“I don’t think it’s silly at all. I am glad I could be here to reassure you.”

“My father says I’m being foolish when I get afraid of the dark.”

“There are things in the dark that can get you,” Rahl said solemnly. “You are wise to know it, and to be on guard for them. Your father would do himself a favor to listen, and learn from you.”

Carl brightened. “Really?” Rahl nodded. “Well, that’s what I always thought too.”

“If you truly love someone, you will listen to them.”

“My father always says for me to keep my tongue still.”

Rahl shook his head disapprovingly. “It surprises me to hear this. I had thought they loved you very much.”

“Well, they do. Most of the time anyway.”

“I’m sure you are right. You would know better than I.”

The Master’s long blond hair glistened in the morning light—his white robe shone brightly. He waited. There was a long moment of awkward silence…

“But I do get pretty tired of them always telling me what to do.”

Rahl’s eyebrows went up. “You seem to me to be of the age where you can think and decide things for yourself. A fine boy like you, almost a man, and they tell you what to do,” he added, half to himself, shaking his head again. As if he couldn’t believe what Carl was telling him, he asked, “You mean they treat you like a baby?”

Carl nodded his earnest confirmation, then thought to correct the impression. “Most of the time, though, they’re good to me.”

Rahl nodded, somewhat suspiciously. “That is good to hear. It is a relief to me.”

Carl looked up at the sunlight. “But I can tell you one thing, my parents are going to be madder than hornets that I’ve been gone so long.”

“They get mad because of when you come home?”

“Sure. One time, I was playing with a friend, and I got home late, and my mother was real mad. My father took his belt to me. He said it was for worrying them so.”

“A belt? Your father hit you with his belt?” Darken Rahl hung his head, then came to his feet, turning his back to the boy. “I’m sorry, Carl, I had no idea it was like this with them.”

“Well, it’s only because they love me,” Carl hastened to add. “That’s what they said, they love me and I caused them to worry.” Rahl still kept his back to the boy. Carl frowned. “Don’t you think that shows they care about me?”

Rahl licked his fingers and smoothed them over his eyebrows and lips before he turned back to the boy and sat once more in front of his anxious face.

“Carl”—his voice was so soft that the boy had to strain to hear—“do you have a dog?”

“Sure,” he nodded, “Tinker. She’s a fine dog. I had her since she was a pup.”

“Tinker,” Rahl rolled the name out pleasantly. “And has Tinker ever been lost, or run away?”

Carl scrunched up his eyebrows, thinking. “Well, sure, a couple times before she was grown. But she came back the next day.”

“Were you worried, when your dog was gone? When she was missing?”

“Well, sure.”

“Why?”

“Because I love her.”

“I see. And so then when Tinker came back the next day, what did you do?”

“I picked her up in my arms and I hugged her and hugged her.”

“You didn’t beat Tinker with your belt?”

“No!”

“Why not?”

“Because I love her!”

“But you were worried?”

“Yes.”

“So you hugged Tinker when she came back because you loved her and you were worried about her.”

“Yes.”

Rahl leaned back a little, his blue eyes intense. “I see. And if you had beaten Tinker with your belt when she came back to you, what do you think she would have done?”

“I bet she might not have come back the next time. She wouldn’t want to come back so I could beat her. She’d have gone somewhere else where people loved her.”

“I see,” Rahl said meaningfully.

Tears streamed down Carl’s cheeks. He looked away from Rahl’s eyes as he cried. At last, Rahl reached out, stroking back the boy’s hair.

“I’m sorry, Carl. I did not mean to upset you. But I want you to know that when this is all over, and you go home again, that if you ever need a home, you will always be welcome here. You are a fine boy, a fine young man, and I would be proud to have you stay here, with me. Both you and Tinker. And I want you to know I trust you to think for yourself, and you may come and go as you please.”

Carl looked up with wet eyes. “Thank you, Father Rahl.”

