Stalking Darkness

use of his body didn’t bear thinking about.
    “You’re bleeding,” Thero said at last, stepping reluctantly toward him. “I’d better have a look.”
    Seregil drew back from his touch. “It’s just a scratch.”
    “You have a lump the size of an egg over your ear and fresh blood on your cheek,” Thero snapped. “What do you think Nysander would say if I let you sit there like that?”
    Wethis, the young servant, brought clean water and dressings and Thero set about cleaning the wound.
    Nysander returned just as he was finishing.
    “What an unprecedented tableau,” the wizard exclaimed, hurrying in between the stacks of manuscripts. He was dressed in a threadbare surcoat and trousers. Seregil noted with a twinge of pride how kind and unwizardly his old friend looked in comparison to his stiff assistant.
    “By the Light, Seregil, what an appalling stench! When you have finished there, Thero, please go and find him a clean robe.”
    Folding the bloodied towel next to the basin, Thero disappeared down the back stairway to their quarters.
    Nysander smiled, examining his assistant’s handiwork. “He does surprise me sometimes. But where is Alec?”
    “Take this.” Seregil pulled out another scrap of cloth he’d cut from his cloak and pressed it into Nysander’s hand. “We found what we were looking for, sabotage in the tunnels, but made one hell of a mess doing it. I need you to fix it up for us. Alec’s waiting by the entrance, so we’d better hurry.”
    Nysander shook his head. “Yes, of course, but I see no reason to drag you out again. You are still chilled to the bone, and a translocation would not be the best thing for you after such a knock on the head.”
    Seregil rose to protest and was very surprised to feel the floor lurch beneath his feet in a decidedly unpleasant manner.
    “There now, you see?” Nysander chided, pressing him backdown on the bench. “You go downstairs and sit by the fire. Alec can show me whatever it is I need to see.”
    “1 can’t just sit here,” Seregil insisted again, though his head was still spinning. “We ran into one pair of gaterunners down there already tonight. There could be others, or worse.”
    Nysander raised a shaggy eyebrow at him. “Are you suggesting that Alec would not be safe in my company?”
    Seregil sank his head in his hands as Thero reappeared with clean garments over his arm.
    “I leave Seregil in your able care,” Nysander told him. “I suggest a cup of hot wine and, by all or any means necessary, a bath.” Clasping the scrap of woolen cloth Seregil had given him, he traced a series of designs on the air and disappeared into the wide black aperture that opened briefly beside him.
    When Nysander opened his eyes again, he was in a small deserted square.
    “There you are,” whispered Alec, crawling out from behind a clump of leafless bushes. “Is Seregil all right?”
    “Yes, just a bit dizzy. He says you have something to show me.”
    “Something we need fixed,” the boy replied with a familiar grin. “Follow me.”
    This was the first time he’d actually seen Alec at work, and he was impressed with his quickness and efficiency.
    “My, but Seregil has been busy with you!” Nysander remarked as Alec let him through the second gate.
    “Ruint me for honest work, he ’as,” Alec replied, making a passable stab at a dockman’s accent. “It’s not far now.”
    Reaching the damaged grate, Nysander climbed up to inspect the damaged stone and ironwork, then moved across to see the intact corner.
    “I see,” he murmured to himself, peering closely at the remaining pin. “Most ingenious. And ingenious of you to have discovered it. Yes, I am quite satisfied. Well done.”
    “Can you fix it?”
    “Can I fix it?” Nysander snorted, climbing down again. Grasping the bars with both hands, he closed his eyes and listened to the voice of the cold iron. Letting his own energy pass into it through his hands, he visualized the metal, felt it stir under his hands.
    •  •  •
    Standing beside him, Alec felt a powerful ripple pass through the rank air. There were no flashes of light or magical signs, just the brief scrape and whine of metal. For a moment it seemed to Alec that the metal came alive, like a plant, growing and moving as it healed.
    Looking up, he saw that the damaged corner now looked as it had before. “Illior’s Light!” he gasped, hardly able to believe his eyes.
    Nysander laughed. “I hope you did not