The Countess' pet and bodyguard was a flightless, hook-billed bird from the island of Shengy far to the southeast. It wore a silver collar with a staple to attach a chain, but she'd left it free to pace; its claws clicked on the basalt. The angry bird's head, as large as a horse's, darted from side to side like a grackle's. Occasionally it kicked viciously at something hinted in the shadows, but the blows never found a target.

Balila was of middling height for a woman. The bird was taller even when it stood relaxed; now the great bronze feathers of its crest were raised, glittering higher than the helmet of any human guardsman.

"Alithe atithe hupristi!" Dipsas said. She held an open scroll, but her left hand trembled too badly for her to read the vermilion writing. Nonetheless the words curled off her tongue; partly from memory, partly from the weight of their own power. "Thestis!"

The last of Balila's companions was a three-year-old boy. His hair spilled down his back like molten gold, and his only clothing was the harness which attached gilt wings to his shoulders.

The boy alone was unaffected by the psychic atmosphere. He ran prattling from the lamplight to the shadowed darkness, then back to clutch the Countess' skirts and urge her to play with him. He had no more intelligence than a puppy, but like a puppy also his disposition was sunny and laughing.

Dipsas' athame touched an angle of the figure again. A spark of red wizardlight snapped from the blade, igniting the sulphur. Tiny blue flames crawled in both directions from the point of contact. They provided almost no illumination, but smoke spread in a choking cloud just above the stone floor.