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The three overdukes scrambled hastily to the door-and behind them, the strands of magic writhed and flared into flames, in a humming inferno that became too bright to look at in half a breath.

Heat blistered the three as they huddled against the door, and Craer murmured, "So, Hawk, how does it feel to sleep with enough fury to do that?"

The armaragor gave his old friend a look. "Probably the same as you feel, abed with as much bright magic."

The Lady Talasorn managed a smile. "My, you've the tongue of a courting bard in you, Hawk!"

"Oh? I'll make him take it back out right quickly, when I find it," was the growled reply-and Tash had to look twice before she was sure that he was joking, and dared to laugh.

The fire fied away as swiftly as it had flared. Craer spun around and grabbed Hawkril to stop him charging to Embra-but failed. As the armaragor's determined progress towed him across still-hot, creaking flagstones, he called, "So what was all that, Lady Em?"

All traces of the cage were gone. Embra Silvertree stood tall, all signs of pain fallen away. She held out her arms for Hawkril, but gave Craer a look of distaste. " 'Lady Em'? Procurer, how much longer d'you want to live?"

"Sorry," Craer replied. His voice was contrite without a trace of mockery, startling all of his companions into looking at him. "What did you do just now-the fire, and all?"

Embra smiled at him from the depths of Hawkril's embrace. "When I can touch any stone of the palace, I can call on the Living Castle enchantments. I used them to drink the magic of the cage." Her smile faded. "So now we must rob a few rooms of enchanted things to power the spells Tash and I will need-to fight without a Dwaer, and bring us back home if need be. Oh, and I must get boots and a sash, at least, for this nightrobe. Then the castle enchantments will serve again to source the best seeking spell we can manage-and we must hope by the Three that my father's crazed enough to keep his Dwaer in use, and our magic finds him. We fling ourselves to him, and…"

"Risk our necks again," Craer concluded mockingly. "My, what a change!"

In a dark, deep stone chamber, fingers longer and more sinuous than a human's slid around the edges of a stone block, and tugged.

The stone grated out, and the owner of those wormlike fingers reached into the revealed cavity behind it and drew forth a small sack. The sinuous fingers grasped four objects through the rough canvas, carefully holding them apart from each other, as if they were as fragile as eggs.

The sack was set down with great care, and the fingers lengthened and curved like snakes into its open end.

Four times they slid inside, each time emerging with something spherical and setting it gently on the floor. When the snakelike fingers withdrew for the last time, four rock crystal spheres glowed faintly on the floor. Each had one flat side, graven with a rune. Those symbols were the sources of the glows.

The wormlike fingers touched one rune as a long, convoluted, and harsh word was uttered-and from that sphere sprang a whirling, shimmering cloud of colors. The fingers turned the orb over onto its flat side-and the shimmerings instantly became a sharp, bright, three-dimensional image of a young, imperious-looking man in robes.

The owner of the fingers bent its head to regard the image-though its face was a featureless mask of flesh, without visible eyes. Yet it walked very slowly around the image as if studying it, stopped, and then started to move again, more slowly, almost creeping around the seeming of the robed man.

As the faceless creature moved, its body shifted and flowed, becoming more and more like the robed image. When the likeness was exact, a robed man slowly circled a bright, stationary duplicate of himself, making sure of every last detail. Then he straightened to match the pose of the image, walked a few experimental steps in a stride very unlike the sinuous, padding gait of his earlier, faceless form, and announced: "I Jhavarr Bowdragon."