You must find him, Piergeiron had said. From what I've seen this day, I'm certain any father would rejoice in such a son.

The First Lord's words echoed in Mrelder's mind, mocking him with the hope he'd cherished for more than a year. The false hope.

He knew. He had yet to open his eyes, but he knew the graft had been a failure.

There was a dull, phantom ache where his left arm had been. If the gods had granted Golskyn's prayers and found Mrelder a worthy host, he would now be aflame with searing pain. Not lightly did the monstrous gods award their favors.

A faint, unfriendly hiss came from somewhere beside him. Then another, slightly fainter.

Mrelder fought his way up through the darkness. As lantern-light flared before his eyes, he turned his head toward the hissings.

The dying sahuagin lay on a table beside him, its gills flaring weakly as it gasped out its last breaths. A foul scent came from the charred, blackened stumps that were all that remained of not one, but all four of its scaled arms.

Four times had the followers of Lord Unity attempted the graft, and four times Mrelder's body had refused to accept the gods-given improvement.

"My son lives," Golskyn said coldly, looming over Mrelder, "and the sahuagin dies." His tone left little doubt as to his opinion of this state of affairs.

"I… I'm sorry," Mrelder managed to murmur.

"My sentiments precisely," his father replied, each word burning like acid. He drew a long dagger from its belt-sheath. "The mongrelmen follow me because I tell them they are more, not less. They enjoy the special favor of the True Gods. They are already well along the path only the strong may take. They are my children. I need no other."

Golskyn lifted the knife high.

This was it. His father's patience was at an end. Forlorn dreams and schemes flooded Mrelder's mind, a storm-flow of regret and loss. All would fade with him, thrown away in this dark cellar, all…

One idea caught in the rush of thoughts, looming rather than being swept on. A moment later, it was joined by another-and fresh hope, as Mrelder realized the two notions could become one: the sahuagin-shaped Walking Statue and the Guardian's Gorget.

"There's another way," he gasped.

"To end your worthless life?"

"To gain the strength of mighty creatures!" Mrelder gasped excitedly, seeing it all now.

The priest's uncovered eye narrowed. "Explain."

Mrelder nodded, but the words he needed would not come. As his stupor faded, the pain came in waves. He reached across to the other table to pluck away a strip of the dying sahuagin's scales from one of its stumps. Holding up the ribbon of hide, he managed a single word: "Gorget."

For a long moment Mrelder prayed to any gods who might be listening that his father would remember the letters he'd written about Piergeiron and the Walking Statues, wherein he'd told Golskyn about this wondrous magical piece of the First Lord's armor, enspelled to command the great constructs.

Golskyn lowered the knife. His uncovered eye regarded his son thoughtfully. "This has possibilities. You can do this? With your… sorcery?"

Mrelder nodded. Perhaps he could prove to Golskyn that magic and items that held it were worthy sources of power, and in doing so earn his father's respect.

And, not incidentally, save his own life.

CHAPTER FOUR

Naoni Dyre sang softly to herself as she spun the last few chips of amethyst into shining purple thread.

A hole in the kitchen doorframe held her distaff: a long-handled runcible spoon, both ladle and fork. Instead of wool or flax, it held a steadily diminishing pile of rough amethysts. Delicate purple fibers spilled between its narrow tines in a curtain of gossamer purple that drew down into a triangle. At the point of that triangle Naoni's deft, pale fingers were busily at work, drafting the fibers together and easing them onto the shaft of her spindle.

It was a simple drop spindle, a round, smooth stick ending in a flat wooden wheel and hung suspended by the fine purple thread. As it spun, its weight pulled the fibers from the gemstones, and the thread collected in a widening cone atop the wooden wheel.

It was no small skill, keeping the spindle moving at the perfect speed-not so fast that it broke the delicate thread nor so slow that it fell to the floor. To Naoni, the rhythm was as natural as breathing.

When the last of the gems slipped into thread, Naoni eased the spindle to the floor. She didn't fear a fall might shatter her work. Anything she spun became as strong and flexible as silk, for Naoni Dyre was a minor sorceress.

Hmmph. Minor indeed. The ability to spin nearly anything into thread was her lone gift.

"You, dear sister, need a spinning wheel."

A fond smile lit Naoni's face as she turned to greet Faendra. Her younger sister was the very image of their dead mother: a petite and pretty strawberry blonde, plump in all the right places, with blue, blue eyes that promised sunny afternoons, and a pert little nose that matched a smile that was never far from her lips.

"Spinning wheels are far too dear. What would Father say about such expense?" Naoni asked mildly.

Faendra propped fists on hips and thrust forth her chin in imitation of their father's manner. "Buy a proper wheel, girl, and stop spinning thread like a Calishite slave! Good tools will triple your coins, or may Waukeen damn me to the poorhouse," she growled, in tones as deep and gruff as she could manage.

They laughed together, but Naoni's mirth quickly faded to a sigh. Her father knew she spun and earned fair coin, but dismissed attempted talk about her work with a brusque, "What's yours is yours." He was far more interested in her ability to run the household with frugal efficiency.

"Perhaps it's time to consider a wheel," she said. "Jacintha would be pleased to have more gem thread."

Faendra eyed the glittering skeins carefully laid out on the sideboard. "What wouldn't I give for a gown of Jacintha's gemsilk!" she said wistfully. "Perhaps this time the gnome could pay you in cloth?"

"Little chance of that; most of gemsilk's value is the gems, not the labor."

The younger girl sniffed. "Oh? Who else can spin such thread?"

"I know of none other," Naoni admitted, "nor know I another weaver who has Jacintha's gift for weaving many sources together into cloth. If not for her, how would I have gems to weave? We're fortunate to have found each other; I've no quarrel with our arrangement."

"So be it," Faendra said lightly. "How soon can we be in the Warrens?"

"We can leave as soon as I finish this last skein." Naoni picked up a niddy-noddy, a simple wooden frame of three sticks, and began to wind the thread around it.

"Niddy niddy noddy, two heads with one body," Faendra chanted, grinning. "You taught me that rhyme when you made your first frame. How old was I then, I wonder?"

"Seven winters," Naoni said softly. She'd begun spinning the year their mother died, leaving her, a lass of twelve winters, to run the household and raise a frolicsome little sister.

Her swift hands made short work of the winding. "If you'll summon Lark, we can leave."

"I'm here," announced a low-pitched voice.

The young woman who emerged from the buttery resembled her namesake: small, trim, and as brown as a meadow bird. Her long hair was gathered back into a single braid, and she wore a brown kirtle over a plain linen shift. A green ribbon bound her brows to hold back stray wisps of hair, and its two ends had been laced into her braid. A matching sash was tied around one of her bared arms. Her nose was perhaps too narrow and a bit overlong, and her bright brown eyes disconcertingly keen, but she was pleasant enough to look upon.