Stalking Darkness

of the silver-lined box Nysander had given him to carry the crystal crown. “And here at the back there’s a shelf running the width of the wall.”
    Examining this, he found three areas of bright metal on theshelf, as if whatever had sat there had kept it from tarnishing. The central mark was roughly circular and about the size of his palm. To the left was a smaller but more perfectly round circle. To the right was a large square of silver, not so bright as the other two. Seregil recognized the last two outlines as those of the boxes holding the coin and crown, but what had the central object been? Judging by the relative lack of tarnish, it had been there the longest of the three, proving Alec’s supposition that Nysander had been guarding something long before they had brought him the disk.
    Bending over the mark with his light, he touched the outline, tracing it with his finger—
    —his vision dissolved into a brief curtain of sizzling sparks, then darkness
.
    A single clear, attenuated note broke the silence surrounding him and for as long as it lasted he knew nothing else. It pierced him, bathed him, dancing along on the threshold dividing pleasure from pain. Gradually other notes joined the first and they had form, long heavy forms that gradually wrapped together like the strands of a great rope
.
    And he was one of those strands, twisted tight and drawn along with the rest toward some destination. It was not fear that shot through him now, but an horrific elation
.
    Other sounds gradually filtered in from beyond the umbilicus, and these were different
.
    Removed
.
    Not of the flow
.
    Countless black-feathered throats raising a deafening collective cry that swelled to a roar of diseased laughter, then faded away as the flow passed on
.
    Human screams, voices crying out in every language of the world
.
    The clash of battle
.
    Impossible explosions
.
    He burrowed deeper into the umbilical bundle but the intrusive sounds followed, rising to an awful crescendo before they faded as quickly as they had come
.
    Silence, gravid with a sense of immediacy
.
    At last another sound crept in between the strands; Seregil knew this sound and it inexplicably filled him with a greater dread than all the rest
.
    It was the heavy rumble of ocean surf—
    “Seregil?”
    The sound of Micum’s worried voice broke through the vision, yanking him back to the cramped chamber.
    “You all right in there?” Micum called again.
    “Yes, yes, of course,” Seregil replied thickly, although suddenly he didn’t feel all right. He felt pissed as a newt.
    Rising slowly, he staggered back to the opening and pulled himself through. Micum helped him to his feet, but his legs didn’t seem to want to support him just yet. Sliding down with his back to the wall, he rested his elbows on his knees.
    “What happened in there?” Micum demanded, studying him with apparent concern. “You don’t look right.”
    “I don’t know.” There had been something, a fleeting glimpse of—what? Gone, nothing.
    Seregil scrubbed his fingers back through his hair to clear his head. “Must have been some residual effect of Nysander’s magic, or a pocket of bad air maybe. I just went a little light-headed. I feel better now.”
    “You were saying something about a shelf in there,” said Micum. “Did you find something?”
    “Just the marks. From the coin and the crown and the bowl.”
    “What bowl?”
    Seregil blinked up at Micum. “I don’t know. I just—know.”
    For the first time since he’d learned of Nysander’s prophecy Seregil felt the faint, chill brush of fear, but it was tempered with a sudden burst of grim anticipation.

34
L IGHTNING F ROM A C LEAR S KY
    T he blare of battle horns brought Beka up out of sleep just after dawn. Grabbing her sword, she ran from the tent.
    “To arms! To arms!” a messenger shouted, riding through the encampment. “An attack from the eastern hills. To arms!”
    Shading her eyes, Beka looked across the small plain that lay between the camp and a line of hills a mile to the east. Even with the sun in her eyes she could see dark ranks of horsemen and foot soldiers in the distance, perhaps as much as a regiment. The Queen’s Horse was still at half strength; Wolf Squadron was patrolling the supply route that stretched back to the Mycenian coast twenty miles to the south.
    Sergeant Braknil rushed up fully armed, his blond beard bristling. “What is it, Lieutenant?”
    “Look there,” said Beka,