of the evidence. Who were they?” He turned a gimlet eye on Lord Eyrdway, as the bodyguards moved at once to gather up the dead. They carried them quickly up the stairs, chuckling amongst themselves.
“Who were they? Just some people,” said Lord Eyrdway, a little uncomfortably. “Can I have a drink?”
“What do you mean, ‘just some people’?” demanded Lord Ermenwyr.
“Just some people I… cheated, and sort of insulted their mothers,” said Lord Eyrdway. “And killed one of their brothers. Or cousins. Or something.” His gaze slid sideways to Smith. “Hey, mortal man, want to see something funny?”
He lunged forward and grabbed Lord Ermenwyr’s beard, and gave it a mighty yank.
“Ow!” Lord Ermenwyr struck his hand away and danced back. Lord Eyrdway looked confused.
“It’s a real beard now, you cretin!” Lord Ermenwyr said, rubbing his chin.
“Oh.” Lord Eyrdway was nonplussed for a moment before turning to Smith. “See, he’s got this ugly baby face and he was worried he’d never grow a real mage’s beard like Daddy’s, so he—”
“Shut up!” raged Lord Ermenwyr.
“Or maybe it was to hide his pimples,” Lord Eyrdway continued gloatingly, at which Lord Ermenwyr sprang forward and grabbed him by the throat. Willowspear and Smith managed to pry them apart, and managed only because Lord Eyrdway had made a ridge of thorns project out of the sinews of his neck, causing his brother to pull back with a yelp of pain. He stood back, nursing his hands and glaring at Lord Eyrdway.
“Those had better not be venomous,” he said.
“Curl up and die, shorty,” Lord Eyrdway told him cheerfully. He looked around. “Is there a bar in here?”
“Maybe we should all go upstairs, lord?” Smith suggested.
“Er—no,” said Lord Ermenwyr. “I don’t think you want to go into my rooms for the next little while.” He looked at the entrance to the bar. “It’s private in there.”
It would be hours yet before Rivet came in to work, so Willowspear obligingly went behind the bar and fetched out a couple of bottles of wine and glasses for them.
“Is anybody else likely to come bursting in here in pursuit of you?” Lord Ermenwyr inquired irritably, accepting a glass of wine from Willowspear.
“I don’t think so,” said Lord Eyrdway. “I’m pretty sure I scared off the rest of them when I turned into a giant wolf a few streets back. You should have seen me! Eyes shooting fire, fangs as long as your arm—”
“Oh, save it. I’m not impressed.”
“Are you a mage also, lord?” Smith inquired, before they could come to blows again.
“Me, a mage?” Lord Eyrdway looked scornful. “Gods, no. I don’t need to do magic. I am magic.” He drained his wine at a gulp and held out his glass to be refilled. “More, Willowspear. What are you doing down here, anyway?”
“Attending on your lord brother,” Willowspear replied, bowing and refilling his glass. “And—”
“That’s right, because Nursie’s busy with the new brat!” Lord Eyrdway grinned again. “So poor little Wormenwyr needs somebody else to start up his heart when it stops beating. Did you know my brother is practically one of the undead, mortal? What was your name?”
“Smith, lord.”
“The good Smith knows all about me,” said Lord Ermenwyr. “But I never told him about you.”
“Oh, you must have heard of me!” Lord Eyrdway looked at Smith in real surprise.
“Well—”
“Hear, mortal, the lamentable tragedy of my house,” Lord Ermenwyr intoned gloomily. “For it came to pass that the dread Master of the Mountain, in all his inky and infernal glory, did capture a celestial Saint to be his bride, under the foolish impression he was insulting Heaven thereby. But, lo! Scarce had he clasped her in his big evil arms when waves of radiant benignity and divine something-or-other suffused his demonic nastiness, permanently reforming him; for, as he was later to discover to his dismay, the Compassionate One had actually let him capture her with that very goal in mind. But that’s the power of Love, isn’t it? It never plays fair.
“And, in the first earthshaking union of their marital bliss, so violent and so acute was the discord across the planes that a hideous cosmic mistake was made, and forth through the Gates of Life issued a concentrated gob of Chaos, and nine months later it sort of oozed out of Mother and assumed the shape of a baby.”