Elise wondered if she should offer to help but decided not to draw any more attention than necessary to herself.

Now the young man was doing something with the metal monster's teeth. The door to the box sagged slightly within the brackets that held it. He slid it to one side and retrieved two wooden boxes from within.

We're going to do it! Elise thought excitedly.

Then everything went wrong.

Peace saw the very instant that sudden revelation touched the young man's eyes. He had just handed over the two boxes and was moving to close the safe. Whether that was the moment he got his first clear look at Peace's unorthodox escort or simply the moment that he regained some of the confidence that had vanished when Peace's entry interrupted his tryst, Peace might never know.

"Wait a moment, sir," the young man said just a trace awkwardly. "I really should notify the team downstairs that you are removing the artifacts."

"That isn't necessary..." Peace rapidly rummaged through his memory, found the youth's name-Indatius of the Artificers. "... Indatius. I need no clearance."

"But I do, sir," Indatius said with impressive determination. Perhaps he had decided that there was no way his indiscretion could be overlooked so at least he wasn't going to be caught violating another procedure.

Peace had not been a watcher these many years without knowing implacable stubbornness. He nodded.

"I see," he said, hoping to stall.

Indatius, however, was ahead of him. He grabbed the heavy door of the safe and wrenched it from its tracks. It hit the wooden floor with a resounding, reverberating clatter that would without question bring someone from the room below to investigate-or at least to complain.

Indatius backed away from Peace-without, however, attempting to take the boxes from him.

"I'm sorry, sir," he began, "but this is all wrong. I don't recognize your a.s.sistants and..."

A low, ominous howl from below interrupted whatever Indatius might have been about to say. Sir Jared wrenched open the door to the stairwell.Firekeeper, almost visibly balanced between staying near the artifacts and answering that call, teetered for only a moment. Then, moving with more speed than Peace would have credited even her, she s.n.a.t.c.hed the boxes containing the mirror and the comb from his hands.

Backing away as smoothly as if she could see behind her, Firekeeper thrust one box into Elise's hand, the other into Wendee's. Then, without word or pause, she was running down the stairs, her own, shriller howl echoing back through the stone corridor.

Peace realized that the behavior of this strange, feral woman had provided him with an excuse for his own actions. He could always claim to have been forced to guide the Hawk Havenese into the tower. It wasn't the best of explanations, but it would do for now.

Spinning on his heel, he pointed toward where Elise and Wendee stood, too surprised for this brief moment to flee.

"After them!" he shouted.

As Indatius bolted past him, eager to redeem himself, Peace caught the young man a solid thump behind his ear. Indatius reeled. Peace sent him down. Only then did he recall Indatius's lover.

Wendee Jay, however, had not forgotten her.

After stuffing the slim box that held the comb into the waist of her robe, Wendee had scooped up some of the piled blankets from the floor. In one smooth move, she tossed them over the girl's head. In fact, Wendee might have acted even before Peace had succeeded in bringing down Indatius.

If so, Peace thought with that cruel detachment that came to him in a crisis, Goody Wendee, too, may have done her part to save my reputation.

"Bind her and the boy," he heard Elise order with a coolness that astonished him. "I'm going down to see what made Firekeeper howl like that. Doc may need my help."

Peace ran after Lady Elise, so close upon her heels that the trailing golden braid that was all that remained of her once magnificent hair almost touched him as it flew out behind her.

They reached the landing below only moments after Firekeeper's howl had sounded. Immediately, the reason for that anguished cry became evident.

Blind Seer lay on his side in the open doorway, his silvery grey fur awash with blood. The blood flowed from both head and throat, hiding the actual wounds beneath the gory flood.

Sir Jared knelt beside the wolf, laboring with such focused intensity that the beast must not yet be dead.

As Lady Elise paused beside the healer, her knuckles rose to her mouth to stifle a scream.

Firekeeper was nowhere to be seen. a.s.suming that she had gone ahead into the room, Grateful Peace sidled past the bleeding hulk on the doorsill and stepped into the room. Long training in noticing everything around him collected the details before he had time to register what they meant.

Superficially, the large, round chamber was arrayed much as he would have expected it to be. Tables littered with various items of alchemical gear stood untouched. The retorts bubbled calmly over their braziers. Thin gla.s.s tubes carrying distilled liquids through some prearranged sequence remained unbroken.

