Luck in the Shadows

resumed his morose vigil.
    The sense of pursuit grew stronger as the day dragged on. Seregil was beginning to catch glimpses of whatever it was that stalked him, a glimmer of movement, the blur of a dark figure that disappeared in the blink of an eye.
    Just after midday he started so violently that Alec laid a hand on his arm.
    "What is it?" he demanded. "You've been doing that since yesterday."
    "It's nothing," Seregil muttered, but this time he was certain he'd caught sight of someone on the road far behind them.
    Soon after, they topped the crest of a hill and came upon a Dalnan funeral. Several well-dressed men and women and two young children stood by the road, singing as they watched a young farmer driving an ox and plow in the middle of an empty field. The winter soil gave way grudgingly before the plowshare, coming up in frozen plates of earth. An elderly woman followed the driver, scattering handfuls of ash from a wooden bowl into the fresh furrow. When the last of it was gone, she carefully wiped out the inside of the dish with a handful of earth and poured it out onto the ground. The farmer turned the ox and plowed slowly back over it.
    A dusting of snow floated down as Alec and Seregil rattled past in their cart.
    "It's the same as in the north," Alec remarked.
    Seregil glanced back listlessly.
    "The way they plow the ashes of the dead back into the earth, I mean. And the song they were singing was the same."
    "I didn't notice. What was it?"
    Encouraged by his companion's show of interest, Alec sang:
    "All that we are is given by you, O Dalna, Maker and Provider.
    In death we return your bounty and become one with your wondrous creation.
    Accept the dead back into the fertile earth that new life may spring from the ashes
    And at the planting and at the harvest will the dead be remembered.
    Nothing can be lost in the hand of the Maker. Nothing can be lost in the hand of the Maker."
    Seregil nodded. "I've heard that—"
    Breaking off suddenly, he lunged for the reins and yanked the pony to a stop. "By the Four, look there!" he gasped, looking wildly across the field on their left. A tall, black-swathed figure stood less than a hundred yards from the road.
    "Where? What is it?"
    "Right there!" Seregil hissed.
    Even at the distance of a bow shot Seregil could see something amiss in the lines of the figure, some profound wrongness of proportion that disturbed him more than the fact that Alec obviously could not see it himself.
    "Who are you?" Seregil shouted, more frightened than angry.
    The dark figure regarded him silently, then bowed deeply and began a grotesque dance, leaping and capering about in a fashion that would have been ridiculous if it wasn't so horrible. Seregil felt his whole body go numb as the nightmarish performance continued.
    Shuddering, he shoved the reins into Alec's hands.
    "Get us away from here!"
    Alec whipped up the pony without question.
    When Seregil looked back, the weird creature had vanished.
    "What was that all about?" Alec demanded, raising his voice to be heard over the rattling of the cart.
    Trembling, Seregil gripped the edge of the seat and said nothing. A few moments later he looked up to find the thing walking in the road ahead of them. At this range he could see that it was too tall to be a man. And there was too much distance between the shoulders and the head, not enough between shoulders and hips, so that the arms appeared immensely long, its movements graceless but powerful. It looked back over one sloping shoulder and beckoned to him, as if to hurry him toward some destination.
    "Look there!" Seregil cried in spite of himself, gripping Alec's arm as he pointed. "All in black. Bilairy's Eyes, you must see it now!"
    "I don't see anything!" Alec replied, the edge of fear clear in his voice.
    Seregil released him with a snarl of exasperation.
    "Are you blind? It's as tall as a—" But even as he pointed again it vanished with a parting wave of its arm. An icy wave of fear rolled over him.
    Throughout the remainder of that leaden afternoon his dark tormentor toyed with him, playing an evil game of hide-and-seek. First Seregil would spy it far off, spinning madly in the middle of a bare field. A moment later it would appear beside him, striding beside the cart close enough to touch. A troop of Mycenian militia rode by and he saw it lurching along unnoticed in their midst; soon after it rode past in the opposite direction on the back of a farm wagon.
    Alec clearly could