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watch-wher!
    Who goes there?
     
     
    “T HE WATCH-WHER is hiding something,” F’lar told F’nor as they consulted in the hastily cleaned great chamber. The room delighted to hold the wintry chill, although a generous fire now burned on the hearth.
    “It was but gibbering when Canth spoke to it,” F’nor remarked. He was leaning against the mantel, turning slightly from side to side to gather some warmth. He watched his wingleader’s impatient pacing.
    “Mnementh is calming it down,” F’lar replied. “He may be able to sort out the nightmare. The creature may be more senile than sane, but . . .”
    “I doubt it,” F’nor concurred helpfully. He glanced with apprehension up at the web-hung ceiling. He was certain he’d found most of the crawlers, but he didn’t fancy their sting. Not on top of the discomforts already experienced in this forsaken Hold. If the night stayed mild, he intended curling up with Canth on the heights. “That would be a more reasonable suggestion than Fax or his Warder have made.”
    “Hmmm,” F’lar muttered, frowning at the brown rider.
    “Well, it’s unbelievable that Ruatha could have fallen to such disrepair in ten short Turns. Every dragon caught the feeling of power, and it’s obvious the watch-wher has been tampered with. That takes a good deal of control.”
    “From someone of the Blood,” F’lar reminded him.
    F’nor shot his wingleader a quick look, wondering if he could possibly be serious in the light of all information to the contrary.
    “I grant you there is power here, F’lar,” F’nor conceded. “But it could as easily be a hidden male bastard of the old Blood. And we need a female. But Fax made it plain, in his inimitable fashion, that he left none of the old Blood alive in the Hold the day he took it. Ladies, children, all. No, no.” The brown rider shook his head, as if he could dispel the lack of faith in his wingleader’s curious insistence that the Search would end in Ruath with Ruathan blood.
    “That watch-wher is hiding something, and only someone of the Blood of its Hold can arrange that, brown rider,” F’lar said emphatically. He gestured around the room and toward the window. “Ruatha has been overcome. But she resists . . . subtly. I say it points to the old Blood
and
power. Not power alone.”
    The obstinate expression in F’lar’s eyes, the set of his jaw, suggested that F’nor seek another topic.
    “I’ll see what may be seen around fallen Ruatha,” he mumbled and left the chamber.
     
    F’lar was heartily bored with the lady Fax had so courteously assigned him. She giggled incessantly and sneezed constantly. She waved about, but did not apply to her nose, a scarf or handkerchief long overdue for a thorough washing. A sour odor, compounded of sweat, sweet oil, and rancid food smells, exuded from her. She was also pregnant by Fax. Not obviously so, but she had confided her condition to F’lar, either oblivious to the insult to the dragonman or directed by her Lord to let drop the information. F’lar deliberately ignored the matter and, except when her company was obligatory on this Search journey, had ignored her, too.
    Lady Tela was nervously jabbering away at him about the terrible condition of the rooms to which Lady Gemma and the other ladies of the Lord’s procession had been assigned.
    “The shutters, both sets, were ajar all winter long, and you should have seen the trash on the floors. We finally got two of the drudges to sweep it all into the fireplace. And then that smoked something fearful till a man was sent up.” Lady Tela giggled. “He found the access blocked by a chimney stone fallen aslant. The rest of the chimney, for a wonder, was in good repair.”
    She waved her handkerchief. F’lar held his breath as the gesture wafted an unappealing odor in his direction.
    He glanced up the Hall toward the inner Hold door and saw the Lady Gemma descending, her steps slow and awkward. Some subtle difference