“Of course not, it wouldn’t have a neck,” Penthos said. Again, not a chortle. Some people just would not see the funny side of a situation. Everyone was so tense and angsty all of a sudden.

“If we need this knowledge, then I can’t see that we have a choice,” Dion told them. “We will have to rely on my assurance that the creature is performing the will of Armes.”

Lief’s thoughts on that: “That doesn’t even work for Penthos, let alone one of these buggers.”

Now that was funny, and the magus barked out a rich laugh at it, only to find from the ensuing silence that apparently it hadn’t been meant as humor at all.

He could see that nobody was going anywhere with this, and his earlier words about a spider not having a neck were rattling around in his head demanding his attention, and he thought, Could I…? Abruptly the challenge had hold of him, because while he had heard of similar tricks being pulled before, none of them would be as interesting and audacious as this.

“Let’s give it a neck. Then we can put a leash on it,” he declared.

“ ’The hell are you talking about?” Harathes demanded.

“I don’t think a leash is going to…” Cyrene’s voice tailed off. “No, he’s right. What are you talking about?”

“Penthos?” Dion prompted.

“Let’s take one of the little vermin with us,” the magus declared grandly. “I’ll disguise it.”

“As fucking what?” Lief eyed the crawling host of hairy, round-bodied monsters. “A novelty candelabra?”

“As our new best friend. I’ll transform it into the very semblance of a man. I can even splinter off a little of my mind for it, so it can speak to us and know enough to go behind the bushes to shit. I see no downside to this plan.”

“You… that will work?” Dion sounded pleasantly impressed. Or horrified. Always hard to distinguish, those.

“By my reckoning it will be a better human than Harathes by the time I’m done,” Penthos declared. Lief snorted, which was annoying as this time he hadn’t meant it as a joke. What is it about this “humor” business I keep getting wrong?

Dion held up her free hand for his attention. “No, seriously, Penthos, will this work? Because a great deal is resting on this. This isn’t just an opportunity for you to play little gods with the world.”