Chentelle vaulted from his back and ran into the sea. When the waves reached her waist she took a deep breath and plunged her head into the water. The whalesong rang in her ears, and she answered it with her Gift. She poured her emotions into her song: her caring, her concern, her hope.

  The whales answered. They sang of wrongness and of fear. They sang of something in the waters to the north, something that did not belong in the sea, something evil.

  Chentelle pulled her head above water and gasped for breath. The threat she felt in the whalesong was so wrong, so unnatural. She had to do something.

  She pushed herself back toward the beach and reached for Kah. “Something terrible is happening,” she said. “It’s just north of here. We have to hurry.”

  The unicorn reared powerfully and took off, hugging the coastline. He left the wind behind. Even so, Chentelle begged Kah to hurry. She sensed that someone or something was in great danger. In response to her words, the stallion raced even faster, yet Chentelle still worried.

  “I fear we may be too late,” she said. “We must get there now, Kah.”

  The unicorn neighed in response and summoned his magic. The color drained from his horn as the ivory became first translucent and then transparent. There was a sudden flash of light, and they were no longer on the beach.

  They floated through a void of light. A dreamlike silence suffused her, as if she were on the edge of sleep. The possible danger ahead seemed unimportant; the urgency of her quest, an illusion. Kah’s magic transported them through the Realm of Dreams, where concerns of the physical world had little weight. A moment of eternity passed; then the beach reappeared around them.

  The unicorn skidded to an abrupt halt, weakened from the exertion. Chentelle, still disoriented from the transition, was nearly thrown. Only a firm grip on the stallion’s mane saved her. She struggled for a moment to regain her senses.

  They stood just beyond the waves on a wide stretch of sandy beach. Jagged rocks jutted out into the water before and behind them, forming natural jetties. Just past the rocks, moonlight illuminated a vision out of nightmare.

  A hideous creature lay partially submerged in the dark sea. Its mouth was a great circular maw surrounded by curved fangs. Thick tentacles protruded from either side of the head, flailing about like tendrils of living vine. The body was covered with smooth armor plating, and the lobsterlike tail churned the shallow water as the creature chased a small sailboat. The foulness of the creature screamed at Chentelle’s senses, and she knew that this was an Ill-creature, a spirit of evil summoned from the Abyss.

  The monster quickly closed on the small craft and latched several of its tentacles onto the stern. The boat shuddered, caught between the pull of the wind and the creature’s grip. More tentacles emerged from the water, reaching for the lone figure standing on deck.

  Helpless, Chentelle watched while the man drew a sword and slashed at the attacking tentacles. But it was no use. The blade bounced harmlessly off the monster’s flesh. It was a magical creature—only a magical weapon could harm it.

  The Ill-creature tugged furiously at the boat, trying to pull it underwater. The man wedged his sword under a tentacle and pried it off of the boat. Then he started to work on the others. But whenever he succeeded in levering a tendril loose, the creature tried to reattach it. The man wielded his sword with a desperate frenzy. When he wasn’t prying a tentacle from the boat, he was slashing at one trying to gain purchase. He couldn’t hurt the creature, but he could push the tentacles away from their targets.

  Finally he managed to pry the last tendril loose. The boat shot forward on the sea wind. But there was no control. Without steering, the boat raced toward the rocky shoreline. It crashed into the rocks, throwing the man into the water. The wind and the waves continued to drive the craft forward until its hull splintered against the stone.

  The Ill-creature was momentarily confused, and continued to attack the remains of the boat. The man took advantage of his respite to swim toward shore, but on this particular stretch of beach the Quiet Sea gave the lie to its name. The wind-driven waves crashed and swirled around rocky outcroppings, punishing the man for every stroke. He was still a dozen cubits from the sand when the creature turned from the wreckage and lunged after its prey.

  Kah reared in alarm at the monster’s charge. Chentelle tried to calm him, but the unicorn backed skittishly away from the abomination.

