"Yes, but let's permit the, ah, unfortunate wagers of yestertimes be forgotten, shall we? Those horses might not have won, but some of them made excellent glue!"

Beldar went on to another weak jest, but Korvaun barely heard it. He was watching a Roaringhorn forefinger wandering idly through the puddle-and realizing what it was doing.

Sometimes boyhood codes can come in useful. Beldar chuckled loudly at his own joke, and Korvaun joined in with a grin, lifting his gaze long enough to give Beldar the slightest of nods. Then he raised his glass again, to make anyone watching think he was saluting the jest, and glanced down once more.

"New eye under patch. Controlling me!" Beldar's hand waved idly across the foamy puddle, sweeping away his writing.

"Hah! I've got one for you?" Korvaun announced delightedly, and leaned even closer. Nose to nose with Beldar and very curious as to what was lurking under the eyepatch so close to him, he murmured, "Who?"

"I can't say," Beldar said with a wide, false grin, "and I mean that quite literally: I cannot shape the right words."

As he spoke, he drew their private runes for, "They're seeking next Piergeiron."

Korvaun reached for his own tallglass, deliberately jostling it so that some spilled onto the table. "We're going to need more wine soon," he said loudly, quickly finger-writing, "Piergeiron ALIVE. Healing well!"

Beldar sat back, slapping the table as if Korvaun had said something uproariously funny. "So I've heard, but who knows what to believe these days?"

"You'll hear even better tales at the Purple Silks revel," Korvaun said, trying to impart some important information of his own. "Everyone'll be there, even-"

"No, no, no!" Beldar interrupted loudly and delightedly, waving his hands in a wild caricature of a gossiping housewife. "Don't tell me!"

Then he leaned closer, offering his ear in broad parody of that delighted gossip, and wrote, "Say nothing. Being listened to."

"WHO listen?" Korvaun wrote as he whispered some meaningless scandal. "Whence came eye? Wizard?"

Beldar roared with laughter and wrote: "No. Beholder."

Korvaun felt his face change. He forced the horror from his eyes and levity into his voice. "What news of Roaringhorn acquisitions?" It was a standing joke that Beldar's elder male kin almost daily bought horses or small city shops-or tried to buy beautiful women. Yet even as he spoke, Korvaun winced. "Roaringhorn acquisitions," indeed!

Beldar's smile went wry. "My esteemed cousin acquired three this morn, I'm told, each crossing the finish line first. Impressive, until one heeds the gossip of disgruntled fillies claiming the future Roaringhorn patriarch confuses racing grounds with bedchambers."

"Far be it from us to spread gossip," Korvaun responded archly, lifting his tallglass.

"Far indeed."

They clinked glasses in an ironic toast, not incidentally spilling more foam, and sipped again.

Suddenly Beldar touched his eyepatch, and his face cleared. "They're gone for the moment, gods be praised," he muttered. "Doubtless driven off in sheer disgust. Now heed: I may not have time to repeat this."

Korvaun leaned close. "Speak!"

"Come to the revel, Gemcloaks all, ready for trouble: Real weapons, not fancy show-blades. Expect to fight men with monster claws and tentacles and such, two score or more, led by a mad priest who wants to put his own thrall on Piergeiron's throne: Me-did I not say he was mad? His son's a sorcerer, and they can move the Walking Statues to do their bidding. Through me."

"Marvelous," Korvaun replied loudly, slapping the table and sitting back as a serving lass saw the state of their glasses and hastened up with fresh wine. "Simply splendid!"

When she was gone, he hissed, "Beldar, we should tell the Palace at once! Piergeiron plans to attend the revel!"

"Tell them what? That I'm hearing voices? I'm sure they'll drop everything to listen to an idle young blade so stupid he'd allow his own right eye to be cut out of his head and a beholder eye enspelled into its place! Something that's strictly illegal, according to magisters' case-law, by the way. Did I mention that?"

"No."

"I suppose I also failed to mention the halfling I killed last night, when the eye was controlling me."

Korvaun stared at his friend. "Surely a mage or priest could prove your words true-and break this hold over you."

Beldar shook his head. "I've tried. A onetime witch of Rashemen lies dead not far from here, as does a barber whose only fault was greed. I'll not be responsible for more deaths. This is my fate, and I must put it right."

"We'll stand beside you, of course! Yet twoscore monster-men! What can our four swords-five if you can stand with us-do against such foes?"

"Little, but perhaps we can offer our assistance to someone with more experience in such matters."

"Oh? Who's this great champion?"

Beldar stiffened and grew a wide, sickly smile at the same time. "You'd never believe me!" he chortled, slapping the table.

The unseen listeners must have returned. Korvaun could not quite force a smile onto his own face as he downed his wine, rose, and said quietly, "There's no man alive I'd trust more than you."

And with a merry wave he turned away, letting his friend's unseen tormentors make of that what they would.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

"Lord and Lady Manthar," the doorwarden of the Purple Silks announced grandly, as that impeccably garbed couple swept imperiously past.

He blinked at the next pair stepping up to the threshold, winced visibly at what the male half of the couple whispered into his ear, and declaimed: "Delvur Morrowlyn, proud vendor of garderobe seats, with his, ah, bedmate Lahaezyl, twenty dragons per night!"

Delvur and Lahaezyl grinned broadly, clasped arms, and sailed into the waiting tumult every bit as serenely as had the Manthars.

There were some titters from folk waiting on the steps-those who weren't looking darkly scandalized-and one of them belonged to Lord Taeros Hawkwinter.

"My, but our hosts have fine senses of humor," he remarked to Korvaun, who stood just ahead of him with Naoni Dyre, as everyone ascended a step and the doorwarden made ready to announce Elphoros the Fishmonger and his fourth wife, Burdyl. "'The city entire' evidently means just that! This should be a Midsummer Eve to remember!"

"And just what," Lark inquired in a low but icy purr at his shoulder, "do you mean by that, Lord Hawkwinter?"

Taeros grinned into her glare almost fondly and murmured, "Ladylark, you almost behave as rudely as a noble. I'm looking forward to an evening of being raked by your verbal claws, but could you not at least wait for due cause? 'Tis more sporting that way."

"Lark," Naoni Dyre said quietly, before the servant could make any reply.

"Mistress," Lark responded stiffly.

"Gods deliver me," Roldo Thongolir murmured, staring up into the sky from the step below Lark and Taeros, where he stood with Faendra Dyre on his arm. His wife had crisply informed him he could attend the revel with anyone he desired to, but if it was going to daggers drawn all night, Roldo knew he'd be seeking solace in emptied goblets-lots of them-rather than enjoying dances-lots of them-with Faendra.

"How common," sighed Starragar's date, from the next step down, as they all moved up again. Phandelopae Melshimber was a distant cousin of her Waterdhavian kin, but her years as one of the most frigidly voluptuous beauties in all Athkatla had stolen nothing from her arresting looks and tall, spectacular carriage. Her gown was of the deepest black shimmerweave, her curves magnificent, and she drifted up the steps with deft grace despite wearing almost her own weight in glittering falls of precious gems.