"Come, my friend, don't be so sour! We've both knocked around the dingy corners of this bad old world, haven't we? Who don't have their vices, eh? If you knew half what I pollute myself with, you'd wonder how I rise each day from my cot!" Thoster loosed a hearty laugh.

Japheth said to the night, "I have witnessed the wholesale reaping of thousands who walked, screaming, to the end of the crimson road. I beheld the terror of the gnashing teeth that rim that final abyss, the maw of a demonic god-beast. Those before me walked onward, shrieking in mortal terror for their immortal souls. They marched off the edge. They were sucked down into that awful darkness and were consumed. Snuffed out forever."

The warlock turned back to Thoster and asked, "Have you ever seen anything like that, Captain, in this 'bad old world'?"

The captain was silent for a moment. Japheth decided he'd managed to push the old salt back on his heel.

Thoster asked, "How's it you still live? Behroun told me you've walked the road for a decade or more. You should've perished years ago, ain't that right?"

It was Japheth's turn to laugh. "The fey spirits I commune with provide me with more than the words to curse the heart, still beating, from the chest of an enemy."

Thoster frowned, his easy manner finally dissipating. The captain recognized Japheth's veiled threat. He began, "Listen, if you-"

An ululating scream interrupted Thoster's response. The yell of pain and terror resounded. Another cry followed. "Ghost! A ghost is killing Dorian!"

Heaps of black stone lay tumbled in plank silos in the moist confines of the ship's hold. A brownish fungus had a good start across the slick piles, an indication that the heavy ballast hadn't seen much rotation in recent months.

Begrimed barrels, filled with liquid barely more palatable than seawater, stood two high along the starboard wall under reams of white sailcloth folded on top. Along the hold's port wall, coils of thick hawser hung. Rope was like ship's blood. It could be used for hundreds of tasks, from lashing men and equipment to the deck during storm seas, to repairing sail lines during hot becalmed days when nothing else could be done. Also, rope was useful for punishment. Keelhauling wasn't unknown on the Green Siren for crew members who defied the captain and his hulking first mate, Nyrotha.

Smaller kegs were stored under lock and key behind an iron portcullis, whose rusty expanse covered the port wall. Harsh fumes proclaimed their rum-filled contents to any who drew near.

A shelf next to the portcullis was stuffed with sheathed swords, spears, hanging crossbows, and a few well-polished shields.

The ceiling was composed of well-fitted planks, except for a wide, square opening directly above, which pierced the ship from the top deck, to mid deck, to hold, to the orlop deck. A rope ladder of rough hawser ran up the side of the opening, connecting all four decks.

Beneath the opening, a sailor lay on the stained, planked floor of the hold.

The sailor quivered and bucked as if possessed, and froth formed at the corners of his mouth. The veins that crisscrossed the exposed flesh of his face, arms, calves, and bare feet flamed scarlet with pain.

Anusha Marhana looked down at the thrashing, barefoot man, a hand to her mouth.

All she had done was touch him!

A dark-haired woman with a scar disfiguring the left side of her face perched half-way down the ladder leading into the hold. Terror robbed the woman of the strength to move up or down. Her ability to scream, however, was unhampered. The scarred woman's mouth was wide with a howl of dread, and her eyes seemed locked at something she saw near her writhing companion.

The scarred woman looked not at Anusha, but at one of the half-silvered shields that hung from the ship's weapon depot. Anusha followed the direction of the woman's terrified vision, into the face of the mirror-like shield… and something looked back at Anusha. A humanoid silhouette of purest black, outlined in erratic white and blue flashes. She recognized the silhouette as her own.

The first time Anusha had dream-stepped, she hadn't realized it.

She had awakened from what seemed merely an unusually detailed dream. During the dream she'd seen her half brother, Behroun, and the mysterious warlock plotting. True, upon "waking," her mind was almost ready to accept the first wild explanation that occurred to her, that she'd somehow stepped beyond her body and spied on events in the outside world as she slept… but she backed away from that explanation quickly enough. She managed to convince herself the experience was mere fancy, born of unsettled sleep.

She was able to hold on to that conviction for all of half a day.

The morning after her first dream, Behroun had summoned her to his office to warn her that enemies of Marhana were sending assassins into the manor. Shadow assassins that burned with a corona of azure fire.

Anusha realized Behroun was describing the very event she had dreamed! How was that possible-had she sleepwalked? No, she'd ghosted through solid objects without effort. It must have been a dream after all, but a dream dreamt beyond the confines of her own head!

Dazed with the insight, she sat dumbly as Behroun recounted his discovery of the assassin.

Nor did she contradict her half brother as he went on to explain how fortunate it was that his agent, Japheth, had been present to drive off the specter. Anusha remembered it was her terror of the darkness hiding under the warlock's cloak that proved impetus enough to awaken her physical body.

Behroun explained he had arranged for Anusha to summer beyond the walls of New Sarshel, where she would be safe from those who wished her ill. He described how getting her out of the city would allow him to concentrate fully on discovering which jealous noble house wished to destroy the soon-to-be-noble House of Marhana.

Anusha rushed back to her suite to pack, cold fear prickling across her body. But it wasn't the thought of assassins that scared her.

Behroun and Japheth had seen her! She had dreamed them, but they saw her, even though they had been awake.

Anusha was again convinced that the dream of the night before had been more than simple fancy. Something of it had been real.

A giddiness brought on by visceral fear stifled her wild packing. She stood frozen amidst a flurry of expensive clothes strewn on the floor and across her bed.

What was happening to her?

Behroun talked of assassins. Had some demonic creature lured her spirit beyond the confines of her body in order to steal it away? It had failed to find her this time, but would she be so lucky again? Would every foray into sleep be a cat-and-mouse game between her and some unseen soul stealer?

Then again, she had seen no evidence of such a creature. To fabricate the existence of a soul stealer to explain her too lucid dream based only on Behroun's talk of enemies of House Marhana was premature.

Especially because her half brother's belief in a potent rival stalking the family was based on his glimpse of her!

Anusha clenched her hands, and then loosed them, one muscle at a time. She willed the muscles in her forearms to go slack, then the muscles in her shoulders and neck. She even imagined tiny muscles in her face and scalp drooping into utter relaxation. Her breathing slowed, as did her heart's frantic pace. She tried to push herself beyond the reach of a panic that could not answer her questions or explain what had happened.