"Indeed?" Nysander cocked an inquiring eyebrow at the boy.

"Can you describe it?" asked Magyana.

"Dreams are wondrous tools sometimes, and those that come to you more than once are almost always important."

Seregil kept a surreptitious eye on Nysander while Alec went through the details of the nightmare; he knew the old wizard too well not to see a definite spark of interest behind Nysander's facade of thoughtful attentiveness.

"And that's always the last of it, and the worst," Alec finished. Even with the morning sun streaming down through the glass dome overhead, he shifted uneasily as he described the final image.

Magyana nodded slowly. "Violent events can summon up other painful memories, I suppose. Though your father died of the wasting sickness rather than violence, it must have been a time of terrible fear and pain for you."

Alec merely nodded, but Seregil read the pain behind his stoic expression.

"Yes, and coupled with the shock of learning your true parentage, it could create such images in the mind," Nysander concurred, although the look he gave Seregil showed that he had other ideas on the matter.

"I would not worry too much about them, dear boy. I am certain they will pass in time."

"I hope so," sighed Alec. "It's getting so I hate to go to sleep."

"Nysander, do you still have that book of meditations by Reli a Noliena?" asked Seregil. "Her philosophy might be of some use to Alec just now. I seem to recall seeing it on the sitting-room bookshelves somewhere."

"I believe it is," replied Nysander. "Come along and help me look, would you?"

Nysander said nothing as they descended the tower stairs.

As soon as the sitting-room door was firmly shut behind them, however, he fixed Seregil with an expectant look.

"I assume there is some matter you wish to discuss privately?"

"Was it that obvious?"

"Really now. Reli a Noliena?" Taking his accustomed seat by the hearth, Nysander regarded Seregil wryly. "I seem to recall that you have on numerous occasions referred to her writings as utter tripe."

Seregil shrugged, running a finger along the painted band of the mural that guarded the room. "First thing that popped into my head. What do you make of this dream of Alec's, and the headless arrow shaft? I have a feeling it's tied in with" — Seregil paused, acknowledging Nysander's warning look—"with that particular matter about which I am not allowed to speak."

"It does seem a rather obvious correlation. No doubt you are thinking of the words of the Oracle?"

"The Guardian, the Vanguard, and the Shaft."

"It is certainly possible that there is a connection, although why it should suddenly surface now, I do not know. Then again, it could conceivably be nothing more than it appears. Alec is an archer. What stronger image of helplessness could there be for him than a useless arrow?"

"I've tried to tell myself that, too. We both know who this Eater of Death is; I've been touched twice by the dark power and was damn lucky both times to get away with life and sanity intact. So I want to believe that Alec isn't getting pulled into this web, but I think he is, that that's exactly what that dream means. You believe that, too, don't you?"

"And what would you have me do?" Nysander asked with a trace of bitterness. "If we are dealing with true prophecy, then whatever must happen will happen, whether we accept it or not."

"True prophecy, eh? Fate, you mean."

Seregil scowled. "So why dream? What's the use of being warned about something if you can't do anything to avoid it?"

"Avoiding something is seldom the best way to resolve it."

"Neither is sitting around with your head up your ass until the sky falls in on you!"

"Hardly, but forewarned is forearmed, is it not?"

"Forearmed against what, then?" Seregil asked with rising irritation as an all-too-familiar guarded look came over the wizard's face. "All right then, you're still guarding some dire secret, but it seems to me that the gods themselves are giving hints. If you're the Guardian, which you've admitted already, and Alec, our archer, is the Shaft, then am I the Vanguard?" He paused, mentally trying the title on for size. But the bone-deep feeling of certainty he'd had about Alec eluded him. "Vanguard, those who go before the battle, one who goes in front—No, that doesn't resonate somehow for me. Besides, the Oracle wouldn't tell me to guard myself. So why would he tell me anything at all unless—"

"Seregil, please—"

"Unless there's a fourth figure to the prophecy!"

Seregil exclaimed, striding excitedly back and forth between the hearth and the door as the myriad possibilities took shape in his mind. "Of course. Four is the sacred number of the Immortals who stand against the Eater of Death, so—"

The inner certainty was there now. No matter what answer Nysander gave, he knew instinctively that he was on the right track now. "Illior's Light, Nysander! The Oracle wouldn't have spoken to me as he did if there wasn't a reason, some role for me to play."

Nysander stared down at his clasped hands for a moment, communing with an inner voice. Taking a deep breath, he said quietly, "You are the Guide, the Unseen One. I did not tell you before for two reasons."

"Those being?"

"First, because I still hoped—continue to hope, in fact—that it will not matter. And secondly, because I know nothing more than that. None of the Guardians ever has."

"What about the Vanguard?"

"Micum, most likely, since he has also been touched by these events. For the love of Illior, Seregil, do stop that pacing and sit down."

Seregil came to a halt by the bookshelves.

"What do you mean, you hope it won't matter?"

Closing his eyes, Nysander massaged the bridge of his nose with thumb and forefinger. "Just as there have been other Guardians, so have there been other Shafts, other Guides. It is as if they always exist from generation to generation, kept in readiness in case—"

"In case what?"

"I cannot say. I confess I still cling to the hope that this terrible evil may yet be forestalled. For now, I must guard my secret as I have done. What I can tell you, seeing that you have guessed so much, is that the four figures of the prophecy have always been known to the Guardians, but what their functions are has never been revealed. But if you are the Unseen One, Seregil, if Alec is the Shaft and Micum the Vanguard, then there is nothing any friend or foe can do to alter that."

Seregil let out an exasperated growl. "In other words, all we can do is wait for this terrible Something to happen. Or not happen, in which case we spend the rest of our lives waiting because we won't know that it isn't going to happen after all?"

"That is, no doubt, one of the reasons that the Guardians keep such knowledge from the others. It serves little purpose for you to know, and will only make you uneasy. On the other hand," he paused, looking up at Seregil with a mix of concern and pity—"I suspect that my hope to pass my burden on to a new Guardian will prove a vain one. Mardus had the wooden disks; other Plenimarans came to the Asheks on your very heels, seeking the crown.

There are other objects—magical ones—some in Plenimar, others thankfully scattered to lost corners of the world. It was only by chance that my master, Arkoniel, came into possession of the palimpsest that led you to the crown. Clearly the Plenimarans are making a more deliberate effort to recover them. It bodes ill, dear boy, most ill.

"As for your dilemma" — Nysander gave him a weary smile—"may I remind you that if you were not such a intolerable meddler you would not be in this quandary."

"What about the others?"

Nysander spread his hands. "I do not forbid you to tell them what you know, but reflect a moment on what you have just said. Even knowing, there is nothing yet to be done; our fates rest on the knees of the immortals."