Rahl smiled warmly. “Now, how about some food?”

Carl nodded his approval.

“What would you like? We have anything you could want.”

Carl thought a minute, and a smile came to him. “I like blueberry pie. It’s my favorite.” He cast his eyes down, the smile fading. “But I’m not allowed to have it for breakfast.”

A big grin came to Darken Rahl’s face. He stood. “Blueberry pie it is, then. I’ll go get it and be right back.”

The Master walked off through the garden to a small vine covered door at the side. The door opened for him as he approached, the big arm of Demmin Nass holding it back as Rahl passed through into the dark room. Foul-smelling gruel boiled in an iron kettle hung over a fire in a small forge. The two guards stood silently against the far wall, a sheen of sweat covering them.

“Master Rahl.” Demmin bowed his head. “I trust the boy meets with your approval.”

Rahl licked his finger tips. “He will do nicely.” He smoothed his eyebrows down. “Dish me out a bowl of that slop so it can cool.”

Demmin picked up a pewter bowl and started ladling gruel into it with the wooden spoon from the kettle.

“If everything is all right”—a wicked grin came over his pockmarked face—“then I will be off to pay our respects to Queen Milena.”

“Fine. On the way, stop and tell the dragon I want her.”

Demmin stopped ladling. “She doesn’t like me.”

“She doesn’t like anyone,” Rahl said flatly. “But don’t worry, Demmin, she will not eat you. She knows what I will do if she stretches my patience.”

Demmin started ladling again. “She will ask how soon you will need her.”

Rahl glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. “That is none of her concern, and tell her I said so. She is to come when I ask, and wait until I am ready.” He turned and looked out a small slit, off through the foliage, at the side of the boy’s head. “But I want you back here in two weeks.”

“Two weeks, all right.” Demmin set the bowl of gruel down. “But does it really need to take that long with the boy?”

“It does if I want to return from the underworld.” Rahl continued to look out the slit. “It may take longer. Whatever it takes, it takes. I must have his complete trust, the freely given pledge of his unconditional loyalty.”

Demmin hooked a thumb in his belt. “We have another problem.”

Rahl glanced back over his shoulder. “Is that all you do, Demmin? Go around looking for problems?”

“It keeps my head attached to my shoulders.”

Rahl smiled. “So it does, my friend, so it does.” He sighed. “Get it off your tongue, then.”

Demmin shifted his weight to his other foot. “Last night I received reports that the tracer cloud has vanished.”

“Vanished?”

“Well, not so much vanished, as hidden.” He scratched the side of his face. “They said clouds moved in and hid it.”

Rahl laughed. Demmin frowned in confusion.

“Our friend, the old wizard. It sounds like he saw the cloud and has been up to his little tricks to vex me. It was to be expected. This one is not a problem, my friend. It is not important.”

“Master Rahl, that was how you were to find the book. Other than the last box, what could be more important?”

“I did not say the book was unimportant. I said the cloud was unimportant. The book is very important, that is why I would not trust it only to a tracer cloud. Demmin, how do you suppose I hooked the cloud to the Cypher boy?”

“My talents lie in areas other than magic, Master Rahl.”

“True enough, my friend.” Rahl licked his fingertips. “Many years ago—before my father was murdered by that evil wizard, he told me of the boxes of Orden, and the Book of Counted Shadows. He was trying to recover them himself, but he was not well enough studied. He was too much a man of action, of battle.” Rahl looked up into Demmin’s eyes. “Much the same as you, my big friend. He didn’t have the necessary knowledge. But he was wise enough to teach me the value of the head over the sword—how by using your head, you could defeat any number of men. He had the best instructors tutor me. Then he was murdered.” Rahl pounded his fist down on the table. His face turned red. After a moment, he calmed himself. “So I studied harder, for many years, so that I might succeed where my father failed, and return the house of Rahl to its rightful place as rulers of all the lands.”