Gavril went to help him up but Kostya glared at him, shaking the proffered hand away.

"And if you were your father's son, you'd use your powers and fry the Tielen army to a crisp! Just pass me my bow."

Gavril went from room to room, searching in vain for Altan Kazimir.

There must be something the doctor could do to restore his powers. At the least, some of his waning strength . . .

He flung open his bedchamber door. Jaromir Arkhel stood there, holding a blade to Altan Kazimir's throat.

"Jaro, what's going on?"

"The good doctor here has some explaining to do. Ask him where he's been," said Jaromir, stern-voiced. His hair glinted darkly golden in the winter morning light. "I found him sneaking back in through the summerhouse tunnel."

Kazimir began to babble a stream of half-coherent words.

"F-forgive me, Lord Gavril. I-I didn't have any choice. Linnaius-p-poisoned me-"

"Calm yourself, Doctor," Gavril said, "you're making no sense at all."

Jaromir lowered his blade.

"Th-they made me agree to a rendezvous. With one of the prince's aides. I w-was to give him samples of your blood. In exchange, Magus Linnaius would give me the antidote. But they forced me to come back. With this dispatch." With shaking hands he fumbled in his jacket and drew out a sealed parchment, handing it to Gavril.

Gavril opened the dispatch. It was written in a bold, official hand in the common script:

Know this, Gavril Nagarian, that you have failed to fulfill the last of our conditions, namely the restoration of Lord Jaromir Arkhel to his rightful place as ruler of Azhkendir-but instead are commonly reported to have murdered the same Lord Arkhel and usurped his title. As a consequence, we require you to surrender yourself and your kastel to us. Any resistance will be met with merciless retribution.Eugene of Tielen.

"All this because Eugene believes I'm dead?" Jaromir turned to Gavril, eyes blank with bewilderment.

"One of my druzhina druzhina must have told him so." Gavril stared at the blunt wording of the dispatch. must have told him so." Gavril stared at the blunt wording of the dispatch. Merciless retribution. Merciless retribution. His lie, told with the best of intentions to preserve a forbidden friendship, had rebounded with disastrous consequences. His lie, told with the best of intentions to preserve a forbidden friendship, had rebounded with disastrous consequences.

"And that's not all," Jaromir said. "Show us the other phial you have hidden in your jacket. The one that stinks of Magus Linnaius' sorceries."

"There is no other phial-"

Jaromir pushed him back against the wall. "Do I have to strip the jacket from your back?"

Kazimir glared balefully at Jaromir. With one hand he delved into the lining of his jacket and brought out a little phial. Jaromir took it from him and held it to the light. It glimmered faintly with a pale, gray luminescence.

"What does this contain?"

"You're not scientists," Kazimir said. "You wouldn't understand."

"The truth, Kazimir. Or it will go ill with you."

"A-a sedative. To enable the effects of the elixir."

"To disable Lord Gavril. To poison him!"

"To subdue the creature that lives inside him, that feeds off his life- force," snapped Kazimir. "The thing your father called Drakhaoul."

"Only in destroying the Drakhaoul," Gavril said slowly, "you're also poisoning me."

A cannonball came whizzing high over the outer walls and smashed with a dull thud into the kastel. Kazimir flinched.

"And is there any antidote to this mage-poison you've been feeding me?" Gavril demanded.

Kazimir shook his head. "Only to wait for its effects to be fully excreted from the system."

"You call yourself a scientist." He had trusted this man to help him and he had betrayed him, as he had betrayed his father. "Is it beyond your abilities to find one?"

"I-I-"

"Then go back to your laboratory and get working!"

A fresh barrage of cannonballs thudded into the kastel. The building shook and a fine plaster dust showered down from the ceiling. Kazimir whimpered with fear.

"Up in the T-Tower?"

"Where else?"

"I must go to Eugene and make him stop the bombardment," Jaromir said, brushing the dust from his coat.

"How?" Gavril turned on Jaromir. "You'll be blown to bits before you get anywhere near him! Your mentor seems determined to raze this kastel to the ground."

"Let me use the Vox Aethyria."

"You said it could only be tuned to one other glass. And this one is tuned to Count Velemir's."

"Then let me speak to Velemir."

"Fire." Eugene stood above the cannons and watched with grim satisfaction as the next round of cannonades ripped into the outer bastion walls of the Drakhaon's stronghold.

He had stationed cannons and mortars around the whole perimeter. They had been met with crossbow fire from the walls, and several of his less vigilant troopers had fallen, pierced by crossbow bolts and barbed arrows from longbows. Crude, unsophisticated weapons, but effective enough to kill.

For that insolence, he had blasted one of the watchtowers and seen it crumble, the men inside blown to bloody fragments by the destructive power of Linnaius' munitions.

Now they were loading the mortars, ramming the charges into the metal tubes, aiming them at the living quarters of the kastel.

Eugene folded his arms, narrowing his eyes against the white glare of the snows. He felt nothing but the wintercold of loss numbing his heart.

Jaromir was dead. And Azhkendir would pay dearly for his death. Gavril Nagarian would see his druzhina druzhina die, one by one- die, one by one- "Ready, highness."

He slowly raised one white-gloved hand.

"Fire."

"Keep back, or I'll shoot," growled a hoarse voice.

Oleg, a bottle in each hand, wavered on the threshold of the Bogatyr's room as Kostya leveled a crossbow at his chest.

