Stalking Darkness

look, would you?”
    Nysander said nothing as they descended the tower stairs. As soon as the sitting-room door was firmly shut behind them, however, he fixed Seregil with an expectant look.
    “I assume there is some matter you wish to discuss privately?”
    “Was it that obvious?”
    “Really now. Reli ä Noliena?” Taking his accustomed seat by the hearth, Nysander regarded Seregil wryly. “I seem to recall that you have on numerous occasions referred to her writings as utter tripe.”
    Seregil shrugged, running a finger along the painted band of the mural that guarded the room. “First thing that popped into my head. What do you make of this dream of Alec’s, and the headless arrow shaft? I have a feeling it’s tied in with”—Seregil paused, acknowledging Nysander’s warning look—“with that particular matter about which I am not allowed to speak.”
    “It does seem a rather obvious correlation. No doubt you are thinking of the words of the Oracle?”
    “ ‘The Guardian, the Vanguard, and the
Shaft.’ ”
    “It is certainly possible that there is a connection, although why it should suddenly surface now, I do not know. Then again, it could conceivably be nothing more than it appears. Alec is an archer. What stronger image of helplessness could there be for him than a useless arrow?”
    “I’ve tried to tell myself that, too. We both know who this Eater of Death is; I’ve been touched twice by the dark power and was damn lucky both times to get away with life and sanity intact. So I want to believe that Alec isn’t getting pulled into this web, but I think he is, that that’s exactly what that dream means. You believe that, too, don’t you?”
    “And what would you have me do?” Nysander asked with a trace of bitterness. “If we are dealing with true prophecy, then whatever must happen will happen, whether we accept it or not.”
    “True prophecy, eh? Fate, you mean.” Seregil scowled. “So why dream? What’s the use of being warned about something if you can’t do anything to avoid it?”
    “Avoiding something is seldom the best way to resolve it.”
    “Neither is sitting around with your head up your ass until the sky falls in on you!”
    “Hardly, but forewarned is forearmed, is it not?”
    “Forearmed against what, then?” Seregil asked with rising irritation as an all-too-familiar guarded look came over the wizard’s face. “All right then, you’re still guarding some dire secret, but it seems to me that the gods themselves are giving hints. If
you’re
the Guardian, which you’ve admitted already, and if Alec, our archer, is the Shaft, then am I the Vanguard?” He paused, mentally trying the title on for size. But the bone-deep feeling of certainty he’d had about Alec eluded him. “Vanguard, those who go before the battle, one who goes in front—No, that doesn’t resonate somehow for me. Besides, the Oracle wouldn’t tell me to guard myself. So why would he tell me anything at all unless—”
    “Seregil, please—”
    “Unless there’s a fourth figure to the prophecy!” Seregil exclaimed, striding excitedly back and forth between the hearth and the door as the myriad possibilities took shape in his mind. “Of course. Four is the sacred number of the Immortals who stand against the Eater of Death, so—” The inner certainty was there now. No matter what answer Nysander gave, he knew instinctively that he was on the right track now. “Illior’s Light,Nysander! The Oracle wouldn’t have spoken to me as he did if there wasn’t a reason, some role for me to play.”
    Nysander stared down at his clasped hands for a moment, communing with an inner voice. Taking a deep breath, he said quietly, “You are the Guide, the Unseen One. I did not tell you before for two reasons.”
    “Those being?”
    “First, because I still hoped—continue to hope, in fact—that it will not matter. And secondly, because I know nothing more than that. None of the Guardians ever has.”
    “What about the Vanguard?”
    “Micum, most likely, since he has also been touched by these events. For the love of Illior, Seregil, do stop that pacing and sit down.”
    Seregil came to a halt by the bookshelves. “What do you mean, you hope it won’t matter?”
    Closing his eyes, Nysander massaged the bridge of his nose with thumb and forefinger. “Just as there have been other Guardians, so have there been other Shafts, other Guides. It is as if they always exist from generation