“‘Tis the Prince! Prince Gerin,” replied the first man.

“His young lordship’s been nimmed and carried off aforce!” shouted someone from behind.

“Nivver say it!” cried Pym. “When did it happen?”

“Yesterday morning at the hunt. Thieves took him, and slew the King’s counselor!”

“Oh! Oh!” Pym wagged his head in dismay.

“Fifty men there were!” said a short man with a wart.

“A hundred, I heard!” another yelled. Everyone nodded.

“You seen anyone?” asked the first man suspiciously.

Old Pym blanched at the thought. “Me? I nivver did. No, sir. Nor heard aught neither. We ‘uns’d seen a hundred men. But neither hand nor hair have we seen ‘til now. They kilt the King’s minister?”

“Dead, he is. Oh, the gods are wroth with the King for taking up after this new god of his, this Most High. They are angry, and they are showing their ire! This will teach him.”

Pym muttered morosely, “This be a dark day. A dark day indeed.”

“Aye,” they all agreed, and then hastened off down the road once more.

Pym started on his way again, stopping several succeeding groups to inquire of them also, and all told the same sad story. It was on everyone’s lips, and would surely be the topic of conversation for some time, upsetting the festival as it had.

“A deed most foul, Tip,” said Pym as they walked along, still proceeding toward Askelon, though all they met were going the other way, back to their villages and towns in the south, to spread the word. In a week there would not be a single man in all Mensandor who did not know what had happened. “Aye, a deed most foul.”

Quentin pushed relentlessly onward. Early in the day he had forsaken the road and begun combing the side trails-first this way and then the other-hoping to chance across some sign that the assassins had passed through. He found nothing, and with every league descended into a torment and anguish deeper than he had ever known. It seemed at times as if his spirit was tearing itself in two, as if his innermost self was being wracked and tortured.

Why? he kept asking himself. Why has this happened to me? Help your servant, Most High! Help me! Why is there no answer? Why do I feel alone? He has left me; the god has cast me aside.

That thought alone might have crushed him, but fear for his son and grief for Durwin added their weight until he thought his heart would burst.

Still, he kept on, pushing himself, willing himself to go further, stopping only to rest Blazer now and then, and to drink. He continued southward, and as the day bent toward evening he smelled the salt air of the sea in the breeze and knew he must be nearing the coast.

At dusk he rode out of the forest and climbed a sandy bluff overlooking the sea. Gerfallon lay dark and wine-colored in the setting sun. Overhead, a bank of vermilion clouds scudded ashore on the landward wind. Behind them darker clouds gathered; tomorrow would see rain.

Quentin dismounted and allowed Blazer to crop the sweet green grass that grew long on the bluff. To the west lay Hinsenby, though he could not see it; and to the east the Sipleth slid darkly to the sea, its waters cool from the melt of snow on the high Fiskills.

Ahead, out across the water, lay the hulking mass of the island-Holy Island it was called-rising dark from the water: mysterious, uninviting; the source of many stories and much speculation from times past remembering. The island, green with vegetation and dark with ancient forests, was uninhabited-though in older times there were those who attempted to make a home there. But these settlements never lasted long-a few years at the most, and then they were gone. The island was the dwelling of some local gods who did not wish to share their home with mortals, some said.

Local rumors maintained that the eerie island had once been a place of worship for the early inhabitants of Mensandor, the war-loving and blood-lusting Shoth who practiced their brutish religion of torture and human sacrifice within its cloaked forests, drinking the blood of their victims and eating their flesh. And it was widely believed that there were those who still followed the religion of the Shoth, that weird rites still took place from time to time in secret. Voices were heard to emanate from the island’s night-cloaked shores, and sometimes the blood-red light of midnight fires could be seen.

Holy Island was also purported to be a place of power lingering from ancient days when the gods themselves walked the earth in full sight of men, when the inexplicable was commonplace: dreams, disappearances, apparitions, and miracles.

Through the gathering dusk that island seemed to beckon Quentin. Its humped shape rose from the flat sea like the head and shoulders of a lordly sea creature, regarding the land with infinite patience. Come, it said. See what is here. Do you feel my power? Do you fear it? Come if you dare.

Quentin stirred and walked down the seaward side of the bluff, still staring at the island lying only a short distance out-less than half a league. He found a trail along the face of the dune leading down to the shore. Without a thought he followed the trail, weariness guiding his steps. And with each flagging footfall his strength ebbed; he had not eaten all day, and had rested little. He felt light-headed and weak, as if he were a husk, hollow, and brittle, and light, to be blown by the wind where it willed.

Yet he walked down the winding trail to the sea, letting his feet take him, his mind and body drained by exhaustion.

On the rocky shingle the waves lapped gentle, gurgling endearments onto the shore. Birds, searching for a roost for the night, swung through the air toward hollows and nests in the bluff’s pocked face, their keening night calls shrill in the stillness. The sea wind freshened, and the clouds above darkened by degrees to violet. An evening mist clung to the upper heights of the island-a shroud to discourage prying eyes. High up on the dune behind him he heard Blazer whinny, but kept his eyes on the island as if mesmerized by its presence.

Quentin walked a little way along the strand, unaware of what he was doing or where he was going. He had no thought now except to walk, to go wherever his feet would take him.

He came to a smooth, rounded form on the beach, discernible in the dying light as a dark object against a slightly less dark background. He stumbled toward it, and his mind conjured up an image of the wretch he had cut down in the road. Slowly he approached, trembling at the thought of encountering that corpse again. Drawing near, he stepped toward the thing and put out a hand. Hair!

He recoiled from the touch. Was it an animal of some sort, dead and washed up on the shore?

But beneath the shag he had felt a hardness that was not like flesh, not even dead flesh. The shape of the thing was like no animal he had ever encountered. He put out his hand again and rubbed it along the hard, bristly surface, then pushed the object. It gave against the rocks and made a hollow sound. Then he knew what it was.

Quentin bent down and grasped the lower edge of the thing and flipped it over. The ox-hide boat, constructed of a design that went back a thousand years, rocked on its keel; its oar was tied with a leather cord to the crude seat in the center of the craft, and made a thumping sound as that of a drum.

He grabbed the bow of the boat and shoved it over the rocks and into the sea, then clambered in while the water splashed over his boots. He took up the oar and began paddling toward the island. Out from land the sea was quiet, the only sound the dip of the oar as it swirled the water. A deep sadness welled up from inside him. It had been there all along, but now, as tired as he was, he could no longer keep it down and it came flooding up like a spring. He looked into the deep blue water all around, so silent, so peaceful. How restful it would be to slip over the side of the little boat and drift down and down-beyond thought, beyond pain, beyond remembering.