He stood, not raising the sword until Niro Marco took the position of guard.

With an amazing quickness that belied his earlier assertion, the man lunged at him. Cazio caught the blade in perto, bound it down to uhtave, and struck the Fratrex Prismo of the holy Church in the chest.

Except that the point stopped as if he had hit a wall. For an instant he thought the fellow was wearing a breastplate, but then he saw the truth: His point wasn't touching the man; it was stuck in something a fingers-breadth from Niro Marco's chest.

He tried to yank the weapon back for another blow, but all of a sudden his arms and legs went loose and he was on the floor.

"Now," he heard the fratrex say, "these men will take you to a place of contemplation, but I'm going to warn you: I can't allow you to reflect for long. I'm here only for a short time, and then I must go to Eslen, with or without any help you may be able to give me. I would like to save you, but if you don't have anything to tell me by tomorrow, I'm going to have to encourage you any way I can. If that's no use, well, perhaps we can still lustrate your soul before it leaves this world. It's the least I can do for your father."

WHEN THE WITCHLIGHTS went out, Stephen shouted and batted at the darkness. Adhrekh hollered orders, and Zemle screamed. Then something rough struck him, and he heard a deep, ragged gasp of breath. His feet stood suddenly on nothing, and he heard a second shout, this one in that other voice.

Do not trust…

Then silence and wind and the wait for the stop at the end.

Something hit him again and knocked all the air out of him. The pain was blinding, but he still could feel, so he figured he wasn't dead.

That wasn't so bad, he thought. The floor mustn't have been as far as I thought.

But as he hiccupped air into his lungs, Stephen understood that something had him gripped tightly around the torso, and they were still hurling through the darkness. Was it one of the Aitivar, diving in a vain attempt to save him?

But they weren't moving so much down as forward. Whatever had him was flying.

What could fly that was large enough to carry a man? Only something from legend and likely something nasty: a wyver, a dragon…

He cried for help but had the feeling the sounds were dying just past his lips. He couldn't struggle. Even if he could, and succeeded, it would mean a long fall.

The smell hit him again, and the creeping sensation of something infinitely malevolent surrounding him, and he suddenly felt stone smack against his feet. Whatever had gripped him had released him, and he fell on his bottom.

He scuttled back, crablike, in terror to escape from the thing. A hard stone wall stopped his retreat.

The darkness remained elementally absolute.

"What do you want?" Stephen gasped. "I-what do you want of me?"

He was answered by a thunder of incomprehensible words that seemed to roll around him, a gibbering no human throat could make. Part of him was fascinated despite the horror. Was this the language of demons?

"I can't-"

"Hush."

It went in his head like a pin through an insect. His mouth froze open.

"Is this the one?" the thing went on. "Are you the one? Are you shadow or substance?"

The voice was burring right in his ear-in both ears, in fact, as if whoever it was somehow was whispering in them both. It didn't sound like a human voice, but he couldn't say exactly why.

Stephen still couldn't move his mouth, so he couldn't answer.

"The smell of you," the voice continued. "Revolting. I don't understand how you don't take your own lives from that alone."

It paused, and Stephen had the sense of something immense slithering around him. But when it spoke again, its voice was still right in his ears.

"You smell of other things, too. You stink of the sedoi. It all rots in you, mayfly. All comes to you to rot. Or will."

Stephen was shivering uncontrollably. He still could move his limbs, and he did-to roll up into a ball.

"Hold still," the voice commanded.

Then he couldn't move at all, although the trembling in his limbs continued.

Suddenly the needle through his mind began to wiggle, and he was standing in front of the fane of Saint Ciesel in the King's Forest. The forest rose up around him like columns supporting the cloudy sky. The fane was a tidy little structure of gray stone with a low-vaulted roof.

He blinked. He was staring at a different fane, that of Saint Woth.

And then he didn't have time to blink as he flashed from place to place and from time to time. He was nine, looking off the cliffs behind his house and smelling the sea. He was watching Zemle pull off her shirt. He was relieving himself behind a bush off the Old King's Road. He was watching Aspar kiss Winna.

Part of him understood that these were memories, but it all felt absolutely real: The weight of himself on his feet shifted-sometimes he wasn't on his feet-the scents, the temperature of the air, and it all went faster and faster until his thinking mind suddenly stepped away from it all, watched it flow like a river. Not trying to recognize anything but just watching it ripple and move.

And after a moment he noticed another stream, deep and dark, running alongside him, almost touching, then joining and broadening the river.

What's this?

But then even his ability to form questions disintegrated.

It took him a long time to understand when it was over, that he was back in one place and time, still shivering in the dark and paralyzed. He realized that the thing was talking to him again, and probably had been for some time.

"…going through it? Nonsense. I feel the bones. The bones are there. And blood in them, yes? In them. Ah, you're back. Listen, mayfly. He doesn't know me, not for sure. I like it that way. I think you will, too. So helpful, isn't he? Do you ever wonder why he wants you to walk the faneway? Do you ever wonder that?"

Yes, Stephen tried to answer.

"Come, tell-ah, wait. I see. It's already working. You may speak in response to my questions."

He felt something like a knot untying in his throat, and he gagged and then vomited. He kept heaving long after there was nothing left in his stomach.

"Answer my question," the darkness snarled.

"Yes," Stephen replied through his gasping. "I've wondered." He wanted desperately to ask who he was speaking to but found he couldn't.

"Do you know who it is?"

I won't tell you anything, he thought. "I won't tell you that I think it's the ghost of Kauron."

He suddenly realized that he'd said what he was thinking out loud, and he groaned. What sort of shinecraft was this?

"Kauron?" it said. "That's a name. That doesn't mean anything. Do you know who he is?"

"That's all I know," Stephen said, feeling the words rush out of him. "He helped me find the mountain and the faneway."

"Of course he did. No one wants you to walk that path more than he."

Stephen didn't bother trying to ask why.

"Well, walk it you will," the voice purred. "I have no objection."

Stephen felt the beat of wings and a rush of air. He uncoiled like a spring and then went loose, the shaking finally easing out of him.

Stephen lay there for a while, sick at heart, wondering how he ever could have imagined himself brave. It was the same old story: Every time he was close to feeling in command of himself and his world, the saints showed him something to shatter him again.

He opened his eyes and found that the witchlights were back with him. He was still somewhere beneath the earth but no longer in the vast open canyon where he had been abducted; nor was the river anywhere within sight, although he could hear it somewhere, far away.