This is where the Doomsayers live. Or at least where they came back to and reported, when not out doing evil. Darvezian had his little elite of warriors and magicians, and here in this tower would be the greatest concentration of them in the world. Lief felt almost upbeat, discovering that: suddenly the whole business didn’t seem too easy and, despite all their tribulations so far, it had been leaning that way. At least now he had something to report.

“Swift and silent” was Cyrene’s plan, pretty much in its entirety. “We go in, kill the Doomsayers before they have a chance to react, cut our way to Darvezian, and take him on like we discussed.”

Lief leant in toward Enth. “You up to nobble another few of the Doomsayers? You’ve got a title to defend, remember?”

The man-spider looked at him with that depressingly familiar blankness, but then essayed a tentative expression. It was probably meant to be a smile, but the movement of the lips was off, and no definite impression was communicated.

“Am I permitted?” Enth turned his round black eyes from one to the next of them.

“What is it asking?” Dion frowned.

“There will be fighting,” the man-spider clarified precisely. “Am I permitted?”

“Penthos’s things on him, his restrictions,” Lief put in. “Good question, actually. It’s going to get a bit frantic in there, I’d guess. We don’t want him just standing about.”

Dion stepped until she was looking Enth right in the face, eye to glassy eye. Lief waited for the creature to glance away, but this time the spider met her head on. After what had happened in the tunnels there was a new tension in Enth, and hardly surprising. Perhaps the creature was desperate for a fight now, to take out its frustrations.

“You want to fight the minions of Darvezian, do you?” Dion asked him. Lief was glad that at least she hadn’t said “the other minions.”

“There will be fighting,” Enth repeated. “I can—I cannot—I do not know what I can fight, or when. Tell me.”

Dion glanced at Penthos. “But it knows, surely, with your strictures.”

The magician shrugged. “It finds out, when it attempts something outside the bounds I have set on it,” he said. “I… suppose that might make it somewhat hesitant about experimenting. Probably it isn’t very pleasant, to get bitten by the geas if it tries to overreach its boundaries. If you want Enth fighting alongside us, then it may be worth setting some fresh limits.”

“Does that mean you need to change the spell?”

“No, no, no.” Penthos waved a hand magnanimously. “We’ve built in that sort of flexibility, in demanding the creature follow orders. Simply give it permissions in the form of orders, and it will take those as its limits. Have I not wrought well?”