"You the new hand for the Grampus!" the boy inquired, shipping his oars and looking up at Alec with a brash grin. "I'm Binakel, called Biny by most. Haul in then, 'less you fancy spending the night on the jetty, which I don't. By the Old Sailor it's colder'n a cod's balls tonight!"

Alec had hardly clambered down onto the stern bench before Biny was pulling away. He talked a steady stream as he rowed, needing no prompting or encouragement as he rattled on with hardly a pause for breath. He had a tendency to jumble one topic in with another as things occurred to him, and a good deal of it was profane, but Alec managed to sift out enough to set his mind at rest by the time they drew alongside the sleek hull of the Grampus.

Captain Talrien was a good-tempered master, according to Biny, whose highest praise was that he'd never known his captain to have a man flogged.

The Grampus was a coastal trader. Carrying three triangular sails on tall masts, she could deploy twenty oars on each side when need be, and ran regularly between the port cities of Skala and Mycena.

The crew was in a fury of preparation on deck.

Alec had hoped to speak with Talrien again, but the man was nowhere to be seen.

"Your friend's down here," Biny said, leading him below.

Seregil lay asleep in a deep nest of wool bales. More bales and plump sacks of grain were packed into the long hold for as far as Alec could see by the light of Biny's lantern.

"Mind the light," Biny warned as he left. "A spark or two in this lot and we'll go up like a bonfire! Keep it on that hook over your head there, and if ever we meet with rough seas, be sure to snuff it."

"I'll be careful," Alec promised, already searching for fresh bandages. Those covering Seregil's stubborn wound were badly stained.

"Cap'n sent down food for you, and a pail of water. It's there around the other side," Biny pointed out. "You ought to speak to Sedrish tomorrow about that hurt of your friend's. Old Sedrish is as good a leech as he is a cook. Well, g'night to you!"

"Good night. And give my thanks to the captain."

The bandage lint had stuck to Seregil's wound and Alec carefully soaked it loose, lifting aside the stained pad to find the raw spot looking worse than ever. There was no evidence that the old woman's salve was doing any good, but Alec applied it anyway, not knowing what else to do.

Seregil's slender body had quickly failed to gauntness. He felt fragile in Alec's hands as he lifted him to wrap the fresh bandage. His breathing was less even, too, and now and then caught painfully in his chest.

Laying him back against the bales, Alec brushed a few lank strands of hair back from Seregil's face, taking in the deepening hollows in his cheeks and at his temples, the pallid whiteness of his skin. A few short days would bring them to Rhнminee and Nysander, if only Seregil could survive that long.

Warming the last of the milk over the lantern, Alec cradled Seregil's head on his knee and tried to spoon some into him. But Seregil choked weakly, spilling a mouthful down his cheek.

With a heavy heart Alec set the cup aside and stretched out beside him, wiping Seregil's cheek with a corner of his cloak before pulling it over both of them.

"At least we made it to a ship," he whispered sadly, listening to the labored breathing beside him.

Exhaustion rolled over him like a grey mist and he slept.

— a stony plain beneath a lowering leaden sky stretched around Seregil on all sides. Dead, grey grass under his feet. Sound of the sea in the distance? No breeze stirred to make the faint rushingsound. Lightning flashed in the distance but no rumble of thunder followed it. Clouds scudded quickly by overhead.

He had no sense of his body at all, only of his surroundings, as if his entire being had been reduced to the pure essence of sight. Yet he could move, look about at the grey plain, the moving mass of clouds overhead that roiled and churned but showed no break of blue. He could still hear the sea, though he could not tell its direction. He wanted to go there, to see beyond the monotonythat surrounded him, but how? He might well take the wrong direction, moving away from it, deeper into the plain. The thought froze him in place. Somehow he knew that the plain went on forever if you went away from the sea.

He knew now that he was dead and that only through Bilairy's gate could he escape into the trueafterlife or perhaps out of any existence at all. To be trapped for eternity on this lifeless plain wasunthinkable.

"O Illior Lightbringer," he silently prayed, "shed your light in this desolate place. What am I todo?" But nothing changed. He wept and even his weeping made no sound in the emptiness.

13 Inquiries Are Made

"Oh, yes, they was here all right. I'm not soon likely to forget them!" the innkeeper declared, sizing up the two gentlemen. The sallow one would try and stare it out of him, but the comely, dark— complected gentleman with the scar under his eye looked to be a man who understood the value of information.

Sure enough, the dark one reached into his fine purse and laid a thick double tree coin on the rough counter between them.

"If you would be so good as to answer a few questions, I would be very grateful." Another of the heavy rectangular coins joined the first. "These young men were servants of mine. I'm most anxious to find them."

"Stole something, did they?"

"It's a rather delicate matter," the gentleman replied.

"Well, you've missed 'em by nigh onto a week, I'm sorry to say. They was a bad sort, I thought, when first I laid eyes on 'em. Ain't that so, Mother?"

"Oh, aye," his wife assured them, eyeing the strangers over her husband's shoulder. "Never should have taken them in, I said after, empty rooms or no."

"And she was right. The yellow-haired one tried to murder the other in the night. I locked me'self and the family in the storeroom after I caught 'em at it. In the morning they was both gone. Don't know whether the sickly fellow was living or dead in the end."

The innkeeper reached for the coins but the dark man placed a gloved fingertip on each of them.

"Did you, by chance, observe the direction they took?"

"No, sir. Like I said, we stayed in the storeroom 'til we was certain they was gone."

"That's a pity," the man murmured, relinquishing the coins. "Perhaps you would be so good as to show us the rooms in which they stayed?"

"As you like," the innkeeper said doubtfully, leading them up the stairs. "But they didn't leave nothin".

I had a good look 'round right after. It was damned odd, that boy wanting the key to the outside of the other's door. Locked him in, I guess, then took after him in the dead of night. Oh, you should have heard the noise! Thumpin" and caterwauling—Here we are, sirs, this is where it happened."

The innkeeper stood aside as the two men glanced around the cramped rooms.

"Where was the fight?" the pale one asked. His manner was not so obliging as that of his companion, the innkeeper noted, and he had a funny sort of accent when he spoke.

"This here," he told him. "You can still see a few dibs of blood on the floor, just there by your foot."

Exchanging a quick look with his companion, the dark man drew the innkeeper back toward the stairs.

"You must allow us a few moments to satisfy our curiosity. In the meantime, perhaps you would be so kind as to carry ale and meat to my servants in the yard?"

Presented with the opportunity for further profit, the innkeeper hustled back downstairs.

Mardus waited until the innkeeper was out of earshot, then nodded for Vargыl Ashnazai to begin.

The necromancer dropped to his knees and took out a tiny knife. Scraping at the spots of dried blood scattered over the rough boards, he carefully tapped the shavings into an ivory vial and sealed it. His thin lips curved into an unpleasant semblance of a smile as he held the vial up between thumb and forefinger.