Stalking Darkness

a smaller one that wound along the sea cliffs.
    The astrologer’s modest walled villa sat perched on a headland overlooking the sea. Above it, gulls wheeled gracefully against the morning sky.
    The courtyard gate was shut tight, but a servant soon answered Micum’s relentless knock.
    “My master is not accustomed to receiving visitors at this early hour,” the man informed them stiffly, eyeing Seregil’s unkempt appearance and ill-fitting coat with undisguised skepticism.
    “We’re here on a matter of the utmost interest to your master,” Seregil replied, affecting his most arrogant tone. “Tell him that Lord Seregil í Korit Solun Meringil Bôkthersa and Sir Micum of Cavish, Knight of Watermead, require his attendance at once in a matter pertaining to his friend Nysander, High Thaumaturgist of the Orëska House.”
    Duly intimidated by the onslaught of titles, the man relented enough to escort them to a small sitting room overlooking the sea, while he went to speak with his master.
    “Prophecies and astrologers,” Micum grumbled, pacing around the tiny room. “Alec’s carried off by crazy butchering bastards and we’re weaving sails out of smoke!”
    “It’s more solid than that. I can feel it.” Seregil sat down on a bench under the window and rested one elbow on the sill as he gazed out.
    Having a thread to follow, even as tenuous a one as this, appeared to have restored the inner calm Seregil needed to function. After all the horror of the previous day, however, Micum wondered if he wasn’t just a bit too calm.
    And what if this astrologer doesn’t have all the answers?
    “How did Kari take you going off like this?”
    Micum shrugged. “She’s nearly four months gone with child, Beka’s off in the middle of a war, and I charge off again with you. I swore to her I’d be there when her time comes.”
    Still looking out the window, Seregil said quietly, “You don’t have to come, you know. Prophecy or not, the decision is yours.”
    “Don’t talk like an idiot. Of course I’m coming,” Micum retorted gruffly.
    “I’ve made my choice and I’ll stick by it,” he went on, sitting down next to Seregil. “Though I’ll admit I don’t like it. Nysander talks of a band of four and here we sit, knocked down to two before we even begin.”
    “We’re still four, Micum.”
    Micum stared down at the mosaic under his feet for a moment, then laid a hand on Seregil’s thin shoulder. “I know what Valerius said yesterday. I want to believe it as much as you, but—”
    “No!” Seregil glared at Micum. “Until I hold his body in my hands, Alec is alive, do you hear?”
    Micum understood the anguish behind Seregil’s anger all too well. If Alec was alive, Seregil would fight through fire and death to save him. If Alec was dead, then he’d do the same to track down his killers. Either road, he blamed himself.
    “You know I love the boy as much as you do,” he said gently, “but it won’t do him a damn bit of good for us to let that cloud our thinking. If we’re going to come up with any sort of plan we have to at least take into consideration that he might be dead. If this ‘Shaft’ person of yours is really meant to be an archer, then we’d better—”
    Seregil stared out the window, his mouth set in a stubborn line. “No.”
    They were interrupted by the arrival of a short, well-fed man in an enormous dressing gown.
    “I beg pardon, gentlemen,” he apologized, yawning as he ushered them into a spacious consultation room. “As you’ve no doubt surmised, the nature of my studies requires that I work at night. I’m seldom awake at this hour. I’ve sent for strong tea, so perhaps you would—”
    “Forgive me, but I assume you’re unaware of the attack on the Orëska House last night,” Seregil broke in, “or that Nysander í Azusthra has been seriously wounded.”
    “Nysander!” Leiteus gasped, his robe billowing around him as he sank into a chair. “By the Light, why would anyone want to harm that decent old fellow?”
    “I can’t say,” answered Seregil, his manner now betraying none of the emotion of a moment before. “He sent us to you, though he was too weak to tell us why. Magyana says he’d consulted you on some astrological matter recently. It could have some bearing.”
    “Do you think so?” Leiteus fetched a pile of charts from a nearby shelf and shuffled quickly through them. “If only he’d allowed me to do that divination for him. He was gracious