At first there was nothing, no sensation, no light, no sound. It seemed that he had never known any existence but this dark enchanted sleep. Painfully, agonizing as warm blood pulsing in a dead limb, awareness returned, old dread, new dismay. Once known and recognized, emotion coursed sluggishly down old paths. Temar awoke to nothingness, blackness pressing down on him. Terror began to scratch at the corners of his mind, gnawing at his determination to withstand this trial. Uncertainty began to grow, spurred on by the sudden realization that he could feel nothing, nothing at all. There was no release in an accelerating heartbeat sending fire into his blood, to kindle a fury to fight off whatever was threatening him. No sweat beaded his brow to cool him, no ancient instinct was raising his hackles to warn of impending danger. He floated, bodiless in the featureless void, and when the urge to cry out could no longer be denied he lost himself in sickened terror at the realization that he had no mouth to shout with, no voice to raise. Pure horror overwhelmed him, screaming soundlessly out to be lost in the suffocating enchantment.

Guilt tormented him, to be swept aside by the motion of a violent sea, tossing and swamping a vessel caught in the teeth of a rending storm. Lightning flashed overhead, sparking eerie phosphorescence from the timbers and lashed-up rig of a skiff with no business out on the open ocean. A man wrestled with the tiller, himself tied to the thwarts with a knot of thick rope; Temar heard the desperate mariner’s thoughts clearly. He would fight his way clear of the storm or sink with the ship; if he could not save his precious cargo, both living and that held in unknowing, enchanted sleep, Dastennin could cast him to drown for eternity with Poldrion’s demons in the river of shades. It was Vahil, Temar realized, some measure of awareness returning to him just before it slid from the feeble grasp of his mind.

The echo of steps in a lofty hall was the next thing he knew, a purposeful stride, crisp with determination.

“Have you considered our petition?” A female voice rang out from some unseen direction, Temar struggling to register anything beyond a dull grayness swirling all around.

“Do you have any idea what you are asking?” It was a Sieur’s reply, confident enough to make a refusal with comforting eloquence. “Even if such an expedition could be organized, we could not sail before the latter half of spring, and Saedrin only knows what we will find. With the Empire falling asunder on all sides, you are asking me to risk men and material on a quest to find a new and most dangerous foe, doing nothing more in all likelihood than giving these marauders fresh encouragement to sail to encompass our own destruction!”

“We cannot leave them like this!” Elsire was weeping now, Temar realized distantly, a longing to comfort her welling up inside him.

“May we have your permission to contact the Shrine of Ostrin in Bremilayne?” Vahil’s voice was rough with emotion, his pain a bright goad in the leaden mists that wreathed around Temar.

“You may, of course,” the Sieur replied wearily. “The Healer grant that they might be able to help you, though I should warn you they have troubles enough of their own just at present.”

Temar’s awareness shied away from the heavy weight of the Sieur’s despair and dissolved into the dullness of the haze.

The scent of thyme crushed under the hooves of a galloping horse mingled with the acrid dust of the road and the sharp reek of the beast’s sweat. A scream rang out and Temar heard foul curses spat from all directions as the clash of swords struck sparks from his sleeping mind. Harness rattled and creaked, the swish and snap of a whip with its promise of pain to spur on the already desperate. A dire sense of urgency possessed him, a desperation mingled with an arrogance that soon shifted to fear, uncertainty and pain. The bite of the sword was as deep in the mind as into the body and Temar struggled in a futile effort to rid himself of the panic that was flooding him, its tendrils dragging him down as surely as weeds would drown a swimmer. Sudden agony overwhelmed him to be replaced by an emptiness even more horrible, until the darkness claimed him once more.

“So what exactly are you and how do I unlock your secrets?” Temar awoke with a start to see a hawk-faced man with flaxen hair stooping over him. Terror filled him but in that same instant he realized the man with the piercing blue eyes was not looking at him but at something to one side. He was himself still disembodied, no more than a shade crying to Poldrion for passage to the Otherworld, Temar realized. Who was this man? Memory struggled to knit together the tangled skeins of recollection and a distant echo of pain and terror sounded dimly in Temar’s reason. Pale heads in the dawn sunlight flashed across his mind’s eye and a terrible sense of danger began to build in Temar as the blond, cold-eyed man began a low murmur of enchantment, a tainted miasma overlying the image Temar was seeing. This time Temar reached desperately for the mists of the enchantment that concealed him, diving into the concealing depths to evade the poisonous touch of the sorcerer.

Light seared him like a burning brand.

“Come on, Viltred, move! They’re nearly on us!”

In a gateway, the speaker stood, intense eyes in a pale face, reddish hair streaked with white swirling in the biting wind. His companion hurried after him, burdened with a motley collection of jewelry, weapons and trinkets. The first man ran, long legs spurning the short grass while his companion, shorter and more sturdy, dark of hair and beard, plunged after him, the long skirts of his azure surcoat threatening to trip him at every stride. Temar was silent in helpless anguish as trifles slipped from his grasp to be lost in the uneven ground.

Quarrels thudded into the turf on all sides, but as Temar despaired of the two men ever escaping the arrows were snatched out of the air by unseen hands, blue light streaming from the bearded man’s hands, brilliance startling against the overcast.

“Here, Azazir, it’s here!” Suddenly they were at a cliff’s edge, black basalt columns forming a perilous stair to a tiny coracle, which bobbed seemingly untethered in the tumultuous foam of the breaking seas.

“Watch your step,” the red-headed man shouted, an insane exultation in his voice as he skipped lightly down the treacherous rocks, sure-footed as a cat. The younger man picked his way down more carefully, testing his footing at every step. Spray lashed him, bitter cold biting deep into flesh and bones as he made the long and hazardous descent.

Yells from aloft signalled the arrival of pursuit but as black-clad warriors gathered at the cliff-top and a few bolder than the rest began to edge down the slick and treacherous rocks, the red-headed man reached the flimsy leather boat. Standing easily in the frail craft, he raised his hands and green light gathered around him, casting an unearthly light on his thin face. Where the sea spray landed on the rocks, it began to cling, to pool, to draw together, drops making rivulets that joined to stream down the black stones, pushing at feet and hands. As the younger man reached the sanctuary of the tiny craft, he dumped his burden and wove his own skein of blue light, gusts of wind snatching at heads and shoulders, sharp blasts of icy air tugging at legs and feet. The first to fall shrieked in utter terror as he fell to his fate in the icy foam, the second clawed frantically at his neighbor, only to drag him down too, smashed on the unforgiving rocks before the seas claimed the bodies as their own. A wild exultation filled Temar, but before he could seize it the swirling mists swept over him as surely as the icy seas of his vision.