The Blacktongue Thief

Kinch enters the Downward Tower and finds that its interior—a vertical shaft with inverted gravity—causes him to fall upward. An amused Galva follows, landing much more gracefully. They proceed up a staircase that feels like descending, its path lit by magical wasps in wall niches.

They arrive in a hall made of earth, where a giant wolf growls at them. A witch on a throne calms the animal, and a younger Galtish woman introduces the witch as her great-aunt, Guendra Na Galbraith, who is also known as Deadlegs. Galva announces that she serves Mireya (the true Ispanthian heir), and this pleases the witch. Servants made from animated dirt form chairs, while enchanted gloves pour drinks. In order to speak with Galva privately, Deadlegs tells Kinch a hypnotic story. As Kinch grows drowsy under the influence of the spell, a manservant with a squash-like head carries a corpse into the hall and begins severing its legs. Just before he falls unconscious, Kinch witnesses Deadlegs detach her living torso from her enchanted but rotting substitute legs and crawl toward the freshly severed lower limbs of the corpse.