Eldriss should have chased it and put a bolt in its skull, but he was barely able to hold his own weight. And yet he stood and was strong.

Something else had him.

Today, with Eldriss still trying to come to terms with these contradicting sensations—greater awareness, numbing concealment—the river had been sucked away. One hour the Cleur flowed full and steady, passing by to the north. The next—and with a sudden rushing sound that had floored birds with its intensity and driven his remaining sheebok running for cover behind rocks and trees—the water had rapidly increased its rate of flow. The banks had started to disintegrate, trees and bushes pulled in, and over the space of a few minutes the violent waters had decreased to a bare trickle.

Eldriss was terrified, but the new, greater part of him was fascinated as well. With new eyes he had viewed the riverbed, already drying in the sun, totally featureless where the rapidly flowing waters had abraded it smooth.

He lingered, but the river did not return.

Back with his sheebok, Eldriss sat beneath the trees and waited. The urge to experience scorched his mind, but his duty ensured that he did not run wild. And not his duty to the sheebok—he barely saw them now, had almost forgotten that they existed—but the obligation he felt to . . . to . . . his god.

His god.

His god would reward him well if he took her news.

So he waited and watched, comfortable in the knowledge that he would know when there was something to tell.

THAT SOMETHING ARRIVED at sunset.

Rafe, a voice whispered in his mind, Rafe Baburn.

There were four of them walking, two more on horses, both seemingly unconscious or dead. They came toward the copse of trees, and perhaps they had not even seen him yet. He remained still, leaning casually against a trunk, arms crossed.

The woman in the lead was short, small and heavily armed. Her face was pale, even in the pink sunset, and her eyes scanned ahead, worried, constantly looking for danger. Her gaze passed across Eldriss without pause. The shadows of the trees hid him well.

There was a big man walking next to her, leading one of the horses. He looked quite old, but fit and lean. He also seemed tired. His clothes were streaked with dried mud, and he held his free hand slightly from his body as if in pain.

When they were a hundred steps from the trees they paused. The short woman muttered something and then came on alone, one hand resting on the hilt of a short sword.

Eldriss stepped out of the shadows.

Rafe, he heard, but it was echoing inside. His name is Rafe.