LITMIR.BIZ

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to find us crafts that we could apprentice. If he couldn’t place us together, there, he was going to take us up to Krondor. He was doing it for our mother.’

      Pug stepped forward and said, ‘You already know more than you should, just through what you’ve seen and heard in the last day.’ He glanced at his wife and son then added, ‘I think we’ll give some thought about what to do with you. But in the meantime, why don’t you get some rest.’ He glanced at Nakor. ‘We’ll talk in a while, but would you please find them a room, now?’

      Nakor nodded and moved quickly to the door, motioning for the boys to follow. Tad and Zane fell in behind.

      ‘I’m Nakor,’ said their guide. ‘I’m a gambler. Do either of you know how to play card games?’ Both boys said no, and Nakor shook his head. ‘I’m getting out of practice. No one on this island plays cards. What do you do?’ He glanced over his shoulder as he asked the last question.

      Both boys were silent as each waited for the other to speak first. Finally Tad said, ‘Things.’

      ‘What things?’ asked Nakor as they reached a hallway lined with doors.

      ‘Loading and unloading cargo,’ said Zane.

      ‘So you’re young stevedores?’

      ‘Not really,’ said Zane. ‘And we can drive wagons!’

      ‘Teamsters, then?’

      ‘No, not really. But I can sail a boat,’ said Tad. ‘And we’ve both done some fishing.’

      ‘I can hunt a little,’ said Zane. ‘Caleb took me once and showed me how to shoot a bow. He said I had the makings, and I took down a deer by myself!’ His pride shone clearly as he walked next to his foster brother.

      ‘I help Fowler Kensey mend nets sometimes,’ offered Tad. ‘and he showed me how to catch ducks on the lake.’

      ‘And I’ve helped Ingvar the Smith mend pots,’ added Zane. ‘He doesn’t like to tinker so he showed me. And I know how to bank a forge so the fire’s there the next morning, and how to temper steel –’ Tad shot him a dubious look ‘– I’ve watched him do it often enough!’

      Nakor led them into the room, which was empty save for four beds with rolled-up mattresses. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘that’s quite an impressive list of skills, far more than most boys your age have.’ He waved to them to unroll the mattresses. As they did so, he pointed to a chest near the door and said, ‘Blankets are in there. A candle and flint and steel, too, though you’ll not need it. I expect you’ll be asleep as soon as I close the door. It’s three hours to sunrise here, so rest for a while. Someone will come and get you and take you to get something to eat when you wake. I expect you’ll be hungry.’

      ‘I’m hungry now,’ said Zane with a slight note of complaint.

      Tad shook his head slightly.

      ‘But I can wait to eat,’ he quickly amended as he went to fetch blankets out of the wicker chest.

      As Nakor turned to leave, Tad said, ‘Sir, a question.’

      ‘Call me Nakor, not sir. What’s the question?’

      ‘Where are we?’

      Nakor was silent a moment, then grinned. ‘I can’t tell you yet. You will know what you may after Pug decides what to do with you.’

      ‘What do you mean, sir – Nakor?’ asked Tad.

      Nakor lost his smile. ‘You boys have seen things and heard things that could get someone else killed.’ Tad’s face drained of colour and Zane’s eyes widened. ‘Pug has to decide what we can do with you. Magnus thought you were Caleb’s apprentices, which meant certain things. You are not, which means certain other things. I can’t be more specific, but soon you will know what Pug wishes. Until then, you are guests, but don’t wander off without a guide. Understood?’

      Both said, ‘Yes,’ and Nakor departed.

      They went to bed and as they lay down, Tad said, ‘Killed?’

      ‘He said someone else, not us.’

      ‘But why?’

      ‘I don’t know,’ said Zane. ‘Caleb’s father is powerful, he’s a magician like his other son.’ Both boys had the usual fear of things magic widespread among the common folk of the region, but it was tempered by the fact they were talking about Caleb’s father. In the boys’ minds Caleb was like a generous and kind uncle, which would almost make Pug something akin to a grandfather. At least they hoped so.

      Zane continued. ‘Everyone says that he owns Stardock Island. That would make him a noble of some kind. They have enemies. Nobles fight wars and things.’

      Tad laid his head down on his arm. ‘I’m tired, but I don’t feel sleepy.’

      ‘Well, you heard him; we can’t go anywhere. Maybe we should try.’

      Tad rolled over on his back and stared upwards in the darkness. ‘I wish we were back at Stardock.’

      Zane sighed deeply. ‘Me, too.’

       • CHAPTER FIVE •

       Sorcerer’s Isle

      ALL EYES WERE ON NAKOR.

      He pulled an orange from his seemingly-bottomless rucksack and offered it first to Miranda, then to Pug, and then to Magnus. All declined. He stuck his thumb into the peel and began to remove it, a process all of them had witnessed a thousand times before.

      ‘Nakor,’ said Pug, ‘what are you not telling us?’

      ‘Nothing,’ said Nakor. ‘At least nothing I knew until Magnus arrived.’

      ‘What do you mean?’ asked Miranda, sitting on the side of the bed where Caleb lay sleeping.

      Pug stood at his younger son’s feet and Magnus occupied the other chair in the room.

      ‘You know who the old witch in the village was, yes?’ asked Nakor.

      ‘Not really,’ said Magnus. ‘I’ve encountered her twice before and all I sense is that she’s more than a common purveyor of charms and herbal remedies. There’s power there, but it’s muted.’

      ‘You said the Goddess called her an echo,’ said Miranda. To Nakor she said, ‘What does that mean?’

      Nakor glanced at Pug who said, ‘I think I understand, or at least, I have a partial understanding. Tell us what you know.’

      Nakor shrugged and his usual happy demeanour vanished. Instead, Pug saw the darkest expression Nakor had ever revealed to him. ‘The Gods are beings of vast power,’ Nakor began. ‘Our understanding of them is filtered through the limits of our perceptions.’ He looked at the other three. ‘All of you have been to the Pavilion of the Gods, so you know that it is both a physical place and a metaphor for something much less objective. It is a place of the mind as well as a place of the body.

      ‘When I have encountered beings of a certain type in the past—’ He stopped and was silent for a moment as if considering his choice of words, then he resumed. ‘I mentioned Zaltais of the Eternal Despair,’ he said to Pug, who nodded. ‘Do you remember him being cast into a pit – I said he was a dream, remember?’

      Pug nodded. ‘You’ve said that each time he’s been mentioned, yet you have offered no explanation.’

      With a slight smile, Nakor said, ‘I assumed, perhaps in error, that you would have gleaned the truth without my having told you since we discussed this all down in Krondor, before the Serpentwar destroyed that city.’

      Magnus

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