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"You can belt up and go forth to die, too," the Lady Overduke told him fondly. "All of you-get!"

They got. Craer took the lead, the rest of the Band of Four followed, and Raulin found himself assisting the baron-who by the top of the steps knew just how weak and easily winded he still was.

Flowfoam was dark and empty, save for the flies, the dead, and the eerie, silently wandering Melted. "Hurry," Embra hissed, looking around. "I don't like this at all."

"Hurry where?" Craer asked. "I know you grew up here and might remember this on your own, but this castle does cover the entire perimeter of the island, you know."

"The throne chamber, you dolt," the Lady Overduke told him witheringly. "I can call on the Living Castle linkages anywhere, but if I do so when someone else is sitting on the throne, he can see right where we are- and strike at will. Once I'm on the throne, I can search all Flowfoam with-out shifting my shapely behind an inch."

Hawkril raised his eyes to the ceiling. "I'm glad you said that, my Lady," he growled. "I'll be even more thankful if Craer resists the urge to comment cleverly, about now." –

Craer smiled, winked, and said nothing at all.

"Should I shift shape?" Sarasper asked reluctantly, as they headed for the throne chamber, and the messily sprawled bodies of guards and courtiers grew more numerous.

"Not unless you'd be much happier as a beast," Embra told him. "Personally, I find it hard to converse with a longfangs."

"That fails to surprise me," the old healer told her wryly, stepping smoothly to one side to let a Melted blunder past without touching him.

"Quiet now," Craer warned. "One more passage, and we'll be looking into the throne chamber."

The doors stood open where the procurer was pointing, huddled bodies in plenty to keep them that way. Embra sniffed at the air, frowning, and shook her head. "I don't like this," she whispered again, and led the way onward. Craer and Hawkril quickly moved to flank her, while Sarasper looked behind them-and found Glarsimber already grimly doing the same thing.

Embra paused at the last door and crouched slightly to peer ever-so-cautiously ahead. Without a word Craer put a hand on her arm to make her stop, and slid past her into the gloom like a fast-drifting shadow. The first place he looked was up at the ceiling, the others saw, ere he glided from view.

Hawkril took a quick step forward to keep his friend in view, war-sword raised at the ready. Craer was peering behind the throne, and then at the doors to either side of it. Embra joined Hawk, and they both saw the procurer shake his head and turn and beckon them to join him.

The throne chamber was crowded with Melted, wandering everywhere. The Lady Overduke was relieved to see that when they collided, they didn't start hacking at each other, but merely staggered back and turned to wander elsewhere. Still, she twisted and darted like a procurer to avoid even brushing into any of them, as she made her way across the wide expanse of marble.

Guards and courtiers lay dead everywhere; she tried not to look at them. When she was standing before the River Throne at last, Embra gazed down at its emptiness, drew in a deep, shuddering breath, and said to Hawk, "Stand guard before me. Please."

He nodded, swung around, and drew his dagger, spreading his arms so that edged steel barred all ways to the front of the throne. Craer raised an eyebrow in a question, and she murmured, "See if you can guide one of those-things-out of a doorway, without getting attacked. If it works, get rid of a few more. Then bar all of these doors."

Craer nodded and glided away, heading for Sarasper, Brightpennant, and Raulin to relay her orders.

"Hawk," Embra whispered, as she turned around to sit down on the High Seat of the Kings of Aglirta, "if my voice seems… not my own, or I speak harshly to you or say things I wouldn't, strike me senseless and get me off here as fast as you can-but throw down your steel before you do it!"

The armaragor merely nodded, over