Jig could see that for himself. Of the creature Smudge had burned, nothing remained but a skeleton that lay in the middle of a man-shaped pile of ash. Jig felt thankful for his new boots, since he had to walk through those remains to catch up with the others. He tried to ignore the crunch of his footsteps as he followed Darnak.

Smudge scurried over and climbed Jig’s leg.

“Good spider,” Jig whispered, reaching down to scratch Smudge’s head. “Very good spider. A warrior-spider.” He glanced back at the bones and ash. “And still a hungry spider, I suspect. I doubt you found much meat on that thing. Don’t you worry, I’ll get something for you to eat.”

The remains of the other creatures cluttered the corridor. One had been hacked to pieces, probably by Barius’s sword. Another still jerked and twitched, as if trying to continue the attack. It might have succeeded, had its head not been lying upside down farther up the corridor. Darnak gave the body a lazy smack in passing, and the thing fell still.

As for the rest, even Jig could figure out how they had died. Only Ryslind’s magic killed with such finality. These bodies were the least damaged, but each showed a large, blackened hole where the hearts would have been. Was there any limit to what Ryslind could do? Jig counted four who had fallen to the wizard’s fire.

The smell was terrible, and he tried not to breathe through his nose until he had joined Darnak and the others in the room where they had first come through the whirlpool. Even there the charred scent of Ryslind’s work followed him.

He braced himself for Barius’s outburst as he passed through the door. No doubt the prince would yell and threaten and demand to know how Jig could have been so stupid as to trigger the trap. But Barius was in no shape to yell.

The prince lay in the middle of the room, next to the water pillar. His shirt and armor were piled to one side, and his white skin was pale even for a human. Bandages covered his stomach; another bound his left shoulder. Both were wet with blood.

“Is he dead?” Jig asked, trying to keep his hope-fulness from showing.

“Pah.” Darnak spat on the pillar. Jig stared, fascinated, as the spittle shrank and vanished, somehow passing through the barrier and into the waters of the whirlpool.

“He’s not dead. He just tried a riposte when he should have parried in four.”

Jig nodded as though he understood.

“Don’t worry, he’ll be his charming self soon enough. Earthmaker won’t allow us to fail, not from a few scratches like that.”

“Earthmaker sounds like a useful person to have around,” Jig said.