Stalking Darkness

daily walk, allowing himself to be drawn into a discussion of archery. The next day they spoke of wines and poisons. Mardus seemed pleasantly surprised and began sending for him more frequently.
    On the fifth day following Gossol’s sacrifice, Tildus came for him at sunset. The bearded captain said nothing, but Alec didn’t like the smug, secret smile Tildus gave him as they went above.
    On deck Alec saw with alarm that the ritual space had been prepared again. A line of soldiers held torches to illuminate the freshly laid square of canvas where Irtuk Beshar was already bent over the bowl and crown. Beside her, Vargûl Ashnazai stood ready with the stone ax.
    Thero was there, too, standing next to Mardus as slack-jawed as ever. All eyes seemed to turn to Alec as he approached.
    “O Illior,” he whispered hoarsely, feeling his knees go weak. Mardus had had some change of heart, his god had sent different instructions, Alec’s questioning had led him into some fatal misstep—
    Tildus gripped his arm more tightly and muttered, “Easy, man child. Not your time yet!”
    “Good evening, Alec!” Mardus said, smiling as he swept a hand toward the eastern horizon. “Look there, can you make out the coastline in the distance?”
    “Yes,” Alec replied, a fresh coil of apprehension running up his back at the sight.
    “That is Plenimar, our destination. Seriamaius has been kind, guiding us so smoothly along our course. And now it is time for the second act of preparation.”
    As Alec watched with mounting dread, ten men and women were dragged up on deck by the black-clad marines. This was the source of the weeping he heard in the night. This had all been planned in advance, the sacrificial victims packed away in the hold as carefully as the wine and oil and flour.
    They were not soldiers, but thin, pale, ordinary-looking souls who blinked and wept as they were herded together near the rail. Most were ragged or dressed as laborers, just innocent victims, he guessed, plucked from the darkened streets of whatever ports the ship had put into before Rhíminee.
    “O Illior,” Alec whispered as Mardus came to stand beside him, hardly knowing that he spoke aloud. “No, please. Not this.”
    Mardus slipped an arm around his shoulders and closed his hand over the back of Alec’s neck. Giving him a playful shake, he purred, “Ah, but you should savor it. Don’t you understand yet how great a part you played in bringing this about?”
    Faint with revulsion, Alec made the mistake of looking up at Mardus. For the first time he saw the depths of naked cruelty in his eyes, and in that awful moment he knew as certainly as he’d ever known anything that Mardus had purposefully allowed him to see behind the mask, was delighting in his fear and confusion, savoring it the way another man might savor the first caress of a long-desired lover. And perhaps worse even than this was the conviction that Mardus was nonetheless sane.
    Some of the prisoners were staring at Alec, mistaking him for one of their murderers.
    He couldn’t watch this again. Tildus had moved away when his master had come over, and the rest of the soldiers were watching the ceremony. Jerking out of Mardus’ grip, Alec dashed to the rail behind him with some instinctive, half-formed notion of throwing himself overboard, swimming as far as he could toward the shore, giving up if he had to—
    He’d gone no more than two paces when a deadly coldness engulfed him, locking his joints, forcing him painfully to his knees. Some unseen power forced his head around to see Vargûl Ashnazai holding up a small vial of some sort that hung around his scrawny neck on a chain.
    “Nicely done, Vargûl Ashnazai,” said Mardus. “Move him a bit closer so that he can see.”
    Unable to turn his head or blink, Alec had no choice but to watch as the ten victims were dragged down onto the deck at Ashnazai’s feet. Ten times the blade rose and fell with deadly efficiency and each heart was taken by the dyrmagnos and drained into the reeking cup.
    Thero stood just beyond her and through his own helpless tears of rage and impotence, Alec saw tears coursing slowly down Thero’s cheeks. It was an eerie sight, like watching a statue weep, but it gave him a sudden thrill of hope in the midst of the nightmare being acted out before him.
    The white canvas was scarlet by the time the necromancer had finished. He and the dyrmagnos were smeared to the elbows, theirrobes sodden, hair matted