"Stubborn dwarf?" asked the assassin.

"Is there any other kind?"

Entreri moved to the edge of the hole. "Ugly one," he called down. "Your wizard friend is dead."

"Bah!" Athrogate snorted.

Entreri glanced back at Jarlaxle then moved over, grabbed Canthan's corpse, and hauled him over the edge of the hole, dropping him with a splat beside the surprised dwarf.

"Your friend is dead," Entreri said again, and the dwarf didn't bother to argue the point. "And so now you've a choice."

"Eat him or starve?" Athrogate asked.

"Eat him and eventually starve anyway," Jarlaxle corrected, coming up beside Entreri to peer in at the dwarf. "Or you could come out of the hole and help us."

"Help ye what?"

"Win," said the drow.

"Didn't ye just stop that possibility when Canthan put it forth?"

"No," Jarlaxle said with certainty. "Canthan was wrong. He believed that Arrayan was the continuing source of power for the castle, but that is not so. She was the beginning of the enchantment, 'tis true, but this place is far beyond her."

The drow had all of the others listening by then, with Olgerkhan, the color returned to his face, standing solidly once more.

"If I believed otherwise, then I would have killed Arrayan myself," Jarlaxle went on. "But no. This castle has a king, a great and powerful one."

"How do you know this?" Entreri asked, and he seemed as doubtful and confused at the others, even Athrogate.

"I saw enough of the book to recognize that it has a different design than the one Herminicle used outside of Heliogabalus," the drow explained. "And there is something else." He put a hand over the extra-dimensional pocket button he wore, where he kept the skull-shaped gem he had taken from Herminicle's book. "I sense a strength here, a mighty power. It is clear to me, and given all that I know of Zhengyi and all that the dragon sisters told me, with their words and with the fear that was so evident in their eyes, it is not hard for me to see the logic of it all."

"What are you talking about?" asked Entreri.

"Dragon sisters?" Athrogate added, but no one paid him any heed.

"The king," said Jarlaxle. "I know he exists and I know where he is."

"And you know how to kill him?" Entreri asked. It was a hopeful question, but one that was not answered with a hopeful response.

The assassin let it go at that, surely realizing he'd never get a straight answer from Jarlaxle. He looked back down at Athrogate, who was standing then, looking up intently.

"Are you with us? Or should we leave you to eat your friend and starve?" Entreri asked.

Athrogate looked down at Canthan then back up at Entreri. "Don't look like he'd taste too good, and one thing I'm always wantin' is food." He pronounced «good» and «food» a bit off on both, so that they seemed closer to rhyming, and that brought a scowl to Entreri's face.

"He starts that again and he's staying in the hole," he remarked to Jarlaxle, and the drow, who was already taking off his belt that he might command it to elongate and extract the dwarf, laughed again.

"We'll have your word that you'll make no moves against any of us," Entreri said.

"Ye're to be takin' me word?"

"No, but then I can kill you with a clearer conscious."

"Bwahaha!"

"I do so hate him," Entreri muttered to Jarlaxle, and he moved away.

Jarlaxle considered that with a wry grin, thinking that perhaps it was yet another reason for him to get Athrogate out and by their side. The dwarf's lack of concern for Canthan was genuine, Jarlaxle knew, and Athrogate would not go against them unless he found it to be in his best interests.

Which, of course, was the way with all of Jarlaxle's friends.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

AN AUDIENCE WITH THE KING

Athrogate and Entreri eyed each other for a long, long while after the dwarf came out of the hole.

"Could've ruined yer weapon, ye know," Athrogate remarked, holding up the morning star that coated itself with the rust-inducing liquid.

"Could've eaten yer soul, ye know," the assassin countered, mimicking the dwarf's tone and dialect.

"With both yer weapons turned to dust? Got the juice of a rust monster in it," he said, jostling the morning star so that the head bounced a bit at the end of its chain.

"It may be that you overestimate your weapons or underestimate mine. In either case, you would not have enjoyed learning the truth."

Athrogate cracked a smile. "Some day we'll find out that truth."

"Be careful what you wish for."

"Bwahaha!"

Entreri wanted nothing more than to drive his dagger into the annoying dwarf's throat at that moment. But it wasn't the time. They remained surrounded by enemies in a castle very much alive and hostile. They needed the powerful dwarf fighting beside them.

"I remain convinced that Canthan was wrong," Jarlaxle said, moving between the two.

He glanced back at the two half-orcs, leading the gaze of the dwarf and the assassin. Arrayan sat against the wall across the way, while her companion scrambled about on all fours, apparently searching for something. Olgerkhan looked much healthier, obviously so. The dagger had fed Canthan's life energy to him and had healed much of the damage of Athrogate's fierce attacks. Beyond that, the great weariness that had been dragging on Olgerkhan seemed lifted; his eyes were bright and alert, his movements crisp.

But as much better as he looked, Arrayan appeared that much worse. The woman's eyes drooped and her head swayed as if her neck had not the strength to hold it upright. Something about the last battles had taken much from her, it seemed, and the castle was taking the rest.

"The castle has a king," Jarlaxle said.

"Bah, Canthan got it right, and ye killed him to death for it," said Athrogate. "It's the girl, don't ye see? She's wilting away right afore yer eyes."

"No doubt she is part of it," the drow replied. "But only a small part. The real source of the castle's life lies below us."

"And how might ye be knowin' that?" asked the dwarf. "And what's he looking for, anyway?"

"I know because I can feel the castle's king as acutely as I can feel my own skin. And I know not what Olgerkhan is seeking, nor do I much care. Our destiny lies below and quickly if we hope to save Arrayan."

"What makes ye think I'm giving an orc's snot rag for that one?"

Entreri shot the dwarf a hateful look.

"What?" Athrogate asked with mock innocence. "She ain't no friend o' me own, and she's just a half-orc. Half too many, by me own counting."

"Then disregard her," Jarlaxle intervened. "Think of yourself, and rightly so. I tell you that if we defeat the king of this castle, the castle will fight us no more, whatever Arrayan's fate. I also tell you that we should do all that we can to save her, to keep her alive now, for if she is taken by the castle it will benefit the construct and hurt us. Trust me on this and follow my advice. If I am wrong, and the castle continues to feed from her, and in doing so it continues to attack us, then I will kill her myself."

The dwarf nodded. "Fair enough."

"But I only say that because I am certain it will not come to that," Jarlaxle quickly added for the sake of Olgerkhan, who glared at him. "Now let us tend our wounds and prepare our weapons, for we have a king to kill."

Athrogate pulled a waterskin off and moved toward the two half-orcs. "Here," he offered. "Got a bit o' the healing potions to get yer strength back," he said to Arrayan. "And as for yerself, sorry I breaked yer neck."

Olgerkhan offered nothing in reply. He hesitated for a moment by Arrayan's side, but then moved back toward the side passage and began crawling around on all fours once more, searching.

Entreri pulled Jarlaxle to the far side of the room and asked, "What are you talking about? How do you know what you pretend to know, or is it all but a ruse?"