Oleg took a wobbling step backward, one bottle raised to fend off any attack. "It'sh me, Koshtya. Old Oleg. You don't want to kill old Oleg, do you?"

The crossbow slowly lowered. "You're drunk," Kostya said in tones of withering disapproval. "Drunk on duty."

"And it's the besht in the cellar!" Oleg thrust the bottle under Kostya's nose. "Go on. Try. You-won't regret it. Got to finish it, you see," he confided, "before those Tielen bastards steal it."

Kostya said nothing.

"Come on, on, Koshtya." Oleg took a swig from his bottle of vintage Smarnan brandy. "You're to come with me. Drakhaon says. Down . . . down . . . to . . . the . . ." He searched for the word, couldn't find it, and took another swig of the brandy to see if that would jog his memory. Koshtya." Oleg took a swig from his bottle of vintage Smarnan brandy. "You're to come with me. Drakhaon says. Down . . . down . . . to . . . the . . ." He searched for the word, couldn't find it, and took another swig of the brandy to see if that would jog his memory.

"If you think I'm going to go hide in the cellar with the women-"

A mortar screamed overhead. Plaster thudded down from the ceiling, great chunks, leaving bare rafters and lathes exposed. The explosion threw Oleg off balance, and the brandy bottle fell from his hands and shattered on the floor. He dropped to his knees and tried to salvage the broken pieces, wet and slippery with the spilled brandy.

"Volkh's best. Too good for those Tielen swine. Damn you all to hell!" he bawled, shaking his fist at the gaping window. "C'mon now, Koshtya." He swung around-only to see that Kostya lay prone on the bed, the crossbow beside him. A large chunk of plaster had fallen on his head. "Koshtya!" he repeated, panicking. The Bogatyr did not move.

A cannonball crashed into the outer wall. Oleg clapped his hands to his ears. Cries and screams came from outside. Kostya was dead. And he would be dead if he stayed here any longer.

"Dead. Koshtya's dead!" Weeping noisily, Oleg stumbled from the Bogatyr's rooms toward the East Wing.

As Gavril and Jaromir ran into Lilias' rooms, another cannon blast rocked the kastel, followed by the crash of shattered roof tiles and beams.

The crystal trembled in its case on the mantelpiece.

"That was too close," Jaromir said, lifting the delicate device down and putting it on the floor.

"You know how to make it work?" Gavril crouched down beside him as he opened the case.

"Velemir. Velemir! Respond!" Jaromir's voice was harsh with tension.

"Is it broken?"

No sound came from the device; it seemed to be dead.

"Velemir!" Jaromir kept repeating in a low, insistent voice, all the time rotating the central crystal, an open-petaled flower on its stem.

"Or could the bombardment have disabled it?"

A mortar whistled overhead, exploding on the terrace outside. The oriel windowpanes blew in, showering them both with broken glass. Gavril was thrown onto the floor by the force of the blast. Jaromir flung his arms around the device, covering it with his body.

"Are you all right?" Gavril, ears ringing from the explosion, rose unsteadily, brushing the fragments of glass from his clothes and hair.

A faint crackle issued from the device.

"Velemir!" Jaromir shouted. "This is Jaromir Arkhel! Respond!" A splinter of glass had grazed his temple, and a thin line of blood like a scarlet thread trickled down one side of his face.

And at last a voice vibrated feebly from the crystal, the words distorted and indistinct.

"Is this . . . a . . . joke? A . . . trick? Jaromir Arkhel is . . . reported . . . dead."

"I am in Kastel Drakhaon and very much alive. But I won't be for long, if this bombardment continues. Tell Eugene. Tell him to stop the attack. Stop the attack!"

"How . . . do I know . . . for sure?"

"You don't! You'll just have to-"

A second mortar whistled past, hitting the terrace with a deafening explosion. Gavril felt his head vibrate with the force of the blast. Chips of shattered stone and dust were hurled high in the air.

"Velemir!" Jaromir gripped the device, but the tenuous link was broken. Jaromir gripped the device, but the tenuous link was broken.

"What now?" Gavril said in frustration. "Wait till Eugene blasts us to extinction?"

Another mortar came whining overhead, exploding against the wall. The stones quivered, shuddered, and the whole of the oriel window bay collapsed inward. Gavril threw himself onto Jaromir, trying to push him out of the way as glass, stone, and timbers thudded into the room.

Cold air was sucked in from outside. Rags and tatters of Lilias' fine brocade curtains flapped in the wind. Pages from her torn books of verse and philosophy fluttered away into the garden.

Gavril opened his mouth to speak and drew in a lungful of plaster dust.

"The-device-" Choking, he dragged himself from Jaromir on hands and knees.

Jaromir rolled over; plaster dust had powdered his clothes and face. Beyond him lay the Vox Aethyria, its crystal perfection shattered.

"That's that, then," he said flatly. A trickle of red blood on the white plaster gave his face the bizarre look of a circus clown's.

"Must get out," Gavril managed, wheezing. "Another blast-like the last-and the whole wing will collapse."

Coughing, they began to crawl toward the door, which gaped open on its hinges.

"If I can-make it through the tunnels," Jaromir said, "maybe I can reach Eugene-" He broke off. "Listen."

Gavril listened. His ears were still ringing from the explosions, but there was no sound to be heard.

"The bombardment's stopped."

"They're reloading."