As always, her mind raced ahead, trying to solve the problem before it had to be explained to her. "So you're saying that good people sacrifice everything, and evil people sacrifice nothing."

"Not at all. I'm saying that good people sacrifice anything that is necessary in order to maintain the order that allows all others to exist, even if they have to sacrifice their own life. While evil people manipulate and force the sacrifice of any and every other person in order to wholly gratify their own hunger. Do you see the difference?"

"This is theology. Kristos was good, because he sacrificed his life."

"Don't speak foolishly, Patience, not to me. Everybody dies, and some have been martyrs in stupid causes.

Kristos is Kristos because we believe he sacrificed himself for the whole world. For the largest order of all. He would not have died for anything less. Because his self had grown to include all the systems of mankind, and he acted to protect them all."

"Now I see how you became a heretic."

"Of course you do. These fools who think their Kristos will come to unite humans in perfect peace, without including the millions of geblings, gaunts, and dwelfs-it would not be good, because such a Kristos would be forcing the sacrifice of half the people of the world, to serve herself. So if Kristos is to be Kristos, she is willing to sacrifice anything to maintain the order that gives life to all."

"I'm no Kristos. I don't believe any of this."

Will looked sad. "Oh, you believe my story," he said.

"But you won't know that you believe it until after, looking back. If either of us is alive then."

"It's a pretty philosophy," said Patience. "It makes sense within itself. You'd have a sure career in the School."

He let the insult roll off him. "When you face him, Patience, you'll remember. A tiny part of your memory will hold on to my story, and you'll remember who you are, and who he is, and you'll doubt your own desires and believe my story. You'll destroy him, even though at that moment you'll love him more than all the world.

You'll destroy him, because you know he's evil."

"If I can destroy him, it will be to save myself."

"Yourself is the world, and all the worlds. How long before his children, after they've replaced all other intelligent life on this world, build starships and go out to conquer every other world that humanity has visited?

There was once a philosopher who said that there could never be war between the worlds of different stars, because there'd be nothing to gain. But he was a fool.

There is greatness to be gained, largeness of self, to have every world filled with your children. It's the most powerful urge of all life. Questions of profit or politics are trivial beside it."

"When I face Unwyrm," said Patience, "it won't be a grand question of good and evil. It'll be me, my body, my wit, such as it is, against his. Nothing more."

"His house against the King's House. The prize is the world."

"I don't want the world."

"That's why you'll have it."

She laughed in frustration. "Will, what can I do with you? You see me larger than I am. I can never be what you imagine me to be."

Will shook his head. "I imagine you to be a girl, fifteen years old, sometimes frightened, always brave. I imagine you to be unaware of your beauty, which makes you infinitely beautiful; unaware of your power, which makes you dangerously powerful. I have had many masters in my life, but you are the only master I could follow until I die."

"You see? How can I bear that? I can't be perfect."

"If I can be perfect, you can be perfect." He showed no sign that he was aware of how boastful he sounded.

"You're perfect?" she asked.

"I made myself perfect, so I could serve you when you came. You are skilled in all the skills of government but one: war. I made myself perfect in that, so I could serve you in it. My masters were all generals, but I served each one the same-I made them all victorious."

"You? A slave?"

"A trusted slave. They all learned that when they took my counsel, they won. I prepared myself so that you would find me ready when you needed me."

"How did you know that we'd ever meet? There on your farm with Reck and Ruin. What were the chances I'd ever find you?"

"There's no chance in this. From the time I discovered the truth of the soul, the Cranning call was always with me, Lady Patience. Then one day we marched along a road, from Waterkeep to Danswatch, and for a brief moment, as we passed a hut at the north end of the village, the call faded. And was replaced by a repulsion, a powerful desire not to go toward Cranning. And then we went a little way, and the Cranning call returned to me. I knew at once that something in that house-"

"Reck and Ruin."

"I didn't know that geblings lived there. I certainly didn't know they were the gebling king. But I knew that whatever was there, Unwyrm feared it, and if Unwyrm feared it, it was good, and I must ally myself with it. So I escaped and went to Reck. With her and Ruin, the Cranning call disappeared, so I was at peace. But that wasn't why I went to them, and it wasn't why I stayed. I stayed waiting for you."

"How could you possibly know that I would come there?"

"For the same reason that I went there. Because if you didn't, Unwyrm couldn't be defeated."

"That's not the reason."

"Nevertheless, it is the reason."

"You're too mystical for me."

"I don't think so," said Will. "I think I'm exactly mystical enough for you."

"I liked you better when you were silent," she said.

"I know," he said. "Endure me." He reached out his hand. With the tips of his fingers he stroked her cheek, her hair. His fingers traveled down her body, her neck, her shoulder, her breast, her waist. Finally he rested a hand on her thigh. "When you want me to speak again," he said, "I will. As slave to master. As subject to king.

As Vigilant to Kristos. As husband to wife."

Then he leaned down and kissed her lips. Unwyrm again filled her with revulsion at his touch, but this time she ignored it, put it behind her, and accepted the agonizing gift he gave. When the kiss was finished, he stood and walked across the deck to where his boots waited for him. "Time for me to clump around," he said, "and wake the others."

It was true. Light was coming in the east, over the trees; the stars were fading. And the high wall of Skyfoot rose in the northern sky, topped with eternal snow, where Unwyrm waited for her, hungered for her. Will has told me stories, and some of them I believe, but what will it matter when I come to you, Unwyrm? You're the only husband that was prophesied for me.

Even Unwyrm couldn't stop her from wishing for Will's hand to touch her again, his lips to invite her.

After all Will's philosophy, she suspected that the only thing he had given her that might help her at all when she faced Unwyrm at the end would be the dream of a human lover. She could not hold on to a mystic view of good and evil. But she could hold on to the memory of the touch of a living man.

She turned around, just to look downstream, just to be turning, and happened to see River's face. His eyes were open, gazing at her. Tears had tracked their way down his face.

"Did we wake you?" she asked inanely.

His lips answered, silently: The river is all the life I need.

But she knew it was a lie. For a few minutes in this early morning, she and Will had reminded him of life.