Luck in the Shadows

one did you pay for?" he asked softly.
    "The cart."
    "Good."
    By sunrise they were well on their way to Keston.
    The road wound through rolling winter-bare farmland and countryside and they met only a few wagons and an occasional patrol of the local militia. With the harvest in and the Gold Road closing down until spring, Mycena would be a quiet place through the winter.
    Seregil sank deeper into gloomy silence through the day, answering Alec's few attempts at conversation in such a dispirited manner that he soon gave up. When they stopped for the night at a wayside inn, Seregil retired immediately, leaving Alec to sit alone over his ale in the common room.
    By the next morning Seregil's hunger had faded to a hollow ache; even the thought of water nauseated him.
    Worse still, he was feeling guilty about Alec. The boy had proved too honorable to run off, but how he must be regretting his vow to stay. Seregil was trying to gather the strength for pleasant conversation as they road along when a hint of motion caught his eye off to the left. He turned quickly, but the field was empty. He rubbed at his eyes, thinking it was a trick of his weakened body, but the flicker came again, just on the edge of his vision.
    "What's the matter?" asked Alec, giving him a puzzled look.
    "Nothing." Seregil scanned the empty countryside. "Thought I saw something."
    The annoying flicker came repeatedly as the day went on, and by afternoon he was more tense and withdrawn than ever. It might be some new quirk of the madness growing in him, he thought, but well-tried instincts counseled otherwise. Another violent headache had also grown through the day, leaving him too dull-witted and queasy to give the matter proper consideration.
    Pulling his cloak tight against the cold wind, he kept watch and fought off the desire to sleep.
    They spent that night in the hayloft of a lonely farmstead. Seregil's nightmares returned in force and he woke up bathed in a cold sweat at dawn.
    An undefined sense of anxiety gnawed at him; he couldn't recall the details of the dream, but the wary sidelong glances he caught from Alec suggested that he'd been more restless than usual. He was just considering asking the boy about it when he thought he saw motion in a dark corner of the barn. Alec was busy with the harness and didn't see him brace, reaching for the sword that no longer hung at his side. There was nothing there.
    This will be his fourth day without eating , Alec thought as they rattled off down the road again.
    Wan and hollow-eyed as Seregil looked, he was bearing up better than Alec had imagined possible. Physically, that was; Seregil's odd behavior was increasingly alarming.
    Today he sat hunched over like an old man, despondent except for occasional bursts of intent alertness. At those moments, a terrible glitter came in his eyes and his fists would clench until it seemed his knuckles must surely break through the skin. This new development, coupled with the strange events of the previous night, did not bode well.
    Alec was beginning to be as frightened of Seregil as he was for him.
    He hadn't intended to sleep the previous night, but the exhaustion of the past few days caught up with him and he'd dozed off. In the middle of the night he'd awakened to find Seregil crouched less than a foot away, eyes shining like a cat's in the dark, his breathing was so harsh it was almost a growl. Motionless, he simply stared at Alec.
    Alec wasn't certain how long they'd remained frozen like that, staring each other down, but Seregil finally turned away and threw himself down in the straw.
    Alec had spent the remainder of the night keeping watch from a safe distance.
    In the morning neither of them spoke of the incident.
    Alec doubted whether Seregil recalled it at all. But that, together with Seregil's nervous vigilance today, strengthened his resolve to not close his eyes again until he could lock his companion safely in a ship's cabin at sea.
    Driving along in daylight, however, Alec could see all too clearly how Seregil was suffering. Reaching behind the bench, he pulled out one of their tattered blankets and laid it over his shoulders.
    "You're not looking so good."
    "Neither are you," Seregil croaked through dry lips.
    "If we drive through the night, we might make Keston by tomorrow afternoon. I could probably manage the reins for a while-if you need to sleep."
    "No, I'll be fine!" Alec replied quickly. Too quickly, it seemed, for Seregil turned away and