Talrien retied the cloth and handed it back.

"I'll have you in Rhнminee by noon tomorrow. We can talk about price later on. Sedrish, fetch this boy some ale."

When they'd gone, Alec lay down next to Seregil and pulled both their cloaks over them, hoping to lend the sick man some of his warmth.

Seregil's skin was moist and cold, his eyes deeply sunken beneath braised-looking lids. For an instant Alec thought he saw a faint expression of pain across his features.

With tears stinging behind his own eyes, Alec grasped one cold hand and whispered, "Don't let go! We're too close now, don't let go."

Again he thought he caught the faintest flicker of emotion in that still face. Probably it was only a trick of the light.

— the plain again. Unchanging emptiness and moaning wind. Unchanging emptiness and moaningwind.

Ah, it was all too maddening! He wanted to curse, yell, kick, strike out. All he could do was spinaround and around like an idiot, sweeping the horizon for some sign. But in the midst of his fury he caught sight of a dark figure in the distance. The dark stalker, his final adversary in life, had it followed him even here?

But no, even across the gulf of distance that separated them he could make out the figure of a man, the hood of his dark cloak drawn back to reveal the pale oval of a face. And the man was calling to him.

No, singing!

He could not catch the words but the melody was so lovely, so filled with welcome and promise, that tears sprang to his eyes. How far? How long to reach him? Impossible to judge distance in this cursed barren place, but no matter. He would run to him, for he suddenly felt wondrously light as he skimmed over the dead grass and stones. He was running-no, he was flying! The feeling of release, of joyous movement was dizzying. The ground beneath him blurred and the figure ahead waited with open arms to receive him. Too soon and not soon enough he reached him, was caught by him and held above the ground, for suddenly he had form again, as the man stopped his song and smiled kindly upon him. And such a face! It was as beautiful and serene as a god's. The skin had the color and sheen of purest gold and gathered in supple folds at the corners of his eyes and mouth as he smiled. One eye was covered with a patch, but even this failed to mar the perfection of those features. The other eye, deep and richly blue as a sapphire or a summer sky, gazed at him with depthless love.

"You have come at last, my wounded one."

The voice held the very embodiment of all the love and tenderness he had ever hoped to find inhis short, violent life.

"Help me, take me from this place!" he begged, grasping at the being's arms, cold and rigid asstone beneath his hands.

"Of course," answered the god, for surely that must be what he was—Bilairy or Illior, come torescue him from this terrible place.

Gathering him close, the god cradled him like a child against his chest, stroking him with hiscold, gentle hand.

"We will pass through the gates and over the sea together, you and I. Give to me the gift you have brought and we shall go at once."

"Gift? But I brought no gift," he stammered, his heart suddenly hammering like a sharp, tiny fist in his chest.

"But you did." The god's hand stroked his head, his shoulder, opened his shirt to lay bare his chest, which ached with the thundering of his pulse. "There, you see? his The sickly odor rose in his nostrils again as a searing shaft of pain impaled him. Looking down, he saw the small wound that gaped just over his heart; from it, as if from a bloody socket, peered an eye as wonderfully blue as that of the god. A perfect match. And suddenly he was struggling in vain against the iron grip that held him as the golden-skinned god reached to reclaim it—

The Grampus pounded south through the night. Coming on deck just after dawn, Alec saw towering grey cliffs off the port bow and a cluster of islands lying close to shore ahead of them.

"Rhнminee harbor, just inside those islands," Talrien shouted over the wind.

Rhнminee was the largest of the western ports, and the most heavily fortified. A series of long granite moles had been constructed between three smaller islands that ranged across the harbor mouth, leaving two openings to allow for the passage of friendly vessels. As the Grampus passed through one of these sea gates, Alec saw that the broad causeways bristled with catapults and ballistas. A similar arrangement of moles joined two smaller islands within the harbor itself, dividing it into inner and outer zones like the bailey of a keep.

The sailors furled all but one sail and they glided into the outer harbor, steering past scores of vessels already anchored there. Long, swift war galleys with scarlet sails and two banks of oars were moored near the causeways, their bronze ramming beaks just visible at the waterline. Merchant ships, square barges, and small, high-prowed caravels rode at anchor by the dozens.

The sea gate to the inner harbor had been constructed as a wide chute that afforded no cover to any vessel entering its constricts. Ballistas were mounted on either side and the facing walls of the chute were built in a series of tiers, so that companies of archers could harry any enemy ship that breached this inner defense.

The land embracing the harbor itself rose sharply back on all sides. Even before they had cleared the inner fortifications, Alec caught sight of the citadel above. It was huge; the main city spread over the tops of several hills set half a mile back from the water, and he judged it must be three miles wide at least. Sheer stone walls surrounded the city, hiding from view all but a few glittering domes and towers visible over the parapet.

The only approach from the harbor seemed to be a twisting road enclosed between long stone walls.

Alec was no tactician, but recalling that Rhнminee had been built to replace a city destroyed in war, it looked to him as if the Skalans didn't intend to lose a second capital.

Beyond the inner moles, a jumbled sprawl of buildings clung to the base of the cliffs below the citadel. As the ship was rowed toward an empty wharf, Alec looked with growing dismay at the bustling waterfront, the relief he'd felt at reaching the city quickly giving way to alarm at the prospect of trying to

find a single wizard somewhere in the incomprehensible city before him.

He caught Biny by the sleeve as the young sailor hurried by. "Have you heard of a place called the Orл ska House?"

"Who ain't?" Biny exclaimed, jerking a thumb at the upper city. "See that shiny bit, over to the left? That's the top of the great dome on it."

Alec's heart sank further; he'd have to find some way to get Seregil up there, traversing the width of the city. He fingered the packet of jewels inside his tunic, silently resolving to get Seregil to the Orлska House before nightfall even if he had to buy a wagon to do it.

Several men had come on board to speak with Captain Talrien. Alec was just turning to go below when one of them caught sight of him and touched his sleeve.

"Are you the friend of the sick man?" the stranger asked.

Taken by surprise, Alec turned to find a tall, thin old man smiling down on him. His long, good-natured face was seamed with age around the eyes and brow, and his short beard and the curling hair that thickly fringed his balding pate were silvery white, yet he stood as straight and easy as Alec himself. The dark eyes beneath the unruly white eyebrows revealed nothing but friendly interest. By his clothes-a simple surcoat and breeches under a worn cloak-Alec took him for a trader of some sort.

"What business do you have with him?" Alec asked warily, wondering how he'd known of Seregil's presence on the ship.