"But now," the first encouraged him, "we know this is a road worth traveling. We know for certain that the foreign woman has not led us astray for some odd purpose of her own."

"True," the second replied, then added with some haste, "but then I never doubted her veracity and trustworthiness."

"Never!" the first agreed.

It seemed to Bold that they glanced around uncomfortably, especially at the door they had left blocked open behind them.

"We should be going in now," the first continued. "The thaumaturges will be eager to make another attempt."

"Indeed."

"Leave the door open or closed?"

"Close it for now. We could use the ventilation, but I'm not taking initiative. Tempers are too short."The sealing of the heavy door closed off any further sound, but Bold had already leapt into the air. A black arrow with glinting eyes, he swept from the heights, plummeting down with all possible speed.

Elation's dive was swifter still, and the peregrine banked at the crow's side.

"News?" she shrieked.

"Find the wolf-child!" Bold replied. "I'll be at the stables. How my wings hurt!"

But the falcon was already gone, and so the crow preserved his pride.

When Firekeeper heard Bold's report she didn't know whether to be elated or dismayed. True, the artifacts were found, but how was she to get to them? The spire in which the New Kelvinese were working was at the heart of the cl.u.s.ter.

Praising Bold, she went to find her comrades. Maybe they would have some solution to what seemed to her an insoluble puzzle.

When Firekeeper came panting up to him with her news, Derian arranged a meeting in Doc's consulting room. Hasamemorri had already shown herself vastly curious about the peculiar activities of her foreign tenants, hauling her tremendous bulk down the stairs on any excuse.

Usually Hasamemorri restricted her visits to the shared kitchen or to offering comfort to the patients in the infirmary. She was far too much in awe of Sir Jared to invade his consulting room without invitation or appointment.

Business was over for the day-barring an accident like the one that had done so much to spread the word of Doc's talent. The evening meal had also been finished-Wendee's preparations being of the sort that could not wait without being rained.

Happily, Derian thought, Firekeeper still has that wolfish reverence for food. Even though she's nearly out of her skin with worry, she won't let food go to waste. I don't think she thought much of the mushroom omelet, though.

Now, however, both meal and washing up completed, the household gathered in the consulting room.

Wendee handed around mugs of tea-some exotic blend that Oculios the alchemist had given to Doc. It smelled like the spices Derian's mother h.o.a.rded for special baking projects, carrying within the warm scent an unexpected surge of longing for home.

Stirring a dripping spoonful of honey into his cup, Derian looked over to where Firekeeper sat on the floor, her hand resting on Blind Seer's head. The wolf was apparently asleep. Bold and Elation sat rather more alertly on the perches that Lord Edlin had made for them, Bold turning a piece of bread over and over in his claw as if looking for the best place to begin eating it.

Both Elise and Doc looked as if they would welcome a good night's sleep rather than a tactical counsel.

Although their medical practice didn't quite have customers lining along the street, they had attracted an unprecedented amount of business in a mere handful of days.

Last night, both had been up late helping deliver a baby. Mother and child had survived, much to the astonishment of the midwife, who had loudly protested against the father's bringing in not only a foreigner but a male. Elise's fluency and tact had both been tested on that call.Turning to Firekeeper, Derian asked, "Do you want me to summarize what you told me earlier?"

The wolf-woman nodded gratefully. As was often the case when she was excited, she had lost a good deal of her command of the language.

Derian noted Wendee's slightly disapproving frown. She felt that Firekeeper needed to overcome her tendency to depend on others to smooth the way through awkward human interactions. This time, Derian chose to ignore Wendee's advice-though largely he agreed.

"The big news first," he said. "Firekeeper has located the missing artifacts."

An indignant caw that needed no translation interrupted him before he could go further.

"Excuse me," Derian corrected himself. "Bold located the missing artifacts-or thinks he has. Elation, however, is inclined to agree. She went back for a second look after she found Firekeeper and told her to wait for Bold at the stables."

No one interrupted as Derian summarized the account Firekeeper had given him earlier, not even Lord Edlin, who had shown a disconcerting tendency to verbal e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns along the lines of "What?" and "Astonishing!" This time the young heir apparent to the Kestrel Duchy simply sat grinning foolishly, as if he was listening to some bardic lay rather than being intimate to an unfolding crisis.

