"This is murder," Hederick whispered, so piercingly that all could hear him. "You have sinned, people of Gar shy;lund. You know such a heinous act cannot be expiated by prayer and fasting, or by sacrifices and gifts to the gods and their priests. There is only one punishment for such a crime.

"Willad, Jerad, Peren, attend me." The three men straightened as if hypnotized. "I order you, in the name of Sauvay, god of power and vengeance, to execute the sin shy;ners of this village." To the villagers, Hederick said, "I order you, in the name of Sauvay and the Seeker pan shy;theons, to accept your just punishment."

The villagers stood, sheeplike, awaiting their fate. Hed shy;erick rejoiced inwardly to Sauvay.

The three men set silently to work. Not one villager ran or struggled. The Oberl brothers and Peren Volen stran shy;gled the life's breath out of each. Frideline Bacque, who'd worked so hard to attract Peren Volen, did not even blink when he killed her.

When there were but the three men left, Hederick ordered Peren to slay the Oberls. Then, at Hederick's com shy;mand, Peren Volen walked obediently down to the river and drowned himself, and the people of Garlund were no more.

Soon Hederick had the Oberls' best horse harnessed to the wagon. A short time later, the back of the vehicle was piled with items for his travels. Then he set fire to Gar-lund.

"Fire purifies," he murmured, reveling in the heat and cleansing power of the blaze. Once again flames lit Heder-ick's way as he left a place of sin. Soon he and the horse and wagon were miles away, and the sun had begun to rise.

"Think of the converts I can bring to the Seekers, and to Sauvay!" he whispered to himself. He wrapped the dragon figurine in a scrap of leather, tied a thong to it, and slipped it around his neck, inside his shirt.

Hederick faced the world alone, but he knew a god watched over him.

* * * * *

For more than three decades Hederick traveled the lands, a wandering Seeker priest, bringing the words of the New Gods to the people. The Praxis, his constant com shy;panion, served as both inspiration and confirmation that his purpose was preordained by the gods themselves. As he grew older and more experienced in the ways of the world and its peoples, his gift of oratory grew accord shy;ingly. Soon he was able to assess a crowd in moments and know how best to handle it. Some needed fire and brim shy;stone, some only gentle persuasion.

And just as he made good use of his gift for speaking, he made use, also, of the sleight-of-hand tricks that Tarscenian had taught him so many years ago.

Fame followed him. Hederick, the holy man of the north, converted hundreds of thousands of people to the New Gods.

The devout cheered as Hederick entered their towns. He always took care to hold the Diamond Dragon against his palm as he entered a village. Time and again, townspeople vied to offer him lodging for as long as he wanted it, presented him with fine clothes, and fed him the very best their tables had to offer. He lived well-as was proper for a prophet of the gods. He was the favored of Sauvay, after all.

Always, upon arrival in a new location, Hederick was careful to ferret out the irretrievable sinners. The Dia shy;mond Dragon, macaba root, and Sauvay helped him ease them out of this world. They were poor and rich, of low status and high, men and women, young and old.

No one stood above Seeker doctrine.

Finally, when Hederick was well into middle age, Sauvay sent the Highseeker Elistan to persuade him to come to Haven to join the main body of Seekers. Elistan seemed to have no awareness of Sauvay's hand in his mis shy;sion-a sign, to Hederick, that much of the recognition Elistan had received was undeserved. Elistan told Heder shy;ick what the wandering priest already knew-that the Highseekers Council in Haven had need of his powers of oratory.

The pious and crafty Hederick rose quickly in the Seeker hierarchy. He knew Seeker law well. It was a simple matter for him to have superiors removed for transgressions that few others had detected. Those few who were impervious to slander or blackmail succumbed readily to the poison of the macaba root.

Through all of this, Hederick basked in the approval of Sauvay.

* * * * *

"There," Eban said, dumping the huge scroll on the desk in the Great Library. Olven sat at the desk, quill pen in hand, before an empty piece of parchment. "I've done my part, and in only half a day! Hederick s background"-Eban lovingly patted the curl of paper-"all set down here in black and white. I could have gone on twice as long as I did. Oh, you should see the scrolls back there, you two! And the bound parchments. By the gods!" Eban whistled. "More books than I've seen in my life, all together in one room. It's absolutely amaz… Why, what's the matter?"

Olven was looking sourly at the red-haired youth. Marya, leaning against a bookshelf, also scowled.

"Your youthful enthusiasm is wonderful, child," she said sar shy;castically, "but we seem to have a problem."

"We?" Eban echoed. "Me, too?"

"We're in this together," she reminded him in a surly tone. "Loot"

Eban followed her gesture and finally took in the empty parchment before the luckless Olven. "Nothing?" Eban cried, prompting a duet of "shhhh" from his fellow apprentices. He dropped his voice to a whisper. "You two have been here for four hours, and you haven't written a thing? Not a word? What have you been doing?"

"Well, I sharpened all the quills," Olven muttered.

"And I went for an extra supply of ink," Marya added mul-ishly. "We didn't have the luxury of writing down things that are already well in the past and skillfully recorded. We three have all done countless research papers, Eban; anyone can do that. Olven and I were in charge of writing the present-and the present as it occurs nowhere near Palanthas. That's consid shy;erably harder, I'd say." She sniffed.

"And… ?" Eban shot back. "What's happening?"

"Nothing's happening," Olven mourned. He rested his fore shy;head on the parchment and tore a piece of white fluff from the quill pen. "Astinus said to sit here. The history would come to us, Astinus said. But it hasn't. I thought it was magic. Now I don't think so. It's just a test, and I've failed."

Eban shot a blue-eyed glance toward Marya. "How about you?"

Marya shook her head. "Same as him. Nothing. Something's not working."

"Maybe the desk is broken," Olven theorized despondently. "Or the chair."

"And you concentrated on Hederick, both of you?" Eban demanded. "The whole time?"

"Yes, on Hederick, and only Hederick," Olven and Marya said together.

Eban looked down at the parchment and then at the long crane's feather drooping from Olven's sweating hand. Most of the feathery portions had been stripped away from the quill in Olven's agitation. "Maybe that's it," Eban said. He patted Olven's shoulder, as though the red-haired youth were the elder of the two. "Let me try."

Marya snorted. "He and I have years of experience beyond yours. You're practically still a child. What could you possibly try that we haven't thought of?"

Olven groaned. "Give it up, Eban. Your willingness to help is laudable, but we're doomed." He rubbed his eyes and continued his lament. "I'm going to end up back home, selling hot potatoes and sausage from a pushcart. I just know it."

"And I'll have to go back and marry the butcher," Marya added. "He has six kids." She went white and closed her eyes for a moment. "By the gods, I'll never have time to read a book again!" She slid down the end of the bookshelf until she was seated despondently on the stone floor.

Eban ignored them both. He pulled at Olven's arm until the elder man heaved himself out of the chair and made way for the youth. One pair of black eyes and one pair of brown watched hopelessly as the youth settled against the chair's cushions, took a deep breath, let his head fall back, and appeared to go into an open-eyed trance. Eban's voice startled them then, for there was nothing dreamy about it. "Perhaps you were concentrating too narrowly," he said, "in thinking only of Hederick. History- even the story of just one person-consists of more than events that happen directly to one man. Maybe we should widen our thoughts."