Just then he heard the queen shout: 'Kill him!' And the creatures closed in on him.
But he didn't care. If only he could know the answer, it didn't matter … death didn't matter … nothing mattered but the knowledge he was certain was waiting to be revealed in one blinding flash, brighter even than the light he'd used to keep the Protectors at bay.
'Tell me, Master!' he shouted. 'Who is the Other?'
His fingertips were scant inches away from the sign of Syrapis when he heard another voice shouting:
'Father! They're coming, father! They're coming!'
It was Palimak's voice.
A small hand plucked at his sleeve, dragging his fingers away.
'No!' Safar shouted. 'Noooo!'
'Father!' Palimak's voice insisted. 'They're coming! The men are coming!'
Asper's chamber vanished and Safar found himself in his bedroom again. He was clutching the edge of his desk, staring at the open page of Asper's book. The drawing of Syrapis still beckoning.
He turned, seeing Palimak next to him, tugging at his sleeve.
'Something awful has happened, father!' the boy said.
Palimak pointed out the bedroom window. 'Look!'
Dazed, so sick to his stomach he wasn't sure he could hold its contents for more than a moment, Safar raised his head and looked.
Through the window he saw six men approaching his house, bearing a litter. And on that litter was a small, frighteningly small, human form. He didn't know who it was, because blood-soaked blankets covered the features.
'It's poor Tio, father,' Palimak said. 'I think the wolves got him!'
CHAPTER FOUR
The skies were somber, the lake ashen, when they sent little Tio to his watery grave. The village was draped in black and the winds came off the Bride's slopes cold and moaning, black bunting flapping like the tongues of so many ghosts.
All of Kyrania was in shock that one so young and innocent had met such a horrid fate. The mourning women wailed and tore their hair. And all the men got drunk and swore vengeance. Against whom, no one was certain.
Safar presided over the funeral ceremonies, casting cleansing spells and leading the village in traditional prayer.
And everyone sang:
Gone to sweet-blossomed fields …
When the song was done, Safar and four temple lads fired the boat and pushed it away from the lakeshore. The mourners watched in silence as the funeral craft, festooned with yellow ribbons, was pulled this way and that by errant winds. Black smoke trailed through the curling ribbons and everyone wept in relief when the boat bearing Tio's remains finally halted in the middle of the lake. This was lucky for Tio's spirit. Everyone had worried the misfortune he'd suffered in this life would follow him to the next.
The boat burned to the waterline and then wind-driven waves slopped over to hiss and steam in the flames. The boat sank slowly, smoke and steam columning up into heavy gray skies. Then it was gone.
Safar's heart sank with the boat. He thought of the dream he'd had only yesterday morning. The dream of wolves in which he'd witnessed Tio's death.
Suddenly his hackles rose and chill fingers of danger ran up his spine. Palimak suddenly clutched his hand.
'Somebody's watching, father,' the boy whispered. 'And he's not very nice!'
Safar felt eyes boring into him-eyes from nowhere and everywhere. He squeezed Palimak's hand. 'I can feel it too,' he said. He kept his voice easy, but with just a tinge of concern. 'And you're right. He's not very nice.'
'What should we do, father?' Palimak asked. 'I don't like this! It isn't right! Watching people, and …
and…' He shrugged. 'You know …
Only Safar and Palimak were aware of what was happening. Their fellow mourners were solemnly engaged in singing songs and beating their breasts to help speed Tio's ghost to the Heavens.
'I could use your help with this, Palimak,' Safar said. The boy's face brightened, worry lines vanishing.
'Do you have a trick, father?' Palimak asked, flashing a sharp-toothed smile.
'I certainly do,' Safar said. 'But it won't work unless you help me.'
He felt the remainder of the child's tension vanish. Now the ominous presence seemed only a game.
Palimak giggled. 'We'll get him! Really,
His gusto was alarming. Safar remembered his own blood-thirsty ways as a child and forced himself to stanch a sudden, unreasonable feeling of parental concern.
'Yes,' he said, 'we're going to surprise him. Maybe even hurt him … but just a little bit. Enough to make him sorry.'
Palimak drew in a deep breath, gathering his concentration. And then, 'I'm ready, father.'
Safar nodded. 'Here's what we'll do,' he said. 'Let's make ourselves really hot! Let's be so hot he feels like he's looking right at the sun. Can you imagine that?'
'That's easy,' Palimak said.
'Not that easy,' Safar warned. 'I want you to think really, really hot. Hot as you possibly can.'
Palimak chortled. 'We'll burn him!' he said. 'That'll teach him!'
Safar started to add a few more words of caution, but then Palimak's eyes started to glow and the air crackled with a surge of magical power. Hells, the child was strong! Safar leaped in to catch the surge and blend with it. Then he gained control, added his own power, and focused their combined strength like a magnifying glass intensifies the rays of the sun.
He smelled the stink of ozone and then the air became hot and heavy and it was difficult to breathe. He heard Palimak cough. And then from far away he heard a howl of surprised pain. Like a wolf who had just sprung a steel trap.
Then the eyes were gone-snatched away-and all was normal again.
'Will he come back?' Palimak asked.
'I don't know, son,' Safar said. 'But we'll have to be careful.'
Then the crowd descended on him and he was shaking hands and commiserating with the family as if nothing had happened.
The following night he called an emergency meeting of the village elders.
First they heard from Renor, Tio's older brother. The men's eyes became moist as they listened.
'It was only for the night,' Renor sobbed. 'I didn't think there was any danger, or I wouldn't have left him there. I'd have taken him with me and made the herd fend for itself!'
Safar, a master of old guilts, said, 'You had no reason to act differently, Renor. That is the way things are done in Kyrania. Boys have always taken the herds into the mountains to learn how to be on their own and act responsibly. That was what you were doing with Tio.' He waved a hand at the others. 'All of us have had that first time experience of a night alone on the mountains. It's a tradition-a necessary tradition.'
The other men muttered agreement. 'My brother did the same for me when I was a lad,' said the headman, Foron, who was also the village smithy.
Renor wiped his eyes, trying to regain control.
Safar's father, Khadji, leaned in. 'Tell us the rest, son,' he urged. 'Then you can go home to your family.
They need your strength now.'