I suppose we're all somewhat to blame for that, Derian thought. We've kept Lord Edlin in the background ever since he joined us, even though the very manner of his joining us should have made us see his value. I suppose it's that grin of his and the way he makes calf-eyes at Firekeeper.

He seems like such a boy.

When Derian finished, however, it was Edlin who spoke first.

"Well, that's really wonderful," he said, grinning from ear to ear. "Wonderful! Wonderful! But, I say, what are we going to do next? I don't imagine that Elation and Bold can just nip in there and fetch out these artifacts? They don't sound too big, not if what Bold heard is right-a ring, a comb, and a mirror, what?"

Derian found himself turning to the birds, as if they could speak, but of course it was Firekeeper who replied. Her expression said quite clearly that though she hadn't understood half of Edlin's babbling, she had caught the gist.

"Bold no think they can," she said seriously, something in her manner making clear that the matter had been discussed at length. "He say the door to the top close from down."

"Do you mean the door from the roof closes from below?" Wendee asked.

"That right," Firekeeper said impatiently. "So I say."

Wendee didn't say anything further, but her expression commented eloquently, "Not quite, Lady Firekeeper."

Edlin went on cheerfully. "Well, if it closes from below, I guess it opens from there too, what?"

Firekeeper blinked at him, then nodded.

"Windows," she continued, "there are, on each-" She frowned, hunting for a word. "-level of tower.

Windows are closed most of time and when open windows have-" She waved her hand in the air, miming some obstruction."Bars?" Edlin guessed brightly, as if this was some party game.

Firekeeper frowned at him.

"Not just bars, I think." She glanced around the room, her gaze coming to rest on the patterned wooden screen that Doc used to grant privacy when a patient was too shy to undress before him.

"More like that, I think," she said.

Elation made a staccato cacking sound. Firekeeper nodded and corrected herself.

"Like that but with bigger holes," she said. "Still, holes too small for even Royal Crow."

Now it was Bold's turn to interrupt. His caw was accompanied by a rippling of his feathers that Derian felt certain carried as much meaning as the sounds he made.

"Bold say," Firekeeper translated patiently, "that he could get through and maybe out with something small-like a ring is small-but not with mirror or comb if they any size. Crows," she added, "are great thieves."

Elise, leaning back in her chair with her eyes half-closed, asked drowsily: "Have either Bold or Elation actually seen the artifacts? Maybe they are all small enough to be squeezed out through the screen."

"Not have see," Firekeeper replied. "Will try later. Seems that work goes on in tower even after dark has come."

"Good," Elise said. "The birds can see in the dark then?"

Firekeeper paused, then said: "No more than me, but they not need much light to fly to tower and tower have light inside."

Derian refrained from commenting that Firekeeper saw far better in the night than he himself did.

"I say," Edlin said. "Won't they be taking a risk, though? What about owls?"

Elation screeched in obvious indignation, but something about Bold's shrinking posture seemed to say that the Royal Crow had indeed considered the possibility.

"They go," Firekeeper said, her stern brown gaze firmly on the two birds. "Elation protect Bold."

"From what I gathered back at Revelation Point Castle," said Doc, rather unexpectedly, "I don't think we're going to find that all of these artifacts can be squeezed through the window lattice even by a very clever crow. How do we get to them? From what Bold reported, it sounds as if the New Kelvinese have learned how at least one of the artifacts works. I don't like the idea of giving them time to figure out the others."

That brought even Elise out of her doze.

"How long do you think we have?" she asked anxiously.

"I don't know," Doc said, "but I can't help but wonder if in magic, as in medicine, finding the right course of treatment is more than half the cure."Firekeeper looked confused.

"You mean if they make mirror do magic, soon they make ring and comb and mirror all do magic?"

"That's what I'm afraid of," Doc admitted.

In a single supple movement, Firekeeper rose and crossed to the window. She unlatched it and flung it open. In response to some command unheard by the humans, crow and falcon swept out the window into the night. Blind Seer was a bound behind them.

"I say!" said Edlin admiringly.

