" 'Here is your mother,' said Stone Man, 'who I brought into my house but who repaid me with treachery.' Stone Man had her grasped tight in his arm and held the point of his spear against her throat. 'If you do not surrender to me, binding yourself with the same spells of Emptiness that have allowed you to murder my brothers, she will die before your eyes.'

"Crooked did not move. 'Your brothers have been shown more mercy than they showed my kin. They are not dead, but only sleeping in cold, empty lands, as you soon will, too.'

"Stone Man laughed. They say it were like a wind from a tomb. 'How is that better than death? Sleeping forever in emptiness? Well, you shall have no such gift, as you deem it. You will destroy yourself or your mother will bleed out her life, then I will kill you anyway.'

"Crooked lifted up Tricker, still choking in the grip of his bronze hand. 'And what about your son?'

"Stone Man's voice was the unkind rumble of the earth shaking. 'I have had many sons. If I survive I can make many more. If I do not, I care not what survives me. Do what you will.'

"Crooked threw Tricker aside. For a long time he and Stone Man looked at each other like wolves over a kill, neither willing to take the first step. Then Crooked's mother raised her trembling hands to the sharp point of the spear and slashed her own throat with it, falling to the floor of Stone Man's chamber in a great wash of blood.

"Stone Man did not wait. Even as Crooked stared at his mother gasping out her life on the floor, the lord of the black earth flung his great spear, still wet with his mother's lifeblood, at Crooked's heart. Crooked tried to make Earthstar obey him but Stone Man had laid his own words of power upon it and Crooked could not bend it to his mastery. Crooked only had time to step sideways into the empty lands. The spear flew past him and struck the wall so hard half the palace fell down and all the lands around shook and quivered.