Luck in the Shadows

skimmed over the dead grass and stones. He was running-no, he was flying! The feeling of release, of joyous movement was dizzying. The ground beneath him blurred and the figure ahead waited with open arms to receive him. Too soon and not soon enough he reached him, was caught by him and held above the ground, for suddenly he had form again, as the man stopped his song and smiled kindly upon him. And such a face! It was as beautiful and serene as a god's. The skin had the color and sheen of purest gold and gathered in supple folds at the corners of his eyes and mouth as he smiled. One eye was covered with a patch, but even this failed to mar the perfection of those features. The other eye, deep and richly blue as a sapphire or a summer sky, gazed at him with depthless love.
    "You have come at last, my wounded one."
    The voice held the very embodiment of all the love and tenderness he had ever hoped to find inhis short, violent life.
    "Help me, take me from this place!" he begged, grasping at the being's arms, cold and rigid asstone beneath his hands.
    "Of course," answered the god, for surely that must be what he was—Bilairy or Illior, come torescue him from this terrible place.
    Gathering him close, the god cradled him like a child against his chest, stroking him with hiscold, gentle hand.
    "We will pass through the gates and over the sea together, you and I. Give to me the gift you have brought and we shall go at once."
    "Gift? But I brought no gift," he stammered, his heart suddenly hammering like a sharp, tiny fist in his chest.
    "But you did." The god's hand stroked his head, his shoulder, opened his shirt to lay bare his chest, which ached with the thundering of his pulse. "There, you see? his The sickly odor rose in his nostrils again as a searing shaft of pain impaled him. Looking down, he saw the small wound that gaped just over his heart; from it, as if from a bloody socket, peered an eye as wonderfully blue as that of the god. A perfect match. And suddenly he was struggling in vain against the iron grip that held him as the golden-skinned god reached to reclaim it—
    The Grampus pounded south through the night. Coming on deck just after dawn, Alec saw towering grey cliffs off the port bow and a cluster of islands lying close to shore ahead of them.
    "Rhнminee harbor, just inside those islands," Talrien shouted over the wind.
    Rhнminee was the largest of the western ports, and the most heavily fortified. A series of long granite moles had been constructed between three smaller islands that ranged across the harbor mouth, leaving two openings to allow for the passage of friendly vessels. As the Grampus passed through one of these sea gates, Alec saw that the broad causeways bristled with catapults and ballistas. A similar arrangement of moles joined two smaller islands within the harbor itself, dividing it into inner and outer zones like the bailey of a keep.
    The sailors furled all but one sail and they glided into the outer harbor, steering past scores of vessels already anchored there. Long, swift war galleys with scarlet sails and two banks of oars were moored near the causeways, their bronze ramming beaks just visible at the waterline. Merchant ships, square barges, and small, high-prowed caravels rode at anchor by the dozens.
    The sea gate to the inner harbor had been constructed as a wide chute that afforded no cover to any vessel entering its constricts. Ballistas were mounted on either side and the facing walls of the chute were built in a series of tiers, so that companies of archers could harry any enemy ship that breached this inner defense.
    The land embracing the harbor itself rose sharply back on all sides. Even before they had cleared the inner fortifications, Alec caught sight of the citadel above. It was huge; the main city spread over the tops of several hills set half a mile back from the water, and he judged it must be three miles wide at least. Sheer stone walls surrounded the city, hiding from view all but a few glittering domes and towers visible over the parapet.
    The only approach from the harbor seemed to be a twisting road enclosed between long stone walls.
    Alec was no tactician, but recalling that Rhнminee had been built to replace a city destroyed in war, it looked to him as if the Skalans didn't intend to lose a second capital.
    Beyond the inner moles, a jumbled sprawl of buildings clung to the base of the cliffs below the citadel. As the ship was rowed toward an empty