The silversanns cluttered excitedly at this news.

They snaked past the glowering thanatars and coiled their smooth antennae around the prisoners. Before Artek could protest to Squch, the silversanns dragged him and the others out of the cavern and down a dark tunnel. The prisoners tried to break free of the metallic strands that gripped them, but it was no use. The antennae were as strong as steel wire.

The silversanns took them to a dim chamber and dropped them on the floor. One of the creatures shut and locked a heavy iron door-so much for the only visible route of escape.

The chamber of the silversanns was filled with all manner of clutter: clay pots, cracked vials, broken staves, moldering books, and countless metal tools of inexplicable function. All lay carelessly strewn about or heaped into haphazard piles that seemed to have no obvious rhyme or reason. The silversanns gathered at one end of the chamber, speaking in sibilant whispers. Evidently, they were trying to decide how to extract the knowledge of their new ssspecimens, Artek thought grimly.

Corin sighed glumly, sitting slump-shouldered on the cold stone floor. "I'm sorry, everyone," the young lord said ruefully, "This is all my fault. We wouldn't be in this scrape if I hadn't gone and dashed off into the forest like such a dolt." He looked up at Artek with sad blue eyes. "You were right, you know. And so was my father. I can't do anything well. But you needn't worry. I've learned my lesson. I won't try to help ever again." He sighed deeply. "I apologize for getting you into this, Ar'talen. For your sake, I hope you can get me to Darien Thai and force him to have that tattoo fixed. But for my part, I don't care if I ever see the surface again."

The nobleman hung his head and fell silent. Guss gazed at him with worried green eyes, cradling Muragh in his clawed hands. Beckla shot a sharp look at Artek. It was clear she wanted him to say something. Artek just shook his head. Everything he had said before had been thoughtless and cruel. What could he say now that wouldn't simply cause more damage? It was better if he simply remained silent.

With a sound of exasperation, Beckla stood up. The silversanns were still engaged in a secret debate, and the wizard took the opportunity to poke around in the heaps of clutter surrounding them.

"Look at all this stuff," she said in sudden amazement.

"What is it?" Muragh asked.

She rummaged through one of the piles. "Broken wizard staves. Shattered wands. Cracked potion vials. Old spellbooks." The wizard looked up in wonder. "It's all magical paraphernalia."

Artek quickly stood. "Is there something that might be able to help us?"

Beckla frowned. "I'm not sure. Pretty much all of it seems to be broken or damaged. But there might be something of interest here…"

She kept searching, and the others joined her. As far as Artek could tell, all of the items-staves, rods, magical crystals-seemed to have been deliberately smashed. Perhaps the silversanns had damaged the objects while trying to study them. Even a roomful of magical artifacts would do them no good if all were broken.

Just then, Guss let out a grunt of surprise. With a claw, he plucked something gold and glittering from one of the piles. "Beckla, take a look at this. I'm not sure, but it looks to me as if it's-"

At that moment, the silversanns ended their debate and slithered toward them. Guss cut his words short, thrusting the object behind his back. The five prisoners stared apprehensively as the metallic creatures drew near.

"Decided then are we, yeses?" one of the silversanns asked the others, the small pit of its mouth dilating and contracting to form the syllables.

"Yeses, yeses," answered another. "More learn we mussst, before gain can we knowledge theirsss."

The first silversann undulated forward, brushing Artek with its cold antennae. "Let usss then apart take them, yesss? Sssee we can how work they. Yesss, yesss?"

Artek glared at them warily. "What do you mean, 4ake us apart?"

"Take apart mean we, yesss?" the silversann answered blithely. "Disssasssemble your pieces. Mind you not, yesss?"

Several silversanns pressed forward, each bearing weirdly shaped, sharp-edged tools in their antennae. Artek and the others exchanged looks of horror. They slowly backed away from the creatures. "We most certainly do mind," Artek countered nervously.

"Worry not, yesss?" the leader of the silversanns hissed reassuringly. "Put we together back your bodiesss when done we are. Yesss, yesss?"

The silversanns continued to close in, steel tools raised. Apparently they didn't understand that living creatures couldn't simply be taken apart like machines. And once they discovered that they couldn't just put their ssspecimens back together, it would be far too late. Artek gripped the hilt of his saber, wondering if the blade would have any effect against the hard plates that armored the creatures.

One of the silversanns stretched a wicked-looking probe toward Beckla.

"Get back, you metal worm!" the wizard cried. She shouted several arcane words, and blue magic crackled between her outstretched fingers. "Get back, or I'll melt you!"

The silversanns let out a chorus of shrill shrieks. For a second, Artek thought Beckla's threat had terrified them. Then, in astonishment, he realized that their shrieks were sounds of delight, not fear.

"Magic, yesss?" they cried excitedly, clustering around the wizard. "How cassst you did magic? Ssshow usss, yesss? Ssshow usss!"

The silversanns continued to babble, but Artek could catch little of what the creatures said in their hissing voices. However, Beckla bent toward them, cocking an ear. As she listened, a smile gradually spread across her face. Finally she said something to the silversanns and they let out piercing squeaks of joy. They scuttled a short distance back, then waited expectantly.

Artek leaned over to murmur in her ear. "What in the world did you say to them?"

"I told them I'd teach them how to do magic," she whispered back.

"You what?"

“Yоu heard me, Ar'talen."

"I heard you, but I don't understand. I'm no wizard, but even I know that only living beings can wield magic."

Beckla nodded. "I know that, and you know that. But they don't know that" Her smile broadened into a grin. "As it turns out, the silversanns are absolutely fascinated by magic. It's their favorite area of research. They've seen some of the thanatars' prisoners work it before, and they want more than anything to learn it themselves. Of course, no matter how faithfully they duplicate the words and movements of a spell, it will never work for them. It can't. They're not alive."

Beckla gestured subtly toward the heaps of broken artifacts. That's what all this stuff is for. Somewhere along the line, they developed a crazy notion that when magical objects are broken, their magic is released. They sleep near these heaps of junk in the belief that, over time, they'll absorb some of that magic."

Artek shook his head at this absurdity. "So what are you going to do?"

"You'll see," she replied mysteriously. She approached the waiting silversanns.

Corin, Guss, and Muragh looked at Artek questioningly, but he only shrugged his broad shoulders. He had no idea what the wizard intended to do.

"All right, then," Beckla said crisply, addressing the mechanicals as she might a class of new apprentices at a school for mages. "Casting magic really isn't all that difficult. It's simply a matter of using the proper inflection. Now, follow my movements as best you can, and repeat after me."

She weaved her arms in a complex pattern while uttering a string of words that, to Artek, sounded far more like nonsense than they did magic. The silversanns made a comic effort to mimic her hand movements with their whiplike antennae. A buzz rose from them as they repeated her words dutifully and, unfortunately, quite erroneously.