  Chentelle could feel the unicorn’s terror. She knew he overcame the instinct to run only because of her urging. But she couldn’t leave the man to die. She sang to Kah softly, using her Gift to calm his fear. Finally, she was able to guide him back toward the water, but what she saw there made the song catch in her throat.

  The monster was balked, unable to move its bulk through the shallow water, and only this was saving the man’s life. The beast had grabbed hold of the man with several tentacles and battled to pull him into deeper water. Somehow the man had reached a jagged spar of rock, and he clung desperately to it.

  The intensity of his struggle struck Chentelle as if it were a physical force. She felt his anger, his determination, his indomitable will. His entire being was focused into the effort of his chest and hands and arms, into the extraordinary contest between human muscle and Ill-creature might. But it was hopeless. The monster was too large, too powerful. Slowly, inevitably, the man’s hands slid across the surface of the rock.

  Chentelle jumped from Kah’s back and raced to the edge of the water. She had no idea how to help the man, but she felt she had to do something. Her Gift was one of harmony and understanding, not combat, but it was the only thing she had. So she sang.

  She gathered the magic around her and cast it outward to the Ill-creature. She bombarded it with images of peace and tranquillity. She showed the creature the harmony of nature and the joy of life. She sang—and the creature screamed.

  The monster thrashed the water in agony. It released its grip on the human and whipped its tentacles wildly in the air. The purity of Chentelle’s magic was more than it could cope with, and it retreated quickly into deeper waters.

  She ended her song and stared at the churning water where the beast had been. “Thank you, Creator,” she said.

  She ran to the human. He had sunk beneath the waves as soon as the creature released him, but his hands still clung to the rock. Chentelle dropped her pack and jumped into the water. She tried to pull the man to shore, but his hands would not release their grip. She had to brace her legs against the rock and push with her whole body to pry them loose.

  Without the support of the rock, the man’s weight pulled Chentelle under the water. He massed far more than she did; even with the buoyancy of the water, he was hard to handle. She struggled to regain her footing, but the currents were too strong. She groped about wildly. Then her hand came to rest on something solid.

  Kah! She recognized him through her Gift, and wrapped her arm tightly around the unicorn’s leg. She wound her other hand in the human’s hair and held on firmly while Kah pulled them out of the water.

  Once on shore, Chentelle let go of the stallion and gasped for breath. She had been close to drowning herself, she realized belatedly. “Thank you, friend!”

  Kah whinnied in response and danced back away from the water. He would not have approached it without compelling reason.

  Chentelle turned to check on the human. He wasn’t breathing. Quickly, she placed a hand on his chest, reaching out with her Gift. A swirl of emotions assaulted her senses, but she pushed through them, concentrating on has physical being. She felt a potent vitality about the man, but it was fading quickly, sinking under the weight of the seawater in his lungs.

  Chentelle concentrated on her sense of the human’s body and started to sing. She shaped her song in the image of the man, but without the intrusion of water. Then she reached out to the sea and took hold of its wholeness. She balanced her song of the man with a rhythm of water, ever moving but always returning to its proper place.

  Her song took hold of the man, and he convulsed. Water jetted from his mouth and ran in thick rivulets back to the sea. He coughed spasmodically and collapsed, breathing heavily but evenly.

  Chentelle also collapsed, exhausted. She lay facedown in the sand, sobbing. Her magic was good, but it put a physical strain on her.

  A nudge from Kah’s muzzle brought her back to awareness. There was a surge of anxiety coming from the unicorn stallion. She shouldn’t have left him in doubt, thinking only of herself. “It’s all right,” she said. “He’ll live. We’ll both live, thanks to you.”

  The unicorn nodded his head in response, but continued to shift about nervously.

  “I understand,” Chentelle said. “You’ve been away from your herd for too long. I apologize for imposing on you. Go in peace, friend. I’ll be fine, now.”

  Kah reared once in salute, and then raced into the west.

