Alec regarded them a moment in stunned silence, trying to take it all in.

No, he thought numbly. No, I will not be apart of that. "Thank you," he said finally. "I think I'm beginning to understand."

There were no guards in the room now. No spells or chains held him. Forcing himself to give no leading hint of his intentions, Alec suddenly lashed out across the table and snatched up a carving knife lying next to the platter of fowl. Clutching it in both hands, he drove the blade at his own ribs, praying for a quick kill.

To his horror and astonishment, however, he twisted around instead and plunged the blade into the chest of the young servant. The boy let out a single startled cry and collapsed.

"Really, Alec, where are your manners tonight?"

Mardus exclaimed regretfully. "I've owned him since he was a child."

Alec stared down at the body, horror-struck at what he had done.

"Did you think us so lacking in imagination that we would not anticipate such a noble action on your part?"

Irtuk chided. "You forget how intimately I know you, Alec. One of the first wards I placed upon you was one to guard against such ridiculous heroics. Anytime you try to hurt yourself, you shall only end up hurting another, like this poor innocent."

"O Illior!" Alec groaned, covering his face with his hands.

"Perhaps I am somewhat to blame," Mardus sighed. "My explanation may have given the boy the impression that he and Thero are necessary for the final realization of our plans."

Mardus' hands closed over Alec's, squeezing painfully as he pulled them aside to fix Alec with a look of sardonic pleasure.

"Understand this. The presence or absence of either one of you will not make the slightest difference to the god. It merely pleases me, and Vargul Ashnazai as well, I am certain, that the two of you should be the final victims. Just imagine, dear Alec—watching all those others die, and you quite helpless to save them. And then, as your chest is split and your heart pulled free, your final thought will be that after all your meddling, all that extraordinary effort, it is your life bringing the Helm back into being! I'm only sorry that your friends will not be there to share in your reward. Now do try to eat something more. You're looking quite pale again."

42

Seregil woke drenched in sweat, still caught in the nightmare's grip. Squeezing his eyes shut, he tried to hang on to the images of the dream, but as usual could recall nothing but the vague memory of a tall figure towering over him and the terrible sensation of drowning.

Micum had already gone above. Seregil lay a moment longer, half dozing as the first faint light of dawn brightened the cabin's single window. Was Alec awake, seeing that same light? he wondered, as he'd wondered every morning of the voyage. Was Alec alive at all? Would he be when the sun set?

He rubbed at his eyelids and felt the wetness seeping through his lashes. Early morning was the worst.

During the day he could keep busy, bury his fear in the semblance of doing something useful. At night he simply closed his eyes and escaped into dreams and nightmares.

But here, in the half world of dawn, he had no defenses, no diversion. The longing for Alec's presence, the guilt and remorse at having brought him to this, the shame at never having told the boy how much he cared for him—it was all as raw as a wound that refused to heal.

And there was nothing to do but go on to the end. Rolling out of the bunk, he threw on a surcoat over his shirt and went above without bothering to fasten it up.

On deck he turned his face to the wind and spread his arms. The cold salt breeze lifted his hair from his neck and blew his coat open, whipping his shirt against his ribs. Tilting his head back, he inhaled deeply, trying to cleanse away the sense of oppression. As he did so, he noticed a new scent on the wind, the smell of land.

Going to the starboard rail, he saw a dark, uneven line of mountains looming through the morning mist like a promise just out of reach. His sail-changing ploy had worked. They'd sailed within sight of Plenimar's northwestern coastline without challenge.

Rhal called put sharply somewhere to stern and Skywake barked an order. Looking around the deck for Micum, Seregil spotted him sitting on the forward bulkhead. He had a small mirror propped on one knee and was shaving his chin with the aid of a knife and a cup of water.

Micum looked up as he approached, then frowned.

"Another bad night, eh?"

"Worst yet." Seregil combed his fingers back through his windblown hair. "It feels like someone's trying to tell me the most important thing in the world in a language I can't understand."

"Maybe Nysander can make something of it when he gets here."

"If he gets here," Seregil replied listlessly. He felt as if they'd been on this ship for years instead of weeks; Rhiminee, Nysander, Alec, the deaths they'd left behind, perhaps it was just all part of the same bad dream.

Micum gestured with his knife at a lonely peak to the north. "Rhal says that's Mount Kythes there. He thinks we can put ashore tonight. There's a—Bilairy's Balls, you're bleeding!"

Setting his knife and cup aside, he stood and tugged at the loose ties of Seregil's shirt.

"Damnation, it's that scar. It's opened up again," he whispered, touching a finger to Seregil's chest and showing him the blood.

Using Micum's shaving mirror, Seregil inspected the small trickle of blood oozing from the raised outline of the scar. He could even make out the faint whorls left by the disk, and the small square mark of the hole at its center. He also caught a glimpse of his own face, looking sallow and hollow-eyed in the early light. Pulling his coat shut, he fastened the top buttons.

"What does it mean?" Micum asked.

"Don't you remember what the date is today?"

Seregil replied grimly.

Micum's jaw dropped. "By the Flame, I'd lost track being on a ship so long."

"The fifteenth of Lithion," Seregil said, nodding. "If Leiteus and Nysander were right in their calculations, Rendel's Spear should be in the sky tonight."

Seregil saw awe and concern mingle in his friend's eyes as Micum took a last look at the bleed on his fingers before wiping them on his coat.

"You know I came along on this trip mostly to look out for you, don't you?" Micum said quietly.

"Yes."

"Well, I just want you to know that as of now, I'm beginning to be a believer. Whatever it was that left its mark on you there, it's working on us now. I just hope Nysander is right about Illior being the immortal who's leading us around."

Seregil grasped his friend's shoulder. "After all these years, maybe I'll finally make an Illioran out of you."

"Not if it means waking up looking like you do this morning," Micum countered.

"Still no dreams?" Seregil asked, still puzzled by the fact that of the four of them, Micum was the only one who hadn't had a premonition of some sort.

Micum shrugged. "Not one. Like I've always told you, I do my fighting when I'm awake."

The mountain loomed steadily larger ahead of them as they followed the coast north through the day. From a distance it seemed to rise directly up from the sea itself, its summit lost in a mantle of cloud.

"Pillar of the Sky, eh?" Rhal remarked, standing with Seregil and Micum at the rail that afternoon.

"Well, they sure named it rightly. How in hell are you going to find this temple of yours on something that big?"

"It's somewhere along the water," Seregil replied softly, rubbing unconsciously at the front of his coat; Micum had tied a wadded bit of linen over the raw circle of skin. Oddly enough, the wound hardly hurt at all.

"Well, it'll take some doing to put you ashore."