Ramiro looked at me and frowned. I winked at him solemnly. For the "slyness and gutter smarts" that Firebrand accused me of were spinning and focusing like elaborate gnomish machinery. Something was afoot, and we would not be long in the finding out.

I looked back to Shardos just in time to see the ungainly juggling begin.

How Shardos was able to send that paper tumbling through the windless air, wrapping bottle and book and knife around it, is beyond me to this day. Perhaps it was more sleight of hand than jugglery. Whatever the case, my attentions were fixed not on the objects, but on the words of the old man's song, beginning, as you might expect, in the common speech.

"Your one true love's a sailing ship That anchors at our pier. We lift her sails, we man her decks, We scrub the portholes clear,"

Then, atop the same old marching tune, the song slid into Old Solamnic, a language familiar to only three of Shardos's listeners: Ramiro, Brithelm, and me.

"They do not understand this part, They stand around and gape, They think I'm after dirty things Instead of your escape."

A dozen sets of eyes turned to us. I confess I was gaping myself, stunned at the old man's brass.

Then my brother, the innocent fool of my imaginings, began to laugh. He looked at me, repeated "your escape" in a loud Old Solamnic, punctuating it with an ancient, obscene hand sign that would have made even Marigold blush.

The Plainsmen had not been underground forever. They began to laugh at my brother, and I found myself laughing, too-not at the gesture as much as the sheer bizarreness of seeing my brother make it.

Meanwhile, Shardos continued in common speech, the bawdy trail song filling the room.

"And, yes, our lighthouse shines for her, And, yes, our shores are warm; We steer her into harbor- Any port in a storm.

"The sailors stand upon the docks, The sailors stand in line, As thirsty as a dwarf for gold Or centaurs for cheap wine."

Then, in an ancient and surprisingly graceful dancer's turn, the old juggler spun himself about on the stage. Uncannily the piece of parchment flattened itself in the air, lying steady as though it still rested upon the lectern from which Firebrand had taken it. About it, the book and the bottle and the knife wheeled on their own, as though set in motion by some primordial design, and Shardos sang more verses, again in Old Solamnic.

"Follow where you saw him go

Out through the corridor,

The legends say his allies

Are those you've fought before,

"I can't make hide nor hair of that;

You should expect the worst,

There is a legend tied to this

I'll save for the final verse."

He smirked, painfully aware that his rhymes were straining. But we were after directions, not aesthetics. All three of us laughed, and the dark-eyed Que-Tana nodded and smiled among themselves, sure that some naughtiness lay in the Old Solamnic.

With a flourish, Shardos pocketed the paper, then the ink bottle, as he sang yet one more verse in common.

"For all the sailors love her

And flock to where she's moored,

Each man hoping that he might

Go down, all hands on board."

The adult Plainsmen chuckled at the suggestions of the verse, as did three of our guards. The fourth one, the dense enormity at Ramiro's side, stared in wonder at the book and knife, which continued to circle one another in the air.

Shardos smiled, stamped his foot, and pocketed the book as he began a final verse in Solamnic.

"No matter what you see or hear

Avoid the thirteenth stone,

And no matter what you think

Leave the crown alone."

As the last Solamnic "alone" crossed his lips, the juggler plucked the knife from the air. But instead of hiding it away, as he had all the other objects, Shardos wheeled toward us suddenly and hurled the blade end over end through the cavern.

It glittered in torchlight as it tumbled through the air and lodged in the chest of the big bodyguard.

For a moment, everyone was stunned. The enormous Plainsman looked stupidly down at his chest, then, as though his wound was only then dawning on him, tumbled to his knees and, with a wordless outcry, onto his face.

There was a brief, familiar pause, as there often is when first blood is drawn in a skirmish between inexperienced fighters, when both sides stop, see what has been wrought, and take in the knowledge that this is real, that the fighting is for keeps and is only beginning.

Then, like some enormous fluked monster rising from the depths of the Blood Sea, Ramiro lurched free of the guards, grabbed the nearest Plainsman by his long, braided hair, and sent the man hurtling into the nearest wall, rattling a torch from its sconce in the process.

Throughout the large stone room, lights were extinguished and things hurled, and the dry curses and calls of the Que-Tana bounced off the tricky walls. I threw my first stone-at the nearest of my foes, of course, for I figured there was no point to any jugglery of my own.

The rock clattered harmlessly past the dried grass stool on which Firebrand had sat, and my target crouched and loaded a sling.

With a deft move of his hand, now glowing with a simple but surprisingly powerful clerical magic, Brithelm seized the wrist of a large Plainsman who was choking Shardos. In my brother's grip, the Que-Tana passed at once into deep, snoring sleep on the cavern floor as Brithelm turned to face further onslaught and Shardos caught his breath again.

Something blurred in the air in front of me, a dark thing flying out of the dappled torchlight, and I had no time to move or fear or even reflect…

And a dark, deft hand plucked the stone from the air, as neatly as it had once caught crockery in the wealthy halls of Palanthas and in floating palaces on the Blood Sea.

Quickly Shardos hurled the rock back into the milling Plainsmen, end over end into the rising shadow. In the vanguard of that mass of robes and pale skin, one shadow fell, clutching at its side.

Then Ramiro rushed in the wake of the stone, scattering Plainsmen as he waded in among our adversaries. His meaty fist found the face of a Plainsman warrior. Blood spouted from the pale man's septum, and his eyes rolled back in his head as he fell to the stone floor, scattering beads and teeth.

Bellowing with delight, Ramiro dodged the downward arc of a Que-Tana club, and as the wielder staggered, the big Knight planted his wide, hobnailed boot squarely on the backside of the Plainsman and propelled him headfirst into three of his approaching comrades, who toppled like drunks at a country fair. Caught up in the rampage, the big man hurdled a downed stalagmite, felling two stalactites when he leapt too high in his enthusiasm. Staggering, he caught one of the stone icicles before it hit the ground and brought the heavy thing whistling up into the groin of yet another approaching enemy. Another he struck, and then another, until his dangerous path brought him to a dropped sword. Puffing, he crouched over, picked it up, and came up in the stance that the ogres call "the Feminator."

Twenty Plainsmen crouched involuntarily and took a step back, which gave Brithelm a chance to reach Ramiro's side. Together the two of them, a most unlikely tandem, backed toward the shelves at the far end of the chamber, forming as they did a narrow passage through the windmilling confusion of robe and armor and weapon.

"Go on, lad!" Shardos shouted in my ear above the cries of the Plainsmen. I resisted his push, for since the Solamnic Order was closing with the Que-Tana at last, it seemed that the only fitting action was to answer their blows.

Shardos restrained me.