Stalking Darkness

was filled with the same sort of carvings.
    “What are they?” asked Micum.
    Nysander’s pale face lit up with excitement as he studied thewhorls, circles, and cross-hatching that formed the patterns. “Such carvings have been found all round the inner seas, but no one has ever deciphered them. Like that stone up there, they were placed here before our kind arrived.”
    “Another sacred spot,” Seregil said, sitting up. “I found the crown in a cave the Dravnians called a spirit chamber. I felt their spirit after I’d gotten the crown. Micum, you remember that underground chamber you found in the Fens?”
    “Of course.” Micum grimaced, recalling the scene of slaughter.
    “You said there was an altar stone of some sort there,” Nysander said, exchanging an excited glance with Seregil. “That chamber could have been some sort of holy place, too, before the wooden disks were hidden there.” He waved a hand at the carvings they’d found. “And now this place, this ancient temple site. All this suggests that the necromancers use the power of such places to enhance their own magic. Assuming that this is the case, then there must be some significance in Mardus’ choice of this rather obscure location.”
    “I was just thinking the same thing,” Seregil said, sighting down the right-hand fissure. Waves surged up the cleft with the gentle heave of the tide, churning up white foam as they lifted the seaweed. After a moment he began pulling off his boots.
    “Fetch a rope, would you, Micum?” he asked, stripping off his tunic and shirt as well.
    “What are you up to?”
    “I just want a look at where these cracks in the rock lead.”
    Seregil tied one end of the rope around his waist and handed the rest to Micum, then waded into the icy water.
    He was thigh deep when the undertow knocked him off his feet. Micum tightened his grip on the rope, but Seregil surfaced and motioned for him to slack up again. Struggling against the waves, he swam farther out and dove beneath the surface.
    “What is it he’s after?” Micum muttered nervously, paying out more line.
    “I cannot imagine,” Nysander replied, shaking his head.
    Seregil dove twice more before shouting for Micum to haul him in.
    Pale and blue-lipped with cold, Seregil staggered up the rock and flattened himself against its sun-warmed surface. Nysander unfastened his cloak and laid it over him.
    Micum squatted down beside him. “Find anything?”
    “Nothing. I had thought maybe, with the gift tide coming—” Seregil broke off. Sitting up, he smacked a hand across his forehead. “Illior’s Fingers, I’ve had it all backward!”
    “Ah, I think I see!” For the first time in days a little color stole into Nysander’s bleached cheeks. “How could I have overlooked such an obvious factor?”
    “A gift tide?” Micum asked, wondering if he’d heard right.
    Seregil’s teeth clattered like bakshi stones in a leather cup as he exclaimed, “It’s the last piece of the puzzle. Now the rest falls into place.”
    “What in the hell are you—”
    “Twice each month, the moon causes the tide to rise and fall to unusual extremes,” Nysander explained. “The fishermen call it a gift tide. On the day of the eclipse there will be such a tide.”
    “It was the seaweed,” Seregil went on, as if that explained everything. “It grows thickest around the low tide line. Last night I noticed that an unusually thick band of it was laid bare at low tide.”
    “But you just said there was nothing out there,” said Micum.
    “That’s right.” Seregil jumped to his feet and headed up the ledges. “And I might have saved myself a swim just now. Leiteus said the eclipse would occur at midday, which is when the tide will be unusually
high!
That’s the other half of the cycle!” Water dripped from the tip of his nose as he scrutinized the fissure again, following it up toward the high ground. Suddenly he stooped over a collection of stones jumbled together near one of the parallel fissures, then began tossing them aside.
    “Look, a hole,” he said, showing them a round hole a hand’s span wide bored deep into the stone. Scrabbling along on his knees he soon found another, and then a third.
    With the help of the others, he uncovered a total of fourteen of the holes, spaced evenly to form a half circle around a broad, shallow depression in the stone just above the high tide mark. It was an unremarkable looking spot, littered with driftwood, shells,