Stalking Darkness

ranks flanking the square of canvas. A few sailors drifted over, but not many. Mardus nodded to Alec’s guards and they moved him in front of the soldiers to the left.
    Vargûl Ashnazai went below through a different hatchway. While he was gone, guards brought up another prisoner and stood with him opposite Alec.
    It was Thero.
    Alec’s relief at seeing him was short-lived, however. The young wizard’s face was as vacant as before beneath the iron bands of the branks, and there was the gleam of madness in his wide, staring eyes. A grizzled man in nondescript robes stood just behind him; another necromancer, he guessed.
    Ashnazai returned, followed by two marines carrying a large chest on carrying poles. The box and poles were both covered with gold and unfamiliar symbols. This was set down in front of the dyrmagnos. As the others began chanting, Ashnazai opened the chest and lifted out a crystal diadem that glittered in the sunlight.
    “Behold the Crown,” he intoned reverently, placing it on the canvas before Irtuk Beshar.
    The sight of it wrenched at Alec’s heart. This was the mysterious object Seregil had risked his life to find for Nysander.
    Ashnazai next lifted out a bowl made of crudely fired clay and placed it inside the circlet. “Behold the Cup!”
    Last came a loop of golden wire on which had been strung a number of wooden disks. “Behold the Eyes of Seriamaius!”
    Alec let out an involuntary gasp as the dyrmagnos began placing them, one by one, inside the cup.
    Mardus turned to Alec. “You recognize those, I’m sure. Just think, if the two of you hadn’t stolen one, you and poor Thero would not be standing here now. All those lives lost, all that destruction, Alec, because of that one impetuous act. Ah, but I’mforgetting that it was
Seregil
who committed the actual theft. That’s what you told Irtuk Beshar, that you simply helped. But it all comes out the same in the end, doesn’t it. Here you are with me, and there he is, safely back in Rhíminee, no doubt thinking himself very lucky. Can you still be loyal to this faithless friend of yours?”
    “Yes.” Alec met Mardus’ gaze levelly in a show of bravado he didn’t feel. Past Mardus, past the ship’s rail and out over the wide sea he could see the tiny dot of an island on the horizon, too far away to be of any use.
    Just like Seregil.
    A wave of longing rolled over Alec, bringing the sting of tears to his eyes. All those days with Seregil taken for granted—the memory of them made him ache as he stood stranded among these enemies.
    The dyrmagnos placed her withered hands over the crown for a moment, then called out harshly in her own tongue. There was a scuffling sound from belowdecks, followed by a terrified cry. A moment later Gossol was hauled on deck by several soldiers. Bootless and stripped to the waist, he looked around wildly at the gathering before him. When he saw the dyrmagnos, however, he went ashen, his great barrel chest heaving in voiceless terror.
    “We were debating the choice of victim, but you have spared us the tiresome inconvenience of a lottery,” Mardus informed Alec pleasantly. “This is only a preliminary sacrifice, of course. The blood of this ignorant lump has neither the power nor purity of, say, a half Aurënfaie boy or an Orëska wizard, but it’s sufficient for our purposes today.”
    “That’s why I’m still alive?” Alec managed, his voice scarcely more than a dry croak.
    “Certainly,” Mardus assured him, as if promising him some gift. “You and Thero are being reserved for the supreme moment. The power of your blood, Alec! The long years sacrificed. Yours will be deaths of highest honor. You should pay careful attention to this ceremony. Yours will be very much the same.”
    Gossol was thrown down on his back and held by four marines marked apart from their fellows by white headbands. A fifth man knelt holding a gag across the condemned man’s mouth.
    In the midst of his fear, Gossol suddenly locked eyes with Alec and shot him a look of pure hatred. The power of it tightenedAlec’s throat and he quickly averted his eyes, hating the guilt washing through him.
    As the incomprehensible chanting went on, he looked instead at Thero, trying to guess what was going on in the wizard’s addled mind. Thero stood motionless, locked mute by whatever magicks the necromancers had placed over him. Only the spasmodic twitching of his fingers clutching the front of his cloak suggested that he