“Very nice,” Barius said sharply. “And now that our companion has been returned, perhaps you can get on with the matter of our deaths.” He stood with Darnak on the other side of the dragon. Behind them, Ryslind had taken their weapons and watched the proceedings with a smile. Even Jig could see that, unlike the others, Ryslind was no prisoner.

“Oh, but I so rarely have company,” Straum protested. His voice was like an earthquake, though his serpentine tongue gave him a bit of a lisp when he spoke Human. “Most people never make it past the Necromancer. If they even find him. I had such a good time watching you figure that out.”

He tilted his head toward two small pools that Jig hadn’t seen before. No more than puddles a little way from shore, a short wall of clear glass bricks surrounded and protected each one. The surfaces were so still it was like looking at a pair of mirrors. Instead of reflecting Straum’s muscular bulk, Jig saw a whirling pillar of water at the center of an empty room when he studied the nearest pool. A small corpse lay to one side, next to an enormous throne. The Necromancer’s room. He wondered how the magic could show so much detail when the throne room itself was dark.

Flecks of color sparkled across the both pools, and finally Jig understood the purpose for those two decorative ceilings in the shiny room and the Necromancer’s throne room. Straum had been watching them, probably since that first confrontation where Jig betrayed his captain.

While Jig wrestled with a new wave of fear, Straum gestured to a wall full of lanterns. “See that one, with the handle shaped like a naked eight-armed woman? That belonged to Erik the Eunuch. Used to be a slave of some eastern emperor. Once he built a name for himself, he had everything he owned redesigned with a kind of ‘melon-breasted naked woman motif.’ Personally, I think it’s a blatant example of overcompensating.”

Lowering his head toward Barius, he asked, “Tell me, do women of such proportions truly exist among your people? If so, are they able to walk upright like the rest of your species?”

“And where in your fine collection do you keep the Rod of Creation, oh great worm?” Barius asked, ignoring the question.

Straum began to laugh. Whitecapped waves crossed the lake as the dragon’s chest heaved, and Jig flattened his ears to block the worst of the sound. It was a terrible laugh, one that combined fury and bitterness with genuine mirth. Straum’s head and neck slid through the sand until his mouth rested mere feet from the prince.

“Therein lies Ellnorein’s greatest joke. ’Twas a joke played as much on you as on me.” His voice dropped to a whisper, though a whisper from Straum’s mouth still blew Barius’s black hair backward. “I don’t have it.”