The woman stopped, surprised, and Eldriss raised a hand in a casual wave. “Hello!” he said. “Beautiful evening!” Two sheebok strolled before him and he patted them as he walked by. They stared up at him, and Eldriss knew that they did not recognize him. They were too stupid to show it.

“Stop there,” the woman said, and when he looked up Eldriss saw that she had unshouldered her bow. No arrow notched yet, none drawn from her quiver, but her expression showed that she meant what she said.

He stopped. “No need for nastiness,” he said, and deep inside where Eldriss was fighting to surface he was pleased, for a moment, that he had slipped some real feeling into that comment.

“Have you seen Red Monks?” the woman asked.

And the thing that had Eldriss knew straightaway. Red Monks! They fear the Monks because they are hunted by them, and they are hunted by them because . . .

“You have Rafe?” he asked.

The woman’s eyes opened fractionally, surprise catching and reflecting the sunset.

That was enough for the shade. It pulled away, withdrawing its myriad psychic tendrils with no subtlety, no pretense at caution, and the pain was worse because Eldriss could not scream.

The woman was moving quickly now, squatting down, arm whipping around, her hand holding the bow rising into position.

The shade was free but it thrashed in Eldriss’ mind, wrecking, tearing, giving the shepherd only agony for the final second of his life. It ripped away and left the world as the arrow flew, striking the man’s right eye and punching a hole through the back of his skull.

Free, alone, stunned by the sudden lack of input, the shade reeled for an instant in an infinity of nothing. But it had been given taste and thought and sensation, and soon the idea of reward ordered its mind. It stopped tumbling and started to flow, passing through and over the world toward where its god waited patiently in the dark.

Rafe, it shouted, I saw Rafe.

My good shade, a voice said before an instant of time had passed, come to me.

The shade told what it knew and reveled in its god’s praise.

KOSAR RAN TO A’Meer’s side, drawing his sword. The Shantasi had notched another arrow and now she waited, scanning the copse of trees. “I think he was alone,” she said.

“You killed him!” Kosar said. “He only said hello.”

“He asked if we had Rafe.”

Kosar shook his head. A’Meer’s impatience was obvious, yet she did not shift her gaze from the trees and the dead man before them.

“How would he know?” she said. “A shade was in him, just as Alishia had one when we first met. The Mages must have sent out thousands, and they’re waiting for us.”

“But they could be everywhere!”