"I trust Hoth instructed you correctly?" Golskyn's cold words were barely a question.

Mrelder looked up from the tiny golden ring balanced atop scorched stones on the table before him-the Guardian's Gorget, shrunken small enough to incorporate into the graft. The spell-glows playing around it promptly flickered and started to fade. "I believe so, Father, and my follow-all spell definitely captured the effects of the graft-chantings. That's proven by our successfully giving Narlend a lamprey-mouth in his palm-and that lamprey was none too fresh."

Ending his spell, he added, "Unless Roaringhorn bears magics that interfere with our work, or fails physically-much as I've done, thus far-the graft should work. I know how to craft new ocular muscles now."

"So you should. Eight blinded dogs are quite enough, even in Dock Ward. Had we needed more and been foolish enough to take them from North or Sea Wards, the Watch would have come calling."

Mrelder nodded. "No doubt, yet everything's neatly disposed of. The first few went out on the deathwagon, and as for the rest, well, the mongrelmen said they made a quite tasty stew."

"It was; I had a bowl myself. Will your little toy be ready in time?"

"It's ready now, not that I expect our ambitious noble to return quite so swiftly. Capturing a beholder-"

"Yes, yes, may cost him his life," Golskyn snapped, tiring of the conversation. Turning on his heel, he strode out of the spell-chamber.

Mrelder wore a little smile as he took up the little stone that had been the focus of the spell he'd just quelled. No probing questions about it, or just what magics he'd perfected, or precisely what he'd done with them. Sometimes his father's scorn of sorcery came in quite useful.

Golskyn's door slammed, and Mrelder heard something unexpected: the front door warning gong. He frowned. Beldar Roaringhorn had found his way here out of the blue; now who-?

Hoth rushed up the stairs wearing a wintry smile, heading for Golskyn's chamber without a word to Mrelder.

"Hoth!" the sorcerer snapped. "Who is it? Who's at the door?"

Hoth made no reply, and Mrelder barked his question again, making his voice as cold and authoritative as his father's.

Hoth turned, his hand already on Golskyn's door-handle. "The Roaringhorn lordling's returned, and is asking to speak with Lord Unity. Alone."

Mrelder frowned. "Is he-?"

The rest of his words were swept away in the shattering roar of his father's door-with Hoth still holding it-being hurled into a splintering meeting with the far wall.

"Father?" Mrelder shouted, breaking into a run. "Father?"

Hoth was moving feebly under the wreckage as Mrelder pounded past into smoke and two ruby-red beams of magic, flashing at each other in the gloom like thrust swords.

One came from Golskyn's beholder-eye, of course… and the other was identical, which could only mean…

Mrelder had to see. He dare not He cast a swift and simple clarity spell that should sweep away the smoke and banish both shadows and darkness.

There were shouts and pounding feet from behind Mrelder. He stepped aside swiftly so he'd not be in the way of angry Amalgamation believers rushing into the room with ready weapons.

Wards were flickering in Golskyn's chamber as strong magics lashed out and rebounded, and the feeble clarity spell struggled to expand like mist swirling in a gale. Through it, Mrelder caught a glimpse of his father standing fearlessly, hair singed and his tentacles holding his desk-its top scorched and smoldering-in front of him like a shield.

Golskyn was murmuring spell-prayers as fast as his lips could move, gesturing to bring down the wrath of the gods on something across the chamber. A foe that was, yes, high up near the ceiling: Spherical, and with Something flashed through the thinning smoke, and Mrelder felt himself stiffening. He fought to turn and lift his arm, panic flaring like a flame, but… he was caught… and frozen.

His hand slowed to a drifting thing, then stopped altogether, and Mrelder turned what was left of his will to breathing and turning his eyes, trying to see Wall and floor, rushing up to meet him swiftly as mongrel-men burst into the room and struck him aside.

Mrelder slammed into unyielding hardness and bounced, hearing a mongrelman grunt in pain behind him. Then there came a heavy crash as another blundered into a chair and fell through it to the floor.

Then came more bright red flashes, somewhere above him, and more groans. Weapons were dropped with heavy clangs and clatters, someone shouted in pain, and someone else shrieked in agony, cries that receded swiftly back out the door and ended in an abrupt wail that could only mark a plunge down the stairwell.

Golskyn said something cold and crisp and triumphant, and Mrelder felt that horrible shifting in his mind that could only mean one thing: his father was collapsing most of the wards laid on his chamber into a mighty spell to make it even stronger.

Mrelder's skin tingled, and a sudden, high singing began, so thin and high-pitched that it felt almost like a needle driven into his ears… and it went on and on.

All other sounds ceased, but for a few distant groans and the imperious tread of his father's boots, crossing the chamber to thrust bruisingly into Mrelder's ribs and roll him over.

"Well, you exhibited your usual scant usefulness," Golskyn of the Gods commented, staring scornfully down at the paralyzed sorcerer. Mrelder gazed helplessly back at him.

One side of the priest's head was scorched, his bared torso was a mass of sickening yellow-and-blue bruises, blistered burns, and blackened tatters of clothing largely burned away down to his belt, The little snake graft that sprouted from his wrist was thrashing about convulsively, biting the air in agony… but the priest's own surviving eye was its usual cold, confident self. The other one-the beholder orb-stared with deadly promise down at Mrelder, the eyepatch that customarily concealed it dangling around Golskyn's neck.

Beyond him, shrouded in flickering magics, a beholder-a small one, little larger than a round shield, and with only six eyestalks, but yes, a beholder!-hung motionless.

His father's head turned. "Well, Hoth?"

"Four dead. Ortarn here, Danuth and Velp yonder, and Skein's face was burnt off, even before he fell over the rail and broke his neck. The rest of us will live until we can heal each other. Shall I show the noble up?"

Golskyn started to chuckle, a harsh, mirthless sound that went on for some time. Mrelder tried again to move his hand and found that it responded now, but slowly, drifting in dreamlike torpor despite the fiercest exertion of his will.

Hoth ignored the sorcerer at his feet entirely, his eyes fixed on Golskyn as the priest's chuckle ran down. Gazing at the frozen beholder, the leader of the Amalgamation replied, "Of course. Tell him-"

"I found my own way up, as it happens," Beldar Roaringhorn said calmly from the doorway.

Hoth whirled around, but Golskyn snapped out a tentacle to coil around the man's arm and ordered, "Leave us, Hoth. Peacefully. The Lord Roaringhorn stands very much in our favor, just now."

Mrelder's paralysis was falling away very quickly now. He rolled over and got to his feet.

Beldar Roaringhorn was strolling forward, one hand on sword-hilt and the other at his belt. Heedless of the strong likelihood that the noble was clutching his two strongest battle-magics, Mrelder stepped into his path and snarled, "You sent that horror in here, to kill us!"

Lord Roaringhorn lifted one brow. "That was obviously the beholder's intent, yes, but how would that serve my purpose?"

Golskyn eyed him keenly. "A test, perchance, to see if we of the Amalgamation were powerful enough to grant you what you seek."