Riverwind reversed his grip on the Hestite sword and hurled it at Karn. He turned to jump. Something hard hit him square on the back of the head. He pitched forward, crashing into the stalactite and falling to the floor, still in the High Spires.

Riverwind shook off the blow, but as he started to rise, he felt a cold steel edge against his neck. “Give me a reason to strike,” Karn said. Riverwind saw, not ten inches from his outstretched hand, Karn's sword. The fighter had caught him by throwing his own sword at Riverwind, retrieving the plainsman's weapon, and pinning him as he lay stunned.

“Stay your hand or die,” Karn rasped. “I want Her Highness to prescribe your fate.” His dark eyes gleamed.

Riverwind drew in his arm.

The panorama of the great cavern spun around Catch-flea's feet. This giddy swirl, combined with the lingering taste of the Hestite food, made him sick to his stomach. He vomited all he had eaten, but felt better for it.

Catchflea couldn't see where he was falling to. He appeared to be moving laterally as well as vertically. Above him, the High Spires seemed very far away. The smoke thickened and closed in, and even that landmark vanished. He was lost in the smoky void.

Then his feet struck solid ground. Catchflea's knees folded from the shock. A cluster of figures surrounded him.

“I'm so glad to be down!” he declared. “Thank-”

Before he could finish, a heavy drape of copper mesh was flung over his head. Catchflea was lifted onto the shoulders of a dozen silent Hestites. He protested loudly, but the mesh muffled his cries. He tried to kick, but he was held by too many hands and the mesh weighed him down. Catchflea was spirited away without even knowing that Riverwind hadn't followed him out of the Spires.

Karn Marched Rivenwind at sword point back to the High Spires' bridge.

“What do you intend to do with me?” asked Riverwind.

“I must tell Her Highness what has happened. The elder giant won't get far.”

“Catchflea is more clever than he appears.” Riverwind hoped the old soothsayer was safe, wherever Di An had taken him.

“My mistress will glean him out no matter where he goes,” Karn boasted. The limestone bridge emerged from the smoke. Riverwind did not understand how Karn and Di An were able to find their way in the murk. Perhaps elves had keener eyesight than humans.

“Ho-la!” Karn shouted to the guards on the other side.

“It is me, Karn!”

After a second's delay, a faint voice replied. “We're not to converse with you, my captain!”

Karn's eyes scanned the shifting smoke ahead of them. “Nalx, is that you? Listen to me: go to Her Highness and tell her the giants tried to escape. One got away, but I caught the younger one. Tell her, Nalx. She will reward us both.”

“A hard tale to believe, my captain!” said the guard. “Where could the giants escape to?”

“How should I know? There's magic afoot, fool, and if you don't tell Her Highness, what do you think her reaction will be?”

There was a longer delay. Finally, Nalx's voice said, “I will do it, Ro Karn. What a feat, to capture a giant twice-”

“Yes, yes. Go quickly, Nalx!”

After several minutes, Karn stiffened. “An entire company of soldiers!” he exclaimed to Riverwind.

The plainsman squinted into the gloom, but saw absolutely nothing but smoke and noxious vapors. However, he trusted the elf's eyesight.

Nalx called, “You are to cross with the prisoner, Ro Karn!”

“We come!”

The plainsman straddled the bridge as before and inched across. Karn sauntered behind him, his narrow feet comfortably centered on the slick stone path.

A score of pikes was leveled at Riverwind as he gained the platform. Karn had been right about the number of soldiers. An officer raised his arm in salute. “Ro Karn, Her Highness bids you come to her at once.”

With a jaunty, triumphant air, Karn slammed the sword Di An had brought to High Spires home into his scabbard. Another elf stepped forward and handed Karn his helmet.

“I kept it for you, sir,” he said.

The warrior seated the iron helmet on his head and sighed with satisfaction. “My thanks, Sard.” He looked up at Riverwind. “You see, giant, how quickly fortune changes.”

Riverwind regarded him disdainfully. “Yes, and it may change again, and not to your liking.”

Karn laughed. He ordered the soldiers into formation and took his place at their head. They marched in lockstep down the spiral tunnel to Li El's throne room.

The escort halted outside the golden curtains. The domed room was suffused with the spicy scent of incense, and the formerly bright lighting had been dimmed to twilight level. Karn and Riverwind entered through a flap in the curtains.

Inside the gilded circle, the room had changed. The couch was gone, replaced by an elaborate carpet woven of silver and copper. Li El sat on the floor in the center of the circle of red and silver. Her golden hood was thrown back, revealing a cascade of rich, red-brown hair. She was the first denizen of Hest that Riverwind had seen with such beautiful dark hair.

A shallow basin rested on the floor before her, warmed by the fitful flame of a tiny brazier. Her head was bent to the basin as she peered into its depths. As Riverwind watched, the queen of Hest dropped blue powder across the liquid in the basin. It hissed loudly, and coils of vapor poured over the sides of the bowl. The pale blue vapor was the source of the strange incense.

Karn cleared his throat. “My queen, I bring you tidings of-”

“I know,” Li El said softly, without looking up. “I know all.”

Karn paused, taken aback, then continued, “The elder giant escaped before I could stop him. Someone helped him with a chain or a ladder.”

'The girl helped him,” Li El said in a flat, emotionless voice. Her hand disappeared into her robe and came out with a lumpy piece of red crystal. This she carefully dropped into the basin. “The same digger girl you caught in the tunnel,” she said.

“But-but how, Highness? The digger was taken away for questioning-”

“By my brother.” Karn looked at Riverwind rather helplessly. “Do you not see, stupid Karn?” The soldier flinched, but Li El went on relentlessly, “My brother is the one who has been casting the spells, making passages to the surface, and helping those diggers who flee Vartoom!”

Blood suffused Karn's sharp features. “Traitor! I knew it!”

“You did not,” she said, and her voice was barely audible. “Even I did not.”

“Your Highness,” Karn said quickly, “give the word and Vvelz will die today!”

“Vvelz has gone beyond the reach of your sword.” Li El gently blew the accumulated mist away from the surface of the liquid. A red glow emanated from the basin. The sorceress-queen was silent for a long time. Karn fidgeted, then cleared his throat.

“Speak,” said Li El.

“What shall I do with this giant?” he asked.

Li El lifted her face to them. Both the Hestite warrior and the Que-Shu plainsman recoiled. The queen's dark eyes had turned solidly red, and tears the color of blood trickled from their corners. Thin tracks of red inched down her smooth cheeks.

“Long have I striven to rule Hest firmly, to make it rich and great. I deposed the last decadent son of Hest and made myself queen in order to save the diggers from the tyrant's heavy hand. And what gratitude do I get but desertion, treachery, and sabotage?” The flow of blood-tears increased. Riverwind felt a coldness grip his heart. Li El's voice was icy and calm. Somehow he knew that she did not weep from sadness, but from deep and violent rage.