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Ingryl shivered, and scrambled hurriedly into the little cave that led to the second trap. So Kelgrael Snowsar was dead, the Serpent was loose, and Aglirta was doomed.

Worse than that: he'd have to get to the Dwaerindim fast, and find all of them, before the Serpent did. For if Eroeha-who'd helped to enchant the Worldstones-ever got hold of them all, it wouldn't just be Aglirta facing doom.

It would be all of Darsar.

"But you were Red Dream last time," the spectacularly beautiful woman said poutingly, one long-nailed hand posed on a bare hip, and the other holding a red cord still swaying from just being caught.

The taller, darker woman on the far side of the room shrugged and threw her the blue cord, holding out her hand to receive the red one back. "Suit yourself, Raegrel, but mind you match my looks exactly. Darker, see? Longer legs, just here."

The procurer hanging head downward outside the window swallowed. He couldn't quite hear what they were saying, but the one farther away from him seemed to be critical of the nearer one's breasts, and-yes, she'd grasped her own nipples now and was tugging on them, laughing! Gods above, you do know how to torment a man!

He'd never seen any women so beautiful, and-

The world exploded in a clap of thunder, there was a flash of dark-ness, and suddenly shards of glass were tinkling all around him and he was in the room, by the Three, and falling helplessly towards that bath-pool! He was going to-

Raegrel snaked out one feminine arm until it was over twenty feet long. Quite long enough, in other words, to slap the ragged little man's back in midair, driving him down headfirst under the water. "Shall I drown him?"

"Stop playing and look out the window!" Thaebred snapped, extending his neck in a grotesque, rubbery thrust of flesh that took his head clear across the room. Frowning, the younger Koglaur did the same, and together they peered out.

And stared at distant, dark coils, the frantic bubbling sounds behind them forgotten.

"W-what is it?" Raegrel asked. "Illusion magic?"

"No," Thaebred whispered. "No, it's not. It's the Great Serpent, come at last."

Silence stretched for a long time before the younger Koglaur asked, in a small and frightened voice, "So what do we do now?"

"Run, hide, and pray."

"What?

To the Three Who Heed Not?"

"To every god you've ever heard of," the older Koglaur replied, and did something with a jerk of muscles that freed the procurer from Raegrel's drowning grasp and sent him sailing out through the window.

A moment later, as the far-off snake opened its fangs and struck at something beneath it that they could not see, there came a wet splat from the cobbled street far below.

"He would have been just as dead in here," Raegrel said, a little reproachfully.

"He's still alive," Thaebred said slowly, his eyes on the distant Serpent. "I dropped him onto jarambur's latest delivery of full wineskins."

Raegrel stared at him. "You mean the street's full of wine?"

"For now. It'll be full of blood when yon Serpent gets here."

Raegrel frowned at the older Koglaur, went a little pale, and swallowed. "You're serious, aren't you?"

Thaebred nodded. "I'm one of the few beings yet alive," he said softly, "who can remember what it was like the last time the Serpent was loose."

Raegrel looked at the older Koglaur. Thaebred was trembling slightly.

He'd never seen Thaebred frightened before. After a moment, he whispered, "So what do we do?"

"I don't know," the older Koglaur replied simply, and turned his head away from the window.

Raegrel watched him retract that long neck, and then, quite suddenly, started to cry.

Thaebred's head turned to look at him. "Come on, Red Dream," he growled. "Pull yourself together-hmmph, literally. We've got a show to do."

"Dolmur! What was that?" Multhas called, from outside the locked door. He sounded more bewildered than angry, for once.

The oldest surviving Bowdragon smiled thinly and called back, "Muldias, bring everyone. Every living Bowdragon. Here,