Stegoman eyed the dracogriff's feathered wings with doubt. "I will essay it, surely, an thou dost wish."
Fadecourt clambered down and helped a very pale Yverne to dismount.
"But you just don't think I'm up to it, huh?" Narlh bristled.
"I have no basis for judgment," Stegoman confessed. "Ne'er before have I seen a creature like to thee."
Narlh's head snapped up, stung, and Matt leaped in to pour balm on the wound before the bomb exploded. "Quite a compliment, to think you're unique—and you wouldn't deny that you are rare."
"Well...special, anyway," Narlh grumped.
"Unique," Matt confirmed. "Now, do you two guys want to try to squeeze down that stairway with the rest of us, or do you want to stay up here and hold a mutual gripe session?"
"I will come," Stegoman said quickly. "I mislike the look of that dark maw of a staircase. Nay, Matthew, thou mayest have need of my flame."
"I'll beg off, thank you." Narlh eyed the hole in the roof with loathing. "I have this thing about tight places. Besides, you're going to need a sentry up here, just in case."
Matt couldn't have agreed more, though he couldn't think what "in case" might be. "Great. Hope you get bored, though."
"I kinda think I've had enough interesting times to hold me," Narlh agreed.
"Okay. Off to the lower depths, folks." And Matt strode away toward the dark doorway at the base of the north tower, trying not to show the qualms he was feeling.
They filed through the door and turned the first curve of the spiral into darkness, and Matt said, "I think maybe a small flare, Stegoman."
But before the dragon could comply, light burst ahead of them, several steps down. Matt stared in surprise, instantly tensed to face an enemy—but the light was coming from a sconce on the wall. It was an empty sconce, though, one that should have held a torch, but didn't. Instead, it held a bluish flame.
"What enemy awaits us?" Sir Guy demanded.
"None—only an automatic lighting system." But Matt frowned at the sconce, knowing that bluish flame was familiar, wondering why, and where he'd seen it before.
"Let us go further," Stegoman rumbled, and Matt went on, under the sconce and down into the next curve of darkness.
Light flared in front of them again.
"Is't another unseen torch?" Yverne asked, voice not quite steady.
"Yes." Matt gazed at the flame in the sconce, musing, then decided it was nothing threatening. "It's just a very good system for lighting this stairway only when it's needed. Fadecourt, tell me when that first torch goes out."
"I will," the cyclops answered, and Matt went on down the spiral. Another sconce burst into flame before him.
"The light has gone from the wall behind me," Fadecourt reported.
Matt nodded. "Each torch comes on as we near it, then fades as we pass it. Very efficient spell—and one that also warns the inhabitants that we're here, no doubt."
"If there are any to heed it," Sir Guy pointed out.
"There must be. The flames have burst forth from the hillside, whene'er the king has attacked." But Fadecourt was frowning, too, uncertain.
With good reason. If the torches could be automatic, why not the castle's defenses? "We'll find out in a few minutes," Matt said. "Let's go."
They went on down the tower stair with no more discussion, moving as quietly as they could on the stone.
Finally, the stairway opened out, and the last torch showed them a broad chamber beyond. Matt stepped out into that great room and saw faded tapestries covering the walls, an elaborate carved chair on a distant dais, and a fireplace with roaring flames. Beside it, hands locked behind his back and gazing at the fire in contemplation, stood a short, plump man with baggy hose and a threadbare doublet, high forehead shading into a bare scalp fringed with long, gray hair that hung down about his shoulders. His face was wan and wrinkled, with a brooding, thoughtful look, lit from below by firelight.
He seemed unaware of their presence. If his spell on the tower stair had given warning, he had paid it no heed.
It seemed a little rude to call out, so Matt cleared his throat.
The old man spun toward the sound, eyes wide in horror. He gave a little cry and cowered back, hands upheld to ward them off, quavering, "Enemies! My friends, come! We are beset!"
Suddenly the air was thick with gauzy, translucent shapes with huge gray moth wings and stunted, gnarled, almost-human forms. Wispy beards adorned faces like oak burls, and clenched fists pounded the companions. One blow struck through and into Matt's head; he heard nothing, but a blinding pain shot through his skull. "Max! Disperse them!"
But Puck was already in action, shooting from one creature to another, countering blows with his own, tiny, upraised palm—and the force of the punch rebounded, knocking the moth-men awry. Max danced out to join him, singing in glee as he shot through and through the translucent forms; the moth-men began to keen with pain.
"Cold Iron!" Sir Guy roared, whipping out his sword and whirling it over his head. The spirits scattered, pulling back from his blade, but hovering just beyond its reach, and their keening took on the tone of anger.
"Behind us!" Fadecourt called, and Matt whipped about to see more moth-men closing in from the rear. "It's a trap after all!" he cried. "Gordogrosso set an ambush for us! I should've known!"
"Gordogrosso, do you say?" the old man cried in surprise. "Nay, desist, my friends! The enemy of my enemy is my ally!"
The moth-men pulled back, simmering with anger, and Puck shot toward them.
"Nay, hold, goblin!" Sir Guy called. " 'Twould be pity of my life, if we were to slay friends!"
Puck hovered, trading glares with a moth-man, but held his station.
"Patch 'em up, Max," Matt called. "Wait a minute—no. Just stop hurting them. If they are friends, we'll heal them."
"You have the power to undo the harm you've done?" the old man asked, amazed.
"That much, I can do," Matt confirmed. "The question is, should I?"
The old man spread his hands. "That's to say, am I your friend? And to that, I can only reply that I have resisted the king's armies and magic all my life, as did my father before me, and his father before him."
"Are your moth-men that strong?"
The moth-men set up an angry buzzing, and the old man frowned. "Call them well-wists, for they wist of all wells and other depths beneath the earth. They do flit through rock and soil as birds do fly through air, and thus learn all the secrets of the hidden places beneath the ground."
"Oh." Matt lifted his head, understanding. "It's not just their power to hurt that gives them strength—it's their knowledge."
"Aye. 'Tis they showed my grandsire how to defend his castle with flame, in return for some service he had done them."
Matt was suddenly very interested in the nature of that service—but the old man was asking, "Are you not the king's henchmen, sent here to slay me and seize my castle?"
"Never!" Fadecourt snapped.
Yverne lifted her head, indignant at the insult. "I have suffered too much from this vile monarch who broke faith with my father, good sir."
"None of us would even think of siding with Gord—uh, the king," Matt explained, without apparently attracting their enemy's attention.
Or had they attracted his attention, but without risk? Certainly the castle seemed impregnable, even from magic. Matt felt more confident, but also felt the heavy weight of an obligation to be honest. "Myself, I'm out to assassinate the king." It sounded ugly, when he came right out and said it—but that was what he intended, after all, and if there were anything wrong about it, he'd better find out ahead of time. "Not that I usually advocate murder, you understand, but he deserves it if anybody does, and it's the only way to save the people of Ibile from him. I'd prefer to kill him in open battle, of course, but I don't think I'll get the chance."