"They go," Firekeeper explained as she closed and latched the window, "and start more scout. Blind Seer go and listen in case they have trouble."

"What can he do?" Derian asked. "Aren't the walls too high for him to get inside?"

"He can do nothing," Firekeeper admitted, a trace of her own frustration showing, "but at least we will know."

She settled herself onto the hearth rug again.

"Now, how we get inside?"

Various plans were suggested but all came up against the same problem-even if one or more of their company did get inside, no one knew how to find their way about. The innkeeper's boy's statement that the interior of Thendulla Lypella was a maze kept coming back to trouble them.

"And even," Elise said, rubbing her eyes as she repeated a point raised earlier, "if we do get someone inside, only two of us speak the language with some facility-and neither Wendee nor myself are the people I would pick for a dangerous raid."

"Not plan to talk," Firekeeper growled. "Plan to take."

"Nice in theory," Wendee said dryly, "but it may not be so easy."

"I say," Edlin said, somewhat diffidently. "It seems to me that our problems fall into two categories, what?"

They all turned to look at him.

"Well, there's how to get inside-we've worked out several possibilities for that: the laundry or grocery way, checking out the sewers, finding a way over the walls, hunting for secret pa.s.sages..."

He grinned. This last had been his own suggestion.

"We've figured we can do disguises, too. So that's one category. The other problem is how to find our way around when we're inside."

"That's right, my lord," Derian said politely.

"Well, I say," Edlin said. "Is there any reason we can't make a map? I mean, the birds-when they come back-they've been up over the place. They can tell Firekeeper what they've seen and she can write it down for us."Firekeeper looked at Edlin with the same sort of astonishment most people would show if a dog started talking sense. Then she frowned.

"I no can write," she admitted a bit shamefacedly.

Her failure to learn to read and write was a matter of ongoing contention between her and her various advisors. Only recently had she admitted that there might be a use for the skill, and then only privately to Derian.

Derian hastened to intercede before what seemed like quite a good idea could be ruined by a technical detail.

"We can work something out," he said. "You could translate for the birds and I could do the writing.

Actually, we may want to draw a map. I'm not much good at that but..."

"I am," Edlin interrupted, blushing slightly. "I mean, I've had some training. Part of the education to be a war leader someday, you know."

"Then," Firekeeper said with some reluctance, studying her adopted brother through narrowed eyes, "we work together like a pack."

Edlin beamed.

Even through his relief that at least an intermediate solution had been found, Derian resolved to stay in the vicinity while the map was being worked on, just in case. Firekeeper might be needed to translate for the birds, but he suspected that he might be needed to translate for Lord Edlin.

Grateful Peace would have brought his concerns about Lady Melina before Apheros immediately, but the Dragon Speaker was in conferences and could not be interrupted-at least for anything short of a declaration of war or some other major disaster.

Suspicions about the moral character of an ally, especially one whom Apheros was coming to increasingly favor, did not fall into that category.

Before Grateful Peace could obtain the private audience he required, news came from the Granite Tower that the mirror had been forced to yield up at least some of its secrets.

Peace hastened to witness the report of the research group before the Healed One and Dragon Speaker.

The meeting was scheduled to permit the researchers time to change from their drab working robes and scarlet face paint to something more suitable for such an important audience.

Peace, however, could not get Apheros alone even for a moment. He was too busy preparing himself for the audience. Finally, Peace resigned himself to waiting until later.

Lady Melina, her eyes now glittering crystalline ornaments around which a serpentine pattern made its painted course over the upper portion of her face, was the modest and self-effacing heart of the trio who reported their success to Apheros. Yet for all that either of her companions-Posa the Illuminator and Zahlia the Smith-spoke three sentences to any one from her, Peace had the eerie sensation that Lady Melina was the one who commanded.

"After several days spent attempting promising rituals and incantations left to us in the writings of the first Healed One," said Zahlia in impressive rolling cadences far richer than the shouts she used when workingover her forges, "we accepted the suggestion of our esteemed foreign advisor, Lady Melina Shield, and attempted to combine our incantations with manipulation of various carved portions on the frame of the mirror itself."

Posa took up the report, offering first a slight bow to Lady Melina, as if acknowledging that she only sang her praises.