"Interested in what?" Darrick asked.

"Them symbols I see ye a-drawin' and a-sketchin' now an' again." Sahyir brought up a water flask and handed it to Darrick.

Darrick drank, tasting the metallic flavor of the water. There were a few mines in the area as well, but none of them was profitable enough to cause a merchant to invest in developing and risk losing everything to the barbarians.

"I know ye don't like talkin' about them symbols," Sahyir said, "an' I apologize for talkin' about 'em when it ain't no business of me own. But I see ye a-frettin' an' aworryin' about 'em, an' I know it troubles ye some."

During the time he had known the old man, Darrick had never mentioned where he'd learned about the elliptical design with the line that threaded through it. He'd tried to put all that in the past. A year ago, when the gambler had died while under his protection, Darrick had lost himself to work and drink, barely getting by. Guilt ate at him overlosing Mat and the gambler. And the phantasm of his father back in the barn in Hillsfar had lived with him every day.

Darrick didn't even remember arriving in Seeker's Point, had been so drunk that the ship's captain had thrown him off the ship and refused to let him back on. Sahyir had found Darrick at the water's edge, sick and feverish. The old man had gotten help from a couple of friends and taken Darrick back to his shanty up in the hills overlooking the village. He'd cared for Darrick, nursing him back to health during the course of a month. It had been a time, the old man had said, when he'd been certain on more than one occasion he was going to lose Darrick to the sickness or to the guilt that haunted him.

Even now, Darrick didn't know how much of his story he'd told Sahyir, but the old man had told him that he'd drawn the symbol constantly. Darrick couldn't remember doing that, but Sahyir had produced scraps of paper with the design on it that Darrick had been forced to assume were in his own hand.

Sahyir appeared uncomfortable.

"It's all right, then," Darrick said. "Those symbols aren't anything."

Scratching his beard with his callused fingers, Sahyir said, "That's not what the man said that I talked to last night."

"What did he say?" Darrick asked. The barge had nearly reached the shore now, and the men pulling the oars rested more, letting the incoming tide carry them along as they jockeyed around the other barges and ships in the choked harbor.

"He was mighty interested in that there symbol," the old man said. "That's why I was a-tellin' ye about the Church of the Prophet of the Light this mornin'."

Darrick thought about it for a moment. "I don't understand."

"I was worried some about tellin' ye that I'd done a bit of nosin' about in yer business," Sahyir said. "We beenfriends for a time now, but I know ye ain't up an' told me everythin' there is to know about that there symbol or yer own ties to it."

Guilt flickered through Darrick. "That was something I tried to put behind me, Sahyir. It wasn't because I was trying to hide anything from you."

The old man's eyes fixed him. "We all hide somethin', young pup. It's just the way men are an' women are, an' folks in general is. We all got weak spots we don't want nobody pokin' around in."

I got my best friend killed, Darrick thought, and if I told you that, would you still be my friend? He didn't believe that Sahyir could, and that hurt him. The old man was salt of the earth; he stood by his friends and even stood by a stranger who couldn't take care of himself.

"Whatever it is about this symbol that draws ye," Sahyir said, "is yer business. I just wanted to tell ye about this man 'cause he's only gonna be in town a few days."

"He doesn't live here?"

"If he had," Sahyir said with a grin, "I'd probably have talked to him before, now, wouldn't I?"

Darrick smiled. It seemed there wasn't anyone in Seeker's Point who didn't know Sahyir. "Probably," Darrick said. "Who is this man?"

"A sage," Sahyir replied, "to hear him tell it."

"Do you believe him?"

"Aye, I do. If'n I didn't, an' didn't think maybe he could do ye some good, why, we'd never be having this talk, now, would we?"

Darrick nodded.

"Accordin' to what I got from him last night," Sahyir said, "he's gonna be at the Blue Lantern tonight."

"What does he know about me?"

"Nothin'." Sahyir shrugged. "Me, young pup? Why, I done forgot more secrets than I ever been told."

"This man knows what this symbol represents?"

"He knows somewhat of it. He seemed more concerned learnin' what I knew of it. 'Course, I couldn't tell himnothin' 'cause I don't know nothin'. But I figured maybe ye could learn from each other."

Darrick thought about the possibility as the barge closed on the shoreline. "Why were you telling me about the Church of the Prophet of the Light?"

"Because this symbol ye're thinkin' about so much? That sage thinks maybe it's tied into all that what's going on down in Bramwell. And the Church of the Prophet of the Light. He thinks maybe it's evil."

The old man's words filled Darrick's stomach with cold dread. He had no doubt that the symbol denoted evil, but he no longer knew if he wanted any part of it. Still, he didn't want to let Mat's death go unavenged.

"If this sage is so interested in what's going on down in Bramwell, what is he doing here?" Darrick asked.

"Because of Shonna's Logs. He came here to read Shonna's Logs."

Buyard Cholik lay supine on a bed in the back room of the Church of the Prophet of the Light and knew that he was dying. His breath rattled and heaved in his chest, and his lungs filled with his own blood. Try as he might, he could not see the face of the man-or woman-who had so gravely wounded him.

In the beginning, the pain from the arrow embedded in his chest had felt as if a red-hot poker had been shoved into him. When the pain had begun to subside, he'd mistakenly believed it was because he hadn't been as badly hurt as he'd at first feared. Then he'd realized that he wasn't getting better; the pain was going away because he was dying. Death closing in on him robbed him of his senses.

He silently damned the Zakarum Church and the Light he'd grown to love and fear as a child. Wherever they were, he was certain that they were laughing at him now. Here he was, his youth returned to him, stricken down by an unknown assassin. He damned the Light for abandoning him to old age when it could have killed him youngbefore fear of getting infirm and senile had settled in, and he damned it for letting him be weak enough to allow his fear to force him to seek a bargain with Kabraxis. The Light had driven him into the demon's arms, and he'd been betrayed again.

You haven't been betrayed, Buyard Cholik, Kabraxis's calm voice told him. Do you think I would let you die?

Cholik had believed the demon would let him die. After all, there were plenty of other priests and even acolytes who could step into the brief void that Cholik felt he would leave in his passing.

You will not die, Kabraxis said. We still have business to do together, you and I. Clear the room that I may enter. I don't have enough power to maintain an illusion to mask myself and heal you at the same time.

Cholik drew a wheezing breath. Fear rushed through him, winding hard and coarse as a dry-mouthed lizard's tongue. He had less room to breathe now than he had during his last breath. His lungs were filling up with his blood, but there was hardly any pain.

Hurry. If you would live, Buyard Cholik, hurry.

Coughing, gasping, Cholik forced open his heavy eyelids. The tall ceiling of his private rooms remained blurred and indistinct. Blackness ate at the edges of his vision, steadily creeping inward, and he knew if it continued it would consume him.