly, then said, “Bawan Nal say bear must volunteer to trade heads. If bear dead, him can’t volunteer.”

“Are you saying Nal expects you to lead a live bear into his castle?” asked Tithian, climbing up the beast’s snout to join Agis. He took a seat on the other shoulder blade. Kester remained below, shuffling through the silt in search of the valuable floater’s dome.

Fylo nodded. “Yes. Him say bear must come by itself.”

“And then what happens?” inquired the king.

“Magic. They cut bear’s head off, then they cut my head off, and we change,” said the giant. He lifted his chin proudly, then he added, “After that, Fylo beasthead.”

“I see,” said Tithian. “And you’ve seen this ceremony performed? You’ve actually seen a Saram let Nal chop his head off?”

Fylo frowned. “No.”

“So you haven’t seen him replace it with a beast’s head, either?” the king asked.

The giant shook his head. “No, not yet.”

“But of course you’re going to,” Tithian said. “I mean, before you let him chop your own head off.”

Fylo looked concerned. “Why you ask?”

“Don’t pay any attention to him, Fylo,” said Agis, disgusted by Tithian’s efficiency in planting such cruel doubts in the giant’s head. “All you have to do is find another bear, and I’m sure everything will be all right with the Saram.”

“Yes, I’m sure it will,” said Tithian, nodding a bit too eagerly. He looked at Agis, then said, “You know me. Always ready to think the worst-but if I were going to change my head for that of a beast, I’d want to see the ceremony performed on someone else first.”

“You think Bawan Nal tricking Fylo?” the giant roared.

“Don’t listen to him, Fylo,” Agis said, grabbing the king by the collar. “He’s trying to take advantage of you-”

“Not at all,” objected Tithian, patiently disengaging himself from the noble’s grasp. “I’m just trying to protect our friend. If I were Nal, I’d want to convince everyone that Fylo, as big and brave as he is, isn’t smart enough to be king. I’d make sure they knew it by playing a cruel joke-”

The word joke had hardly even left the king’s mouth before Fylo rolled onto his knees and, bellowing in rage, gave the bear an angry shove. Agis and Tithian threw themselves flat, clutching at its bony armor to keep from being scraped off its back.

“Fylo!” yelled Agis. “Stop!”

“No!” thundered the giant. He rolled away from the carcass and started to crawl into the larger cavern. “Fylo mad! Been tricked enough. Go kill Nal!”

“You can’t do that!” called Tithian. “He’s inside his castle-and he has too many warriors!”

“Not stop Fylo!” he shouted over his shoulder. “Fylo too strong and brave. Him chase Nal out of castle.”

As the giant disappeared into the darkness, the clatter of shifting rocks echoed through the huge cavern, punctuated by the occasional snap of one of the bones or timbers littering the floor of the chamber.

“See what you’ve done?” Agis growled, crawling toward the bear’s rear quarters. “You should have let me handle this my way-without lying or playing off his fears.”

“How was I to know he’d go mad?” countered the king. “Besides, can you be sure I’m wrong about Nal?”

The noble did not answer. Instead, he slid down the bear’s backside and onto the floor of the larger cavern. The silt here was no more than waist deep, though the sloping floor beneath seemed much more broken than had the one in the smaller passage.

“Fylo, wait!” Agis yelled, his voice echoing through the huge chamber. “How do you know Nal is tricking you?”

“Everybody always tease Fylo,” came the reply, well ahead and to the noble’s left.

“Not me,” Agis called, wading after the giant. He stumbled on a submerged rock, but caught himself before he fell. “I’ve always been honest with you, haven’t I?”

The echo of clattering stones fell silent, suggesting the giant had stopped crawling. “That true,” said Fylo. “You never play joke on Fylo.”

“Then maybe Nal isn’t, either,” said the noble. “If you attack him, you might be hurting someone who really is your friend. You won’t know until you test him.”

A timber cracked as the giant turned around. “Test?” he called. “How?”

“Perhaps Tithian and I can make the bear look like it’s still alive,” Agis said. “We can take it into the castle.”

“What for?” the giant asked.

“We’ll see how Nal reacts to seeing you and the bear,” Agis explained. “If he isn’t surprised at your return and prepares the ceremony, we’ll know he was telling the truth about changing heads.”

“Nal get mad when him see bear is dead,” Fylo objected.

“No,” Agis replied. “I’ll be very close to you. When I know Nal wasn’t tricking you, I’ll tell you a secret about the Joorsh that will make him happy with you-just like I did when I told you about the Balican fleet.”

If he had to keep this promise, the noble would harbor no guilty feelings about betraying Mag’r’s plan. Because he and his companions had agreed to go along with the sachem’s plan only under the threat of the direst consequences, Agis did not feel honor-bound to do as the giant demanded.

“That good,” said Fylo. “But even if you make him happy, Bawan Nal still kill you and your friends. Him not like little people on Lybdos.”

“Thanks for worrying about our safety,” Agis replied. “But after you tell Bawan Nal the secret, you aren’t responsible for what he does. That’s between him and us.”

“If Agis want,” Fylo agreed. “But what if Nal playing trick on Fylo-like Tithian say?”

“That will be even better,” Agis said. “Then the joke will be on him.”