The figure laughed again as it reached down for him, the sound of its voice tugging at the last roots of his sanity.

" No!" Snarling, Seregil sprang at it.

For a brief second his hands seemed to grasp at some distorted form, then he slammed into the far wall.

When he whirled about, the creature was standing by the door.

Another of the strange fits of blood lust came over Seregil then and this time he welcomed it, opening himself to the strength it lent. He ached with it, was driven mad with it as he flew at the dark thing. The night candle was kicked over and went out but still he fought on, finding the creature with his hands, feeling the chill of it slip away again and again.

Suddenly his fingers found purchase. The form grew solid and he clawed at it, seeking a throat with his hands.

It toyed with him, fending him off without returning his blows.

The game did not last long, however. Huge talons sank suddenly into his chest and the world erupted in a searing blast of pain. Mercifully, his mind went out.

Alec lay half strangled on the cold floor beside Seregil. In the darkness he couldn't see what had happened to his hand, but it hurt like hell.

"What's going on up there?" the landlord shouted angrily from the far end of the passage. "I'll not have my house torn up in the middle of the night, do you hear?"

"Bring a light. Hurry!" Alec gasped, struggling one-handed to his knees.

The landlord appeared in the doorway, candle in one hand, a stout cudgel in the other. "Sounds like someone's being murdered up—" He stopped short as his light fell over them.

Seregil lay unconscious or worse, blood staining the breast of his shirt and his throat. Alec realized he probably didn't look much better.

His nose was bleeding where Seregil had struck him, and his face and neck were badly scratched. Cradling his left hand against his chest, he saw what looked like a round, raw burn in the center of his palm.

"Hold the light down," he told the innkeeper.

Kneeling over Seregil, he made certain his friend was still breathing, then pulled the neck of his shirt open and gasped in dismay.

The last time he'd seen the reddened area on Seregil's chest had been aboard the Darter.

Now there was a bloody wound in the same spot.

Holding the palm of his throbbing hand to the light again, Alec saw that his burn and this mark were exactly the same size and shape.

On the floor beside Seregil lay the wooden disk, the useless trinket he had stolen from the mayor's house because it wouldn't be missed. Picking it up gingerly by the broken leather thong, Alec compared it to the strange burn on his palm and the one on Seregil's chest.

It matched perfectly. Looking closer, he could even make out the print of the small square opening in its center.

It was right in front of us all the time! he thought in silent anguish. How could he not have known?Why didn't I see?

He'd been awakened by the sound of Seregil crashing about in the next room and gone to see what was the matter. In his haste he forgot the lamp and cursed angrily to himself as he'd fumbled the key into the lock of Seregil's door. The hallway was dark, the room inside darker still. In spite of the noise, he'd been unprepared for the attack that came the moment he stepped in.

When cold fingers grasped at his throat, Alec's only thought was how he could defend himself without injuring Seregil. He was trying to get a better grip on Seregil's tunic when his hand slipped inside the neck of it. Finding the thong under his hand, he'd grabbed for it, felt it sliding away as Seregil drew back. Then the terrible pain.

"What sort of foolishness is this?" the landlord demanded, looking over Alec's shoulder. Then the man was backing way, making a sign against evil.

"You've killed him with sorcery!"

Alec thrust the disk out of sight. "He's not dead. Come back here with that light!"

But the man fled. Cursing in frustration, Alec stumbled to his own room and struck a light.

What was he to do with the cursed disk? Throwing it into the fire seemed to be the wisest course of action, yet doubt stayed his hand; Seregil had thought it valuable enough to steal, and later had said he was determined to get it to Rhнminee.

Handling it only by the leather lacing, he found a patched tunic in Seregil's pack and rolled the disk up in it. Shoving it to the bottom of the pack, he carried their gear downstairs and hurried back for Seregil. The innkeeper and his family had barricaded themselves in the kitchen storeroom and, despite his various pleas and assurances, refused to come out.

In the end he had to get Seregil down by himself, carrying the unconscious man across his shoulders like a slaughtered deer. Once downstairs, he laid him on a table and went through the kitchen again to the storeroom.

"You in there!" he called through the door. "I need a few supplies. I'll leave money on the mantelpiece."

There was no reply.

A candle stood in a dish on the sideboard.

Lighting it with an ember from the banked fire, he cast about for food. Most of it was locked in the storeroom with its owner but he still managed to come away with a basket of boiled eggs, a jug of

brandy, half a wheel of good Mycenian cheese, some new bread, and a sack of pippins. Going out to the well, he discovered a jar of milk let to cool and added that to his haul.

Stowing everything beneath the seat of the cart, he used their blankets and a few from the inn to make a pallet in the back.

When everything was ready, he carried Seregil out to the makeshift bed and carefully wrapped him up.

Except for his labored breathing, Seregil looked like a dead man on a bier.

"Well, he won't get any better sitting here," Alec muttered grimly, slapping the reins over the pony's rump. "I said we were going to Rhнminee, and that's where I mean to go!"

12 Alone

— did the dead sleep within death? Some vestige of his living consciousness sensed the passage oftime. There was a change of some sort, but what? Slowly he became aware of pain but it was muted, experienced at a distance.

Very odd.

Smells came with the pain, the smell of illness, infection, the unwashed odors of his own body from which his fastidious nature recoiled even as he rejoiced in the ability to discern them. Perhaps he wasn't dead, after all? He had neither explanation for his predicament nor memory of his past and now even the pain was slipping away again. Silently, helplessly, he willed it back, but it was gone.

He was alone. And lonely—

Alec drove as hard as he dared, determined to reach the seaport by the following day. He stopped only to rest the pony and tend Seregil's wound.

The burn on his own hand made his arm ache to the elbow, but it was scabbing over already. Inspecting Seregil's breast in daylight, however, he found that the wound there was still raw, with angry lines of infection fanning out from it.

He stopped at the next farmstead they came to, hoping to beg a few herbs and some linen. The old wife there took one look at Seregil and disappeared back into her kitchen, returning a few moments later with a basket containing yarrow salve and aloes, clean linen rags, a flask of willow bark tea and one of milk, fresh cheese, bread, and half a dozen apples.

"I–I can't pay you," he stammered, overwhelmed by such generosity.

The old woman smiled, patting his arm. "You don't need to," she said in her thick Mycenian accent. "The Maker sees every kind deed."

The countryside fell away into gentle slopes as Alec drove westward toward Keston. By the following afternoon they came down into more settled country.

There was a different scent on the breeze here. It was a water smell, but with an unfamiliar tang.