That was where normalcy ended.Four grey-robed figures huddled against the wall farthest from the doorway, the whites of their eyes wide with terror and grotesquely accented by scarlet paint. A body sprawled in a pool of blood just a few steps from the doorway showed why they feared to draw closer.

Peace opened his mouth to summon the doctor from his lupine patient, but a second glance told him this one was beyond help. That same glance brought home to him who it was who lay there dead.

It was Kistlio, his sister's son, the eager young clerk who had been seduced into Lady Melina's service.

Voice trembling slightly with sudden grief, Peace demanded: "What happened here?"

Rafalias of the Lapidaries replied, her voice still shrill with panic.

"We were working, in here, on the ring..."

"Yes," Peace prompted.

"There was a sound from above, a dreadful thumping. Lady Melina..."

For the first time, Peace registered that Lady Melina was not among those huddled figures. Nor was Firekeeper. Now he knew what had been important enough to draw the young woman from her wounded pet's side.

"... wasn't very happy. We'd been hearing thumping up there all evening-softer, but that last had been enough to make the gla.s.sware rattle. Evaglayn was so startled she dropped a retort."

Rafalias pointed to where the broken gla.s.sware had been swept against the wall.

"Yes?" Peace prompted.

He forced himself to listen closely. If he didn't, he was going to start thinking about a bright-eyed young man who was now dead because his uncle had not seen the truth in time. Dead because his uncle had treated with foreign killers rather than deal with the problem through more usual channels.

"Lady Melina wasn't very happy," Rafalias faltered, repeating herself before she found the thread of her tale. "She told Kistlio to go see what was wrong and to get the names of those who were creating such a commotion. She was swearing that she herself would report the disturbance to the Dragon Speaker at the very moment Kistlio opened the door."

Rafalias couldn't seem to find the voice to continue but Evaglayn, a pretty, if grave, young woman who was a senior apprentice from the Beast Lorists, took up the tale.

"A wolf stood without, a wolf as large as..." Evaglayn pointed with trembling hand. "You can see it yourself."

Peace nodded, impatient now. He was bursting with a desire to do something, but to act without knowing what had gone before would be idiocy.

"It growled," Evaglayn said, "and anyone with any sense would have frozen where he stood, but Kistlio could never be slowed nor stopped when Lady Melina needed service. He drew his knife and slashed down at the beast, slicing it across the head near one eye. The wolf howled in pain and anger and lunged forward."

Evaglayn may have remembered then that Kistlio was Grateful Peace's nephew, for now she spoke moregently of him.

"Kistlio was very brave, though. He kept slashing at the wolf, forcing it back a few steps. Yet there was no hope that a single man armed only with a knife could defeat such a creature. Kistlio lies where the wolf left him."

Rafalias, perhaps sensitive to the lack of dignity she showed in letting an apprentice-no matter how senior-speak in her place, took up the tale.

"As Kistlio fell, Lady Melina grabbed the ring from where it rested on the table and thrust it into her robes. From the table she seized a hand axe Nelm had been using earlier to chop scented woods for the braziers. Running forward, she intercepted the wolf and swung at him, catching him hard in the flank.

"The wolf snapped at her, but Lady Melina gave the oddest laugh-high and nasal like the whinny of a frightened horse. She seemed to address the beast in her own language. He paused and when he did so, Lady Melina skipped past him and through the door. The wolf made as if to follow, staggered a few steps, and collapsed where even now he lies."

"We could see," Rafalias went on a trace apologetically, "that there was life in the monster yet, so we kept our distance."

"Wise," Grateful Peace said dryly. "Very wise. So none of you went after Lady Melina-even though she appears to have departed with a priceless artifact."

They gaped at him then, all four, and in their slowness to recognize Lady Melina's possible culpability, Peace saw again the effectiveness of the foreign woman's magic.

"Someone did go after her," replied Evaglayn slowly, "moments after the wolf had fallen. I caught a glimpse of scarlet paint and very short hair-oh, and a robe in some print, not a proper researcher's grey as we wear here."

"Quite a lot to notice as someone hurries past the door," Peace said. He felt curiously distant from all this, yet vaguely judicial-though for the moment he had no idea who was on trial.

"The person I saw paused by the wolf for a moment," Evaglayn replied defensively. "Paused and laid a hand in its blood, but whoever it was stayed no longer than that."

Grateful Peace turned away from them, no longer interested. Kneeling, he turned over Kistlio's body.

The boy had died from a single clean swipe at his throat. He must have bled out almost before he hit the floor.

Had Kistlio known he had failed the woman he so unnaturally adored?

