Stalking Darkness (57 page)

“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.”

S
eregil 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 blood 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.”

Rhal shaded his eyes, peering landward. The weather had remained clear through the day but-a wind was blowing up out of the west, piling up the waves and lashing the foam from their white crests. “I see breakers against the rocks all up and down there. Most of it’s cliff and ledge. You’ll just have to coast along until you see a likely landing place.”

“Is the boat ready?” asked Seregil. Rhal nodded, his gaze still on the distant coastline.

“Water, food, all that you asked for. I saw to it myself. We can cast you off as soon as you’ve packed in your gear.”

“We’d best get at it then,” Micum said. “It’s been a while since either of us has sailed. I don’t want to try this sea without some daylight ahead of us.”

When the final pack and cask had been lashed into the Lady’s starboard longboat, Seregil and Micum took leave of Rhal.

“Good luck to you,” the captain said solemnly, clasping hands with them. “Whatever it is the two of you are up to over there, give those Plenimaran bastards merry hell for me.”

“Nothing will make me any happier,” Micum assured him.

“Lay off the coast as long as you can,” said Seregil. “If we’re not back in four or five days, or if you get run off yourself, head north and put in at the first friendly port you find.”

Rhal gripped Seregil’s hand a moment longer.

“By the Old Sailor, when this whole thing is over, I’d like to hear the tale of it. You look out for yourselves, and find that boy of yours.”

“We will,” Seregil promised, climbing into the boat. Crouching down beside Micum, he wrapped his hands around one of the ropes securing the boat’s small mast.

“Hold tight!” Rhal called as his men set to work lowering it over the side. “Wait until we’re well away before you put up your sail. Good luck, friends!”

The little boat swung precariously from the halyards as it was lowered down the side of the pitching ship.

Waves slapped at it as they neared the water, then rolled in over the side. Clinging on as best they could Seregil and Micum waited until they’d cleared the Lady, then unfurled the triangular sail.

The little boat yawed sharply, catching another wave over the side. Micum took the tiller and turned her into the wind while Seregil hauled on the spar rope. As soon as they got her headed properly into the waves, he looped the spar rope over a cleat and set about bailing the craft out.

“You’re the Guide,” Micum said, shrugging out of his sodden cloak and settling himself more comfortably at the tiller. “What do we do now?”

Seregil gazed toward the distant shore. “Like Rhal said, get in close and coast along until we spot a landing place.”

“There’s a lot of coast there, Seregil. We could end up miles from wherever this temple of yours is.”

Seregil went back to his bailing. “If I am the Guide of Nysander’s prophecy, maybe I’ll know the right place when I see it.”

The words sounded weak and half-convinced even to him, but he didn’t know what else to say. This certainly didn’t seem like the proper moment to confess that except for a few fragmentary dreams and the bleeding scar on his chest, he was painfully unaware of any feelings of divine guidance.

As Rhal had observed, much of the coastline was ledge or cliff. The boom of the surf echoed back at them across the water and they could see the spume thrown up by the breakers. Great blocks of reddish granite shot through with bands of black basalt lay in tumbled disorder between the water and the trees above.

As far as the eye could see the land looked desolate and uninhabited. Dark forest blanketed the hills.

Higher up, the stark, stony peak of the mountain rose forbiddingly against the evening sky. The setting sun behind them cast a thick golden light over the scene, enhancing briefly the color of water, sky, and stone. Great flocks of sea ducks and geese floated on the swells just beyond the pull of the breakers. Overhead, gulls uttered their whistling calls as they circled and dove.

“I never thought I’d be setting foot on Plenimaran soil,” Micum remarked, steering them closer in. “I’ve got to admit, it’s nice-looking country.”

The sun sank lower. Kneeling in the bow, Seregil squinted intently at the harsh shoreline.

“I think we may be spending the night out here,” Micum said, steering them past a rocky point.

“You may be—Wait!”

The forest was thick here, but he caught the distinct yellow flicker of firelight in the shadow of a cove. “Do you see that?”

“Could be a campfire. What do you say?” “Let’s have a look.”

Steering into the cove, they discovered a tiny, sheltered beach at its head. Above the tide line, a large fire crackled invitingly, illuminating the thick tangle of evergreens that edged the shingle.

“It looks more like a signal fire,” whispered Micum, tacking just off shore. “Could be fishermen or pirates.”

“Only one way to find out. You stay with the boat.” Slipping over the side into the hip-deep water, Seregil drew his sword and waded ashore.

The beach lay at the head of a deep cleft in the surrounding ledge, making an oblique approach impossible, and the slanting evening light lit it like a stage. The shingle was made up of small, wave-polished stones that crunched and rattled under his boots as he continued up toward the fire.

Might just as well tie a bell around my neck, he thought uneasily, picturing archers tracking him from the ledges and swordsmen in the thickets.

But the cove was peaceful. Standing still, he listened carefully. Over the sigh of the wind, he heard the mournful music of doves and white throats in the woods, the clacking croak of a heron stalking the shallows somewhere nearby. No one was disturbing them.

Encouraged but wary, he crunched up the shingle to the fire. There was no sign of habitation, no packs or refuse. As he came nearer, he realized with a nasty start that the flames were giving off no heat. It was an illusion.

A branch snapped in the forest and he crouched, bracing for ambush. A tall, spare figure stepped from the trees.

“Here you are at last, dear boy,” a familiar voice greeted him in Skalan.

“Nysander?” Still wary, Seregil remained where he was as the wizard pushed back his hood. Dressed for traveling, Nysander wore an old surcoat and loose breeches, and his faded cloak was held at the throat with the worn bronze brooch he always used.