Luck in the Shadows

son, and you have brought him back. I am in your debt."
    The boy looked up at him again, more directly this time. "Will he die?"
    "That he has survived this long gives me hope," Nysander replied, wishing he could be more encouraging. "You did well to bring him to me. But however did the two of you meet?"
    "He saved my life," answered Alec. "It was almost a month ago now, up in the Ironheart Mountains."
    "I see." Nysander looked at Seregil's still, white face, wondering if he would ever hear his side of the story.
    After a moment's silence, Alec asked, "How did you know we were coming?"
    "A week ago I was suddenly blinded by a vision of Seregil in some desperate difficulty." Nysander signed heavily. "But such visions are fleeting things. By the time I had managed to recapture it, the crisis seemed to have passed. I had my first glimpse of you then, too, and sensed that he was in capable hands."
    The boy colored again, fidgeting with the hem of his worn tunic.
    "I have had other flashes of your progress over the past few days. You are a most resourceful young man. But now tell me what has happened, for I see that you are wounded as well."
    Nysander continued his discreet appraisal of the boy while Alec gave an account of their escape from Asengai's domain and subsequent adventures.
    A bit of gentle magic satisfied him that Seregil had been very astute in his choice of companion, although his friend's reason for taking on the youngster at all remained something of an enigma.
    In describing the blind man's house outside Wolde, Alec admitted to his eavesdropping and seemed relieved when Nysander merely smiled.
    "They spoke of a man called Boraneus,"
    Alec told him, "but then Seregil called him Mardus. He sounded upset or surprised when he said the name."
    Nysander frowned. "As well he should. You saw this man?"
    "At the mayor's hall. Seregil got us in there as minstrels, so he could get a look at him, and the other, a diplomat of some sort who was traveling with him."
    "This Mardus, was he a tall, dark fellow with a scar under one eye?"
    "From here to here." Alec drew a finger from the inner corner of his left eye to his cheek. "You could call him handsome, I guess, but there was something cold about him when he wasn't smiling."
    "Excellent! And the other?"
    Alec thought for a moment. "Shorter, thin, with the look of a town dweller. Thin, greyish hair." He shook his head. "He wasn't one that you took much notice of. Anyway, we, ah, well—we burgled their rooms that night."
    Nysander chuckled. "I should hope so. And what did you learn from your burglary?"
    "That's where we found the—" Nysander held up a warning hand, then pointed questioningly to Seregil's
    chest.
    Alec nodded.
    "Then we must speak of that later," warned the wizard.
    "Tell me everything else, however."
    "Well, I was keeping watch most of the time while he worked. He found several maps. He and Micum Cavish talked about those later on, after we left Wolde. There were some places marked, towns in the northlands. Micum's gone to find one marked in the Fens. I'm afraid that's all I know about it. Seregil will have to tell you the rest."
    Let us hope you can , thought Nysander again.
    His expression must have betrayed his concern, for Alec suddenly exclaimed, "You can help him, can't you? He said if you couldn't, then no one could!"
    Nysander gave the boy's hand a reassuring pat. "I know what must be done, dear boy. Go on, please. What happened after that?"
    Nysander chuckled appreciatively at Alec's description of their hasty escape from Wolde, but grew serious as he tried to explain Seregil's frightening decline aboard the Darter and the difficult journey that followed.
    "And through all that, he never spoke further to you of what he discovered in Wolde, or of those men?"
    "No, Seregil wouldn't talk about any of it much after we left town. He kept saying it was safer if I didn't know certain things."
    Nysander regarded Alec in bemusement; even in one so young it was surprising to find such unquestioning trust—if trust it was. Familiar as Nysander was with Seregil's powers of persuasion, he still wondered that Alec should have followed him so far and through so many trials on the strength of little more than a few tales and fewer empty-handed promises.
    No, thought Nysander, trust there certainly must have been, and he had no doubt of Alec's loyalty, but there was something else at work here. Seregil would never have involved a green boy in the burglary in