  Chentelle examined the man more closely. She winced as she saw the bloody gashes left on his chest and arms by the jagged stone. He was partially bare, his shirt and boots having been lost during the battle. His face was broad and flat, but not unhandsome. His jet-black hair was matted and tangled, but she could see that it normally hung straight to his shoulders. He was much larger than an elf, at least four cubits tall, and seemed to be covered everywhere in lean, hard muscle. He slept soundly, but was shivering in the cool wind.

  Chentelle could do something about that. She was cold herself. She set about gathering material for a fire. She found driftwood in abundance, much of it from the man’s ruined sailboat. She found an area sheltered from the wind and piled her wood carefully. Then she spoke to it, using the words of power entrusted to all elves. The words took life in the center of the wood and filled it with warmth. The warmth turned to heat and then to flame. Soon Chentelle sat before a strong fire.

  She went back to where the human lay and fought to pull him to the fire. Without the buoyancy of the water, she could barely move him. He must weigh more than twice her six stone. She had to do it piecemeal, hauling his legs forward, then moving his upper section. It was slow and clumsy and surely not kind to his sleeping dignity, but she did make progress. After much effort, she managed to get him close enough to benefit from the fire’s warmth. Worn out again, she collapsed on the sand next to him.

  “Blessed Creator,” she gasped, “did you have to make humans so heavy?”

  Blood pooled in the sand next to her. The man’s arm wounds had been reopened by the drag across the beach. She chided herself for not realizing that this would happen. She shifted his arms so she could examine the cuts—and froze.

  On the inside of the man’s right forearm was a tattoo: a dragon, black as midnight. And it was moving.

  Chentelle felt dizzy. Her stomach churned and bile burned the back of her throat. This was no trick of the light; the dragon was moving, shifting sinuously around the man’s arm. And the hatred that it radiated pounded against her senses.

  Chentelle scurried away from the man. Could it be? Was the one she had saved as evil as the creature that chased him? But if so, why hadn’t she sensed it before, when she kept him from drowning? He didn’t look evil. But the tattoo, that was evil. The malice it generated was unmistakable.

  Cautiously, Chentelle crawled back to the human. There was only one way to be sure. She took a deep breath and laid her hand on the man’s left arm, the one without the tattoo.

  The evil hit her immediately. It pervaded the man’s being, stretching to every corner of his soul. But there was more. Chentelle sensed passion, loyalty, trust, honor, need, compassion, anger, pain, resignation: a tumult of emotion surrounding a basic core of goodness. This was the man. The evil came from the tattoo; it was in the man but not of the man.

  The complexity of the man’s spirit was fascinating. Deep inside the furor of his surface emotions was a center of absolute calm. And within that center were secrets and wonders that glittered like gems at the bottom of a still pool. Chentelle extended her Gift to that core of tranquillity and—

  She snatched her hand away, breaking the contact. She had no right delving into the man’s innermost secrets. He was not evil. That was all she needed to know.

  Chentelle took a cloth and water pouch from her pack and began cleaning the caked blood and sand from the man’s wounds. When she passed it across the tattoo she felt the malignant heat of that region; the dragon didn’t like being touched. Not by the likes of her. It snapped at her finger, but she jerked her hand away. The action roused the man momentarily, and he moaned softly before losing consciousness again.

  “My sword,” he said, speaking in the Tengarian tongue. “My—”

  His sword. Chentelle brushed her fingers along his right palm, keeping a sharp eye on the tattoo. Of course the Black Dragon couldn’t actually reach her; it was only a drawing. But she feared it anyway; malignant magic was not limited to the physical plane.

  On the skin of his hand she found the trace of a thick-bladed black sword. Then she turned to the sea, searching. The image of the sword pulled her awareness under the surface, near the rocks, deeper, there. The sword lay safely on the sea floor.

  She turned back to the man. The language he spoke gave away his origin, Tengarian. She should have guessed from his appearance. But the Tengarians were a mountain people, who remained isolated by their rigid codes of behavior. She had never heard of one sailing alone on a lowland sea. In fact, she had never heard of a Tengarian leaving his rugged homeland for any reason other than to fight a war or settle territorial disputes with the dwarves.

