His mind sank beneath all that he knew. Yet some prayer was voicing itself, some prayer to the Parents to help and to guide, the Parents who had given him not the slightest word of what such a horror could mean as it came closer and closer.

The hand was almost touching him. The arm lay on the stones full length behind it and the fingers were raised and spread apart and waving in the air, and then with a lurch the fingers grasped Derek’s shirt, grasped it and ripped it, tearing the buttons loose from the long placket.

Derek struggled to reason, struggled to think, I must help it, if it means to reconnect, I must help it, but he could not bring himself to move.

The heat had never left his wounded shoulder, and now it spread through all of his left side, even to his pounding heart. It was as if his heart were beating all through the left side of his body.

The arm was against him. He could feel its weight, its living weight, and with his head lifted, he stared at it, stared as the fingers touched his naked flesh, the flesh of his chest, and slowly moved upwards. It wanted to be on his naked flesh.

His eyes rolled back into his head once more. He expected to go under. He reached for the blackness, the emptiness.

He felt the fingers touching the left nipple of his chest, felt them pulling on the nipple, pulling and pulling, and the warmth collected into heat beneath his nipple.

A soft wet mouth, a tiny mouth, closed over the nipple.

And then the blackness came. And he was sliding into oblivion.

It was a dream of Atalantaya, but he was not walking her polished streets or feeling her soft warm breezes. No, he was far away from her and Atalantaya was on fire and all her people cried out to the Heavens. Smoke billowed from the melting dome, and the sea rose up to drown Derek. Kapetria and Welf were locked in each other’s arms, crying for Derek as the waves carried him away, Kapetria screaming for Derek, and Garekyn was gone into the deep.

He opened his eyes.

He rubbed his face with his hands. Oh, this, the dungeon of Rhoshamandes. And the fire still burned, but it was now little more than tiny flames on one thick black log and piles of glimmering embers. The night had paled behind the high window. And no sound came to him from the castle around him of monsters plotting to torture him.

He rubbed his eyes hard with both hands again. His face was sticky from his tears.

His hands!