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dead.”
    Then he can’t burn up the soldiers at all?
    â€œNot with this playacting.”
    Merle let out a deep sigh. She watched the foremost mummy soldier raise his left hand and rub his face with it. The gray disappeared, the dark eye rings smeared.
    â€œWe are no more dead than you are,” he said. “And before we all slaughter each other, we should at least find out if it would not be more reasonable to work together.” The man spoke with a strong accent, his
r’
s sounding strangely hard and rolling.
    Seth’s fireballs went out. The air over his skull quieted.
    â€œI think I know who they are,”
said the Queen.
“Merle, do you still remember what you found in theabandoned tent in the abyss of Hell? Before the Lilim appeared and destroyed everything?”
    Merle needed a second or two before she realized what the Queen was getting at. The chicken’s claw?
    â€œYes. Do you still have it?”
    In my knapsack.
    â€œTell Junipa to get it out.”
    A moment later Junipa was fumbling with the fastenings of the knapsack.
    â€œWho are you?” Vermithrax asked, and he took a threatening step forward. Seth stepped aside, becoming cautious and perhaps realizing that his illusions were inferior to the fangs and teeth of the lion.
    â€œSpies,” said the false mummy soldier.
    Junipa fished the chicken’s claw on its little leather band from Merle’s knapsack and handed it forward to her.
    The mummy soldier spotted it at once, as if Merle had waved a glowing torch at him.
    â€œSpies from the kingdom of the Czar,” he said, smiling.

P IRATES
    S ERAFIN WAS STANDING IN FRONT OF A ROUND PORTHOLE and watching the wonders of the sea bottom move past them. Swarms of fish sparkled in the semidarkness. He could make out undersea forests of bizarre growths and things that might perhaps be plants, perhaps animals.
    The submarine that had taken them aboard on the sea witch’s orders was gliding, raylike, through the deep, accompanied by dozens of fire bubbles such as they’d already seen at the witch’s side. The glowing spheres were drawn along to the right and left of the boat like a swarm of comets, covering the sea bottom with a flaring pattern of light and dark.

    Dario walked over to him. “Isn’t this incredible?”
    Serafin acted as if he’d been snatched from a deep dream. “This boat? Yes … yes, it really is.”
    â€œYou don’t sound especially enthusiastic.”
    â€œHave you seen the crew? And that madman who calls himself the captain?”
    Dario gave him an amused smile. “You haven’t figured it out yet, have you?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œThey’re pirates.”
    â€œPirates?” Serafin uttered a soft groan. “How do you get that?”
    â€œOne of them told me while you were moping around here for hours at a time.”
    â€œI was thinking about Merle,” Serafin said quietly. Then he frowned.
“Real
pirates?”
    Dario nodded, and his grin became wider. Serafin wondered what made his friend so enthusiastic about the fact that they’d fallen into the hands of a band of robbers and murderers. Romantic dreams of piracy, perhaps; the old stories of noble freebooters who crossed the oceans of the world proudly and with no respect for authority.
    The news didn’t surprise Serafin especially. Dario’s discovery fit right into the picture. What sort of an ally might they expect from a sea witch? Besides, Captain Calvino commanded his crew with a harshness that bordered on cruelty. And the sailors themselves? Recognizable as cutthroats,even from a distance, dark fellows with wild hair, dirty clothing, and innumerable scars.
    Just terrific. Fantastic. Out of the frying pan, into the fire.
    â€œThey pay for the witch’s protection with corpses,” Dario said with relish.
    â€œAnd I thought we’d all seen enough corpses,” Serafin blazed at