"But to resume my tale, things looked quite hopeless that tenth winter of the war. In desperation, Thelatimos resolved to consult the Afran Oracle. This meant making a long, dangerous journey to Afra, which lies in the hills of central Skala. But he reached the precinct by the solstice and asked what he should do. The royal scribe who accompanied him took down the Oracle's reply word for word. Thelatimos later had it inscribed on a golden tablet that is displayed to this day in the throne room at Rhнminee. It reads:

"So long as a daughter of Thelatimos line defends and rules, Skala shall never be subjugated."

"Those words changed the course of history forever.

"Since the Afran Oracles were renowned for the accuracy and wisdom of their prophecies, Thelatimos, though rather surprised, decided to follow the edict. The divine covenant was proclaimed and his four sons duly stepped aside in favor of their sister Gherilain, a girl just your age and the youngest of his children.

"There was a great deal of controversy among the generals as to whether the Oracle meant for an untried girl to take over the actual leading of the armies. Thelatimos meant to follow the letter of the prophecy. Declaring his daughter Queen, he instructed his commanders to prepare her for war. As the story goes, they had other ideas. They gave her a bit of training, dressed her up in fine armor, and stuck her in the center of a sizable bodyguard at the rear of the army. During the next battle, however, young Gherilain rallied her guard, led them to the front, and personally killed the Overlord Krysethan the Second. Although the war continued another two years, her actions that day bought Skala and her allies enough time for the Aurлnfaie to arrive. From that day no one doubted Gherilain's divine right to lead."

"And there have been queens ever since?" asked Alec. "No one ever questioned the Oracle's words?"

"Some did. Gherilain's son Pelis secretly poisoned his sister when he was passed over as king, then took the throne, claiming that the Oracle had really meant's long as the daughter of Thelatimos rules rather than "a daughter of the line of Thelatimos." Unfortunately for him, there was a devastating crop failure during his second year of rule, quickly followed by an outbreak of plague. He died, along with hundreds of others. As soon as his niece, Agnalain, took the throne things began to improve."

"But what if a queen had no daughters?"

"That's come up a few times over the last eight hundred years. Queen Marnil was the first. She had six fine sons but no acceptable successor. In desperation she journeyed to Afra where the Oracle instructed her to take another consort, specifying that she choose a man on the basis of bravery and honor."

"What about her husband?" asked Alec.

"That did present a problem, since the Oracle wasn't very specific. Since then, various queens have interpreted the directive in a number of ways. Some even used the office as a sort of reward. Queen Idrilain's grandmother, Elesthera, had more than thirty "consorts," but even the Skalans considered this rather eccentric."

"How could a queen produce legitimate heirs if she slept with any man who took her fancy?" Alec exclaimed, looking scandalized.

"What does legitimate mean, after all?" Seregil said with a laugh. "A king may be cuckolded if his wife

can fool him into thinking that her lover's child is his own, not a difficult thing to do. But any child a queen bears is her own, no matter who the father was, and therefore a legitimate heir."

"I guess so," Alec conceded with obvious disapproval. "Were there any bad queens?"

"The usual mix over the years. Divinely instituted or not, they're still human."

Alec shook his head, grinning. "All these stories and histories. I don't see how you remember all that!"

"One has to, to do any sort of business among the Skalan nobles. Importance is judged by which branch of the line one is related to, how far back you can trace noble blood, which consort one is descended from, whether your ancestor was directly descended from a female or male branch, whether or not they were legitimate—I could go on, but you get the idea."

He set his cup aside and stretched. "And now I think we'd both do well to turn in. I've a busy day tomorrow dealing with our good captain, and you've got your work cut out for you defending my honor!"

9 The Lady is Indisposed

Seregil jerked awake just before dawn, a strangled groan crawling up his throat. He tried to choke it back, but the muffled croak was enough to bring Alec from his alcove.

"What is it? What's wrong?" the boy whispered, groping his way across the cramped cabin.

"Nothing, just a dream."

Alec's hand found his shoulder. "You're shaking like a spooked horse!"

"Strike a light, will you?" Seregil clasped his aims tightly around his knees, trying to quell the fit of trembling that shook him.

Alec quickly lit a candle at the companionway lantern and regarded Seregil with concern. "You're pale as anything. Sometimes the quickest way to make a nightmare pass is to tell it."

Seregil let out a long, slow breath and motioned for him to draw up the cabin's single chair; he was certainly in no hurry to sleep again.

"It was morning," he began softly, staring at the candle flame. "I was dressed and about to go on deck. I called for you but you weren't around, so I went alone.

"The sky was a hideous, boiling purple, the light through the clouds harsh and brassy—you know, the way it is just before a thunderstorm? The ship was in ruins. The mast was snapped off, with the sail hanging down over the side, the deck all littered with wreckage. I called out again, but there was no one on board but me. The river was black as oil. There were things floating in the water all around the ship,

too—severed heads, hands, arms, bodies." He scrubbed the back of one hand across his mouth. "What I could make out of the shore was a desolate waste, the land burned and torn up.

"Smoke from ruined fields flowed out over the water and as I watched it seemed to gather itself, moving toward the ship in great coils and billows. As it came closer I began to hear sounds. At first I couldn't make out their direction, but then I realized it was all around me. It was the things in the water. They were all moving, limbs flexing and kicking, the faces twisting into horrid expressions as they rolled in the water."

He heard a small gasp of revulsion from Alec; to a Dalnan, there was nothing more horrible than a desecrated corpse. Seregil drew another shaky breath and forced himself to continue.

"Then the ship lurched and I knew that something was climbing up the torn sail. I couldn't see what it was but it jerked the vessel around like a fishing float. I clung to the far rail, waiting for it. I knew that whatever it was, it was unspeakably vile—that the very sight of it was going to shatter me.

"Yet even in the midst of my terror, a small, sane part of my mind was screaming that there was something terribly important that I should be remembering. I didn't know if it would save me, but it was imperative that I think of it before I died. And then I woke up."

He managed a faint, self-mocking laugh. "There it is. Sounds rather silly, telling it like that."

"No, it was a bad one!" Alec shuddered. "And you still don't look too well. Do you think you can sleep some more?"

Seregil glanced at the brightening square of the window. "No, it's almost morning. You go back to bed, though. No sense both of us losing sleep over nothing."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, you were right about telling it. It's fading already," Seregil lied. "I'll be fine."

As Seregil moved through the details of the morning, the nightmare did begin to fade, but in its wake came a strong sense of unease. His headache had returned, too, shortening his patience and unsettling his stomach. By noon he was so out of sorts that he retreated to his place by the cutwater, hoping to be left alone. Alec seemed to sense that he would do well to make himself useful elsewhere, but the captain was not so easily put off.