LITMIR.BIZ

       PROLOGUE

       The Royal Intelligencer

      With evening, the incessant warm rain that had plagued us for three days stopped, the sky cleared at last, and I caught a glimpse of the rising moon. Its position confirmed the fear that had haunted me since morning. We were traveling in the wrong direction, going north instead of south. We were lost.

      Even worse, I was now positive that something was stalking us. It was very large, clever enough to stay hidden in the thick brush along the shore, and it betrayed itself only rarely by unnatural movements of the greenery or a slight sound –

      Like that! The faint crack of a broken stick.

      I stopped paddling and the skiff drifted to a halt. I peered into shadowy undergrowth a dozen ells away and cupped a hand about my ear, straining to listen. There was no wind. The waters of the lake were flat calm. Save for the faraway wailing cry of a black-throated diver bird, the silence was absolute. My normal senses perceived nothing. Once again, I tried without success to summon my talent, but my uncanny abilities were still too weak even to scry through the flimsy barrier of reeds and shrubs into the boreal forest beyond.

      Yet instinct assured me that the stalker was there, watching us.

      The sky overhead had turned to deepest blue, with a few scattered stars beginning to appear. On my right hand the full Harvest Moon rose, brilliantly white, through the raggedy ranks of spruce trees that topped the ridge alongside the narrow lake. I looked toward the opposite shore and beheld a wonderful thing in the sky above it – a great arc of pearly light spread across the retreating bank of rainclouds in the west.

      I must have exclaimed at the sight of it, waking her. Induna stirred in the bottom of the boat, uncovered her head, which had been shielded from the rain by blankets and an oilskin cloak, and lifted herself painfully on one elbow.

      ‘Deveron?’ Her voice was low and anxious. ‘Is something wrong?’

      For the moment, I dodged the question. ‘Look over there. It’s a moon bow.’

      ‘How beautiful. I’ve heard of them but never seen one before. They’re supposed to portend great good luck.’

      I thought: We have sore need of that, beyond doubt!

      Even as we watched, the marvel began to fade. It was gone almost as soon as it had appeared. I took up the water-flask and bent over the woman who should have been my wife sixteen years ago, who had already given up so much for my sake and who now might be rewarded only with gruesome death. Induna lay with her head pillowed on a pack. She had been asleep for hours, still recovering from the sacrifice made shortly after our arrival in this forsaken wilderness three days earlier.

      I said, ‘Take some water, love. I’ll help you to sit up.’

      The boat rocked as we shifted position. It was a flat-bottomed skiff of the unique Andradhian style, made of tough sheets of thin bark, pointed at both ends. The Boatwright I’d bought it from had intended it for the jungle streams of the distant Southern Continent; but being lightweight and easy to portage, it was also the perfect craft for voyaging among the bewildering maze of bogs, rivers and chains of lakes that comprised the forbidding Green Morass of northern Didion.

      Induna drank only a little before sinking back onto her improvised cushion with a sigh. ‘I feel stronger. The sleep did me good. I think I’ll be able to eat something

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