Another old man occupied the chair, but quite different to the one who’d been sitting there seconds before. He too was familiar. But he was no longer Grentor Domex.

Phoenix shook his head, as though clearing it. ‘Perhaps I made the likeness too poorly,’ he surmised. ‘After all, I haven’t seen your master for some years and I had to extrapolate his-’

‘No, it wasn’t that,’ Kutch told him. ‘If anything, you were too good.’

‘I thought that appearing in the guise of your master would put you at your ease.’

‘I thought so, too. But it just brought back memories. Not good ones. Memories of his death and…’

‘I understand. Forgive me.’

‘But…it wasn’t just seeing my master again that flustered me.’

‘Oh?’

‘Why are you giving me more spotting exercises when what I need is help with these visions I’ve been having?’

‘I look at it as being like treating a lame horse.’

‘I’m not a horse. Or lame.’

‘No. But the horse you’re riding might be.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘You suspect that your visions are connected in some way with training as a spotter.’

‘It’s difficult to think what else might be doing it.’

‘I agree That’s rational. So we have to walk the horse to see if that’s where the problem is.’

‘So you think it’s the spotting, too?’

‘I’m just trying to eliminate all possibilities, Kutch.’

‘Have you ever heard of other spotters having this kind of problem?’

‘No. Then again, the number of spotters is very small, and I certainly haven’t known all of them. But there’s no reason to believe that spotting’s dangerous in that sense.’

‘In that sense?’

‘Well, we haven’t got a lot to go on, you understand, but it does seem that spotters are a bit more prone to certain pitfalls.’

‘Such as?’

‘Excessive use of alcohol, drug taking, anti-social behaviour, that sort of thing.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me this at the start?’

‘Partly because I didn’t know as much about it then as I do now. I’ve been doing some research, you see. Anyway, the numbers succumbing in that way aren’t significant, and I suspect those that do fall victim to the pressure from the use spotting’s put to, rather than the spotting itself.’

‘You said partly.’

‘The other reason was that I judged you to be resilient enough to resist any such snares.’

‘How could you be so sure? I mean, suppose the training’s started something? Opened a door that can’t be closed, or-’

‘Magic has dangers, you know that. But I’ve never heard of anything resembling what’s happening to you. Then again, let’s not forget that your problem seems unique in more ways than one.’

‘Because I’m sharing visions with Reeth?’

‘Yes. That’s totally outside my experience. It’s not as though we’re talking about some kind of magical illusion that temporarily dazzles its subject, is it?’

‘No. This is different. It’s like watching something real. But something Reeth sees too, and has done for a long time.’

‘Do you see everything he sees?’

‘No. Just…just one particular thing.’

‘Go on,’ Phoenix coaxed. ‘You’ve never really tried explaining it to me.’

‘That’s because I can’t. Not really. What I get is a glimpse of…somewhere else, is the best way I can describe it. Another kind of landscape, but not like anything I’ve ever seen before, or heard about.’

‘What’s it like?’

‘Bad. It’s never still. It changes, constantly. As though the land itself is a living thing, forever in flux. And there’s a terrible sense of menace. A feeling of not belonging there.’ He shuddered. ‘Definitely not.’

‘It’s all right, Kutch. What else?’

‘Something lives there. Or a whole mass of somethings, I don’t know. Vile, poisonous things that would just love to hurt me.’

‘Do you ever see any of this in dreams?’

‘No, only when I’m awake. When I was practising spotting,

at first. Then it started when I wasn’t. That’s what scared me.’ His eyes had been downcast. Now he lifted them, and they were wide with dread. ‘You know what frightens me most?’

‘Tell me.’

‘That I’ll get to see more of it.’

‘We’ll have to make sure that doesn’t happen.’

‘How?’

Phoenix didn’t answer. Instead, he asked, ‘And this…

place

is familiar to Caldason?’

‘He says it is. But he sees lots more than I do. It’s hard to say what, because he’s not keen to talk about it.’ He added, hesitantly, ‘Though he just told me about something else he’d seen. Something new. I can trust you, can’t I, Phoenix? I mean, if Reeth thought I’d been talking about it-’

‘You have my word.’

Kutch took a breath. ‘He told me that he was responsible for his mother’s death.’

‘He knew this from one of these visions?’

‘Yes. Or thought he did. I was there. He was shouting and screaming in his sleep and it woke me up. We talked about it.’

‘And he said he killed his own mother?’

‘He didn’t really explain it, just said it was his fault. But I can’t see how he could be responsible.’

‘Let’s get this straight. Caldason has visions about his past life. You don’t share those. The other sort of visions, about another place, you do share.’

‘Yes. And Reeth’s visions seem to…evolve. They’re getting more elaborate for some reason.’

‘And they’re tied in somehow with these berserk fits he has.’

‘He has visions without berserking. But rarely a fit without a vision. At least, that’s what he says. It’s all so complicated, I don’t understand it.’

‘It’s one of the things that makes him so dangerous, Kutch.’

‘I know.’

‘I mean, much more dangerous than any ordinary man. Think about it. Imagine you had an infinite amount of time to perfect whatever it was you did. Your magical studies, for instance. I myself have had the privilege of an extended life-span, and it’s been enormously beneficial to my understanding of the Craft. Caldason’s become such a good fighter because he’s had years to develop his skills, years without his body deteriorating or his stamina lessening. I estimate he’s older than me, yet he’s still as strong as a mountain buffalo on ramp. But whether his mental faculties have stayed as hardy-’

‘He’s not a bad man.’

‘I’m not saying he is. I think you’re right; he has the impulses of a decent man. But even the best of us can act in evil ways when under a powerful influence. Money, lust, pride…many things can turn a person bad.’

‘Not Reeth.’

‘Perhaps. But I can see why he has such a loathing of magic. Assuming magic’s the cause of his state. Which I’m not entirely convinced it is.’

‘You doubt it?’ Kutch was surprised.

‘In some ways. Do

you

know of any sorcery that could make somebody damn near immortal?’

‘Founder magic.’

‘Magic we have access to, I mean.’

‘You had access to it. It extended your life. You just said so.’

‘I was fortunate in having the chance to study a tiny scrap of surviving Founder lore. One of the very few. Decades I’ve pored over it. Its gift to me is my extended life, along with some immunity to disease. Wonderful things, but all there is to be taken from it, I’m sure.’

‘That proves my point, doesn’t it? If you’ve achieved that from just a little fragment, what might somebody else do with more? With Founder magic, they could do anything.’

‘There is no such somebody. I would have known about it. Covenant would have known. And the remaining morsels of Founder knowledge are very rare.’

‘Suppose someone’s already found the Clepsydra, and has the Source?’

‘Then we’d

certainly

know about it. Whoever had it, assuming they understood how to use it, would be running the world. And you’re forgetting that if they found it long enough ago to affect Caldason with it, they’d likely have wrung all its secrets out by now.’

‘Well, perhaps they’re about to. Maybe they’ve been teasing bits out for years, and making use of each new piece of knowledge as they deciphered it. And maybe Reeth was-’