Something in the expression on the young man's face tola Peace that he had.

Chapter x.x.xII.

When she heard Blind Ser's cry of pain Firekeeper froze in place. Hooks of obligation tore cruelly into her heart. One bound her to the artifacts; the other, stronger and deeper, pulled her almost physically toward wherever Blind Seer was.Thought, as most would understand it, did not play a pan in her subsequent actions. All the wolf-woman desired was to loosen the hook that held her to this place.

Her hands darted forth and seized the boxes from the hands that held them. She wheeled to run, found she could not bare her Fang with her hands full, and thrust the boxes into the keeping of those who-even through the fog of impulses filling her mind-she knew could be trusted.

That action loosened the hook sufficiently that she was free to run to Blind Seer, but-swift as she had been-she saw as soon as she rounded the curve of the stair that she was too late.

The Royal Wolf lay on the floor, his fur soaked with the blood that still flowed from countless wounds.

Firekeeper's nose could not be fooled into hoping that the blood was not the wolf's, for though she smelled human blood, most of what clung to the wolf was his own.

As she crouched beside Blind Seer, one blue eye flickered open.

"Lady Melina," he panted. "The ring."

"Did she do this?"

With a weak thump of his tail, Blind Seer answered, "Yes."

Firekeeper glanced into the round tower room, confirming what she had already guessed-perhaps a chance trace of perfume in the air had told her before she thought to ask. Lady Melina was not among those who huddled within, nor was hers the corpse that lay facedown on the floor.

Behind her, she could hear Doc running down the stairs. Knowing well that he could do more for Blind Seer than she could, Firekeeper felt the hook of obligation anchor itself into her heart once more.

"I'll get her," she promised, "and the ring."

Blind Seer said only, "Remember, she is not a wolf."

Her hand still wet with the wolf's warm blood, Firekeeper leapt over him and down the curve of the stair.

As she pa.s.sed the door on the conference-room level, she heard curses and exclamations. They didn't interest her, except in some small corner of her mind that noted there could be unfriendly pursuit. What had seized her attention was a draft of fresh cold air from below.

Someone had opened the outer door. Did Lady Melina race for aid or merely to her den?

The wolf-woman slowed as she emerged into the cold night and a bit of black detached itself from the surrounding blackness.

Bold the crow cawed, "We saw. Elation follows Lady Melina. I will lead you."

Firekeeper managed a nod of thanks, but held up her hand for a moment's respite. She pushed the door to the Granite Tower closed behind her and shoved a boulder from those collected at the base of the tree against it.

There must be other exits from the tower-even if only the one in the cellar-but this might slow pursuit.

Squawking his approval, Bold took wing. As she followed, seeing the crow as motion against the air rather than as shape or form, Firekeeper thought she knew where they were going.Grateful Peace's descriptions returned to her, confirming that Lady Melina had fled to her den, rather than seeking help.

The stillness of the complex confirmed the wolf-woman's guess. In the near distance, Firekeeper could hear the guards posted at the ornate front gate talking with casual boredom among themselves. Had Lady Melina wanted aid, she could have found it there. So she wanted something else more.

The ring.

Firekeeper's early life had not shaped her mind to think in twists, but recently she had been given ample lessons in such thought. Even as the need to preserve the ring gave Lady Melina excuse for flight, the desire to steal it-to preserve it for her sole use-would be ample reason to turn away from easy a.s.sistance.

Bold banked to a halt before a door that even now stood ajar. Elation perched on the door's upper edge.

"I stopped her," the peregrine said with pardonable pride, "from closing this and locking it behind her -she had a key-but the corridors within are too narrow for my wings."

"Go." Firekeeper commanded even as she stepped inside.

"Help the others to safety. They have two of the artifacts. I will get the third and follow."

She didn't wait for a reply, but darted instead up the stairs. Lady Melina's scent was hot, but the wolf-woman didn't need that as a guide; her memory held Grateful Peace's directions.

Peace had told them that the building stood nearly empty. It was reserved exclusively for foreign guests.

After one visit, not many such guests chose to stay within Thendulla Lypella, if they were given a choice, for their freedom was so restricted that it was as if they dwelt within a luxurious prison.

Some, Peace had said ironically, might even suspect that arrangements had been made to watch them.

All but the most essential staff slept elsewhere and even those should be asleep. Since Lady Melina had not alerted the gate guards, Firekeeper doubted she would awaken someone as useless as a maid.