They were dead in moments, the Ghants. Broodily, Harathes cleaned the blood from his blade.

“We’re here for the Dark Lord, Lief. We can’t take chances.”

They waited: had that outburst of noise called down worse upon their heads? Apparently not. It had been over swiftly, and probably the Dark Tower of Darvezian was used to the odd bout of wailing and crying.

“You didn’t have to,” Lief muttered.

“Dark is Dark,” Harathes declared.

“I’m sorry, Lief, but the enemy’s servants are still our enemies,” Cyrene said, notably less pleased with herself but not backing down.

“There were Ghants at Cad Nereg, on our side,” the thief pointed out.

“And if this lot had joined them, this wouldn’t have happened to them,” Dion decided.

“Let’s go.” Cyrene was at the exit the old Doomsayer had appeared from. “There are stairs here. Onward and upward.”

Lief went ahead once more, padding on flannel feet up the steps, his way lit only by globes of reddish, angry light. He let his mind connect fully with his ears, an old thief’s trick—good thieves knew that you didn’t just hear, you had to properly listen. What his ears told him was that he was being followed.

He looked around, and found Enth almost peering over his shoulder.

“What are you doing?” he hissed out of the corner of his mouth, using his smallest ever voice.

“I want to see.”

Lief was impressed: the man-spider’s lips had barely moved. At least Enth understood stealth, which was more than the thief could say for most of his more human companions. “See what?”

“The Dark Lord.”

Lief was keeping his eyes on the curve of the stairs, watching for any shadows to fall through the red light. “He won’t just be sitting up on the second floor twiddling his Dark thumbs, Enth. He’ll be right up top, lording it over his Dark domain or whatever it is Darvezian actually does with his time. Can’t you wait until I give the general guided tour?”

“I want to see,” Enth repeated stubbornly.

Lief sighed. “Just keep quiet, fall back when I do, and don’t go running off.”

Enth nodded curtly, and the two of them crept on.

The red lamps kept up a constant murmuring hum that put him off, but he realized after what must have been a half-turn of the tower’s circumference that there were voices mingled in with it. At first it was just low talk, and in these surroundings he could easily picture an evil ritual, or a torturer whispering questions to a victim just before the screaming began. A half-dozen steps closer still, though, and what he heard was just talk, the back and forth of an amicable conversation.

He glanced at Enth, found no clues there, and crept on.