Luck in the Shadows

been?"
    Alec counted back. "Just over two weeks now."
    "He should be with us soon, then," said Nysander, but something in his expression must have caught Seregil's eye.
    "What is it, Nysander?"
    "Hmm? Oh, nothing. Is that all you have to report?"
    "No. I believe those highwaymen who attacked us below Stock were Plenimaran agents. When we searched the bodies they just didn't have the right look to them. They had new weapons and clothing, all local, little money or possessions. It was as if they'd simply ridden into the Folcwine Forest and set up shop the day before. The whole situation didn't smell right."
    "I have had occasion in the past to trust your intuition."
    "There'd been a sudden rash of attacks on the caravans around Wolde just before the Plenimaran envoys showed up there," added Alec.
    Seregil nodded wryly. "Taken with everything else, it seems rather too much of a coincidence that these cutthroats should appear out of nowhere just in time to be run off by the able marines."
    "I see," mused Nysander. "Then you believe that Plenimar is providing a reason for the northern towns to seek an alliance?"
    "I do."
    "Anything else?"
    "Just this." Seregil pulled the neck of this nightshirt open and cocked his chin at the scar.
    Nysander went to the window and gazed out. "I fear I must beg your forbearance regarding that. This matter is not to be spoken of to anyone, at any time."
    There was no mistaking the finality in his voice.
    Seregil's brows drew together ominously over his grey eyes. "I just slept away the last two weeks because of this. Not to mention the madness that went before, or the nightmares and visions and the urge to kill just about every person I came within ten feet of, including Alec!"
    "You must be patient."
    "What is there to be patient about?" Seregil retorted. "I want to know who did this to me! Do you know or not?"
    Nysander sighed as he sat down in the embrasure of the window. "I should say that you did it to yourself, really. You took it upon yourself to steal the thing in the first place, and then to hang it about your neck. Not that I am chiding you, of course. I know that you took it on my behalf. Nevertheless, I—"
    "Don't go changing the subject. That's my trick!" Seregil interrupted hotly. "This is me you're talking to, not some provincial message carrier. What's going on?"
    Caught in the line of confrontation, Alec looked anxiously from one to the other. Seregil's lips were compressed into a thin, stubborn line, his eyes larger than ever in his haggard face as he glared up at the wizard. But Nysander met his friend's smoldering gaze calmly.
    "Seregil i Korit Solun Meringil Bokthersa," he said quietly, rolling the syllables as if they were a spell. "This is a matter which goes beyond any personal vengeance on your part. The mark you bear is a magical sigla, the meaning of which I am bound by the most dire oaths not to reveal."
    "Then why didn't you let Valerius take it off?"
    Nysander spread his hands resignedly. "You understand better than most the power of prescience. It felt unwise at the time to do so. Now that you are stronger, however, I shall cast an occultation over it."
    "But it will still be there," said Seregil uneasily.
    "I–I had strange dreams after Alec pulled the thing off, different than the nightmares before."
    Nysander rose to his feet in alarm. "By the Light, why did you not mention this before!"
    "I'm sorry. I only just now remembered, parts of them, anyway."
    Nysander sat down on the edge of the bed. "You must tell me what you can, then. By your oath as a Watcher—"
    "Yes, yes, I know!" snapped Seregil, rubbing at his eyelids in frustration. "Remembering—it's like trying to grasp a handful of eels. One second I remember a piece of something, then it just goes."
    "Nysander, he looks ill!" Alec whispered. The color had fled from Seregil's thin cheeks and a sheen of sweat stood out on his forehead.
    "I was terribly sick by the time we reached the crossroads inn," Seregil continued hoarsely.
    "Alec, you had no idea. Everything had become so unreal. It was like being trapped in a nightmare that I couldn't wake up from. I don't know where in Mycena we were by then. The black creature had been dogging us since the day before. Alec couldn't see it, even when it touched him in the cart, and that scared me worse than anything I've ever encountered. Alec's told you how I attacked him that night, I know, but that's not how it seemed to me at the time, not at all! The