  She finished cleaning the man’s wounds and covered him with her bedroll. Then she examined her own condition. She was exhausted and filthy, and her gown was soaked, and her boots were filled with seawater. But otherwise she felt adequate.

  With a sigh, she pulled off her boots and poured the water out of them. They were made from leatherbark and fully waterproof, but there were limits. Then she stripped off her gown and washed it in the sea. The dirt and blood rinsed easily off the spidersilk threads, and she laid it by the fire. Once dry, it would glisten as sublimely as on the day her mother wove it.

  A muffled groan warned her that the human was awake again. He raised himself onto his elbows and glanced furtively around. Finally his eyes rested on Chentelle. He stared at her, unblinking, and Chentelle could feel the tension in his gaze. Slowly, never taking his eyes off her, he slid from under the blanket and got to his feet. Despite his obvious fatigue and disorientation, there was a certain professional competence to his actions.

  Chentelle knew that humans had difficulty seeing in the dark, so she stepped into the firelight. She wanted him to understand that she posed no threat to him.

  “You are elven,” he said.

  “My name is Chentelle,” she answered, using his own tongue. “You are safe. The Ill-creature is gone.”

  The Tengarian’s hand twitched at his side, but still his gaze never shifted. It was the mark of a warrior, never to take his eyes from a potential enemy. His hand was questing for his sword, but she knew that he could dispatch her quite readily without it. But she also knew he wouldn’t, because he was a man of honor. She had not had to explore his inner being at all deeply to learn that. All he needed was reassurance.

  “Your sword is in the water,” she said, pointing. “It will wait until morning.”

  He reacted with horror. He turned to walk in the direction she pointed. He managed two trembling steps before he overbalanced and fell to his knees. The jolt caused one of his cuts to start bleeding again, and Chentelle could hear his sharp inhalation.

  “Your sword is safe,” she said. “I can feel it. I know where it is. Now, please come back to the fire. Your wounds need care.”

  He looked all around again, then back at her, assessing the situation. He nodded.

  Chentelle moved forward and took his arm to help him stand, but he shrugged her off. Without help, he pressed himself upright and staggered back to the fire. Chentelle stayed close, ready to lend assistance, but the Tengarian shrank away from her touch. He managed to make it back to the blankets before falling to the ground once more.

  “Water,” he said. “I need water.”

  She handed him the leatherbark pouch and he drank from it in large gulps. Then he poured some water on his wounds.

  “Save some,” Chentelle said. “I have some herbs which will speed your healing, but they have to be mixed with water.”

  The Tengarian nodded and handed her back the pouch, but now he kept his eyes turned carefully away from her. Suddenly she understood. Humans almost always wore clothes when in groups, and her gown was still drying by the fire. For reasons she did not fathom, they seemed to feel that nudity was socially indiscreet. She pulled the travel cloak out of her pack and wrapped it around her shoulders. Then she mixed her herbs with water, using a seashell and her fingers as a mortar and pestle.

  “This will heal your wounds quickly,” she said. “But you have to let me touch you to apply it.”

  The Tengarian said nothing, but nodded once to show his assent.

  “The herbs sting at first,” she said, “but they will soon bring comfort and healing.”

  She sat beside him and rubbed the medicine lightly into his wounds. His pain was obvious to her Gift. She could feel the deep ache of his injuries and the sharp sting of the herbs. But he made no outward sign beyond a tensing of the muscles where she touched.

  “How does it feel?” she asked, and received a nod in reply. “Do you feel well enough to eat?”

  Again, the Tengarian made one nod in response.

  Chentelle took out the rest of her food and divided it with him. It was a meager supper for two: two hard rolls, some cheese, an apple, and a few of the wild strawberries. “I am sorry that I do not have more to offer,” she said. “I did not expect to have a guest.”

  Wordlessly, he accepted his share. They ate in silence. It was infuriating.

  “Look,” Chentelle said, exasperated, “will you at least tell me your name?”