Alec shrugged. “It looked like Kouros. The sky was clouded over so I couldn’t see the stars, or the sun when it came up. I had a hard time getting my bearings. Other than that, and the language, everything was like here—cottages, dogs, people, the town, the river …” He thought for a moment. “Let’s see, what else? Just what I told you about the dogs and water, and the fire. It was all like a nightmare.”

“Speaking of nightmares, Seregil, tell them what you told me,” said Micum.

He sighed. “Seeing the corridor where Alec disappeared in daylight today must have shaken something loose in my brain. I think I remembered what my nightmares have been about, or at least enough pieces to know that they were about losing you, Alec. I have fragmented flashes of you walking away ahead of me, always out of reach, and disappearing. Just like you did last night.”

“Interesting,” mused Thero. “I don’t recall you saying anything about dreams when you two were enslaved in Plenimar, or before Alec died.”

“Not this kind of dream,” Seregil said, tapping his lower lip with a finger thoughtfully. “They were more …” He stopped, staring at Alec.

“What?”

“Remember what the ghost at Mirror Moon said to you?”

Comprehension dawned on Alec’s face. “The same thing that the demon in Sedge said to you. Only the dead can walk with the—”

“Dead,” Seregil finished for him. “You’re the only one here who died and came back. Thero, could that be the key?”

Thero considered it. “It’s possible. It fits. There’s only one way to test it, I’m afraid.”

“I have to go back, don’t I?” said Alec.

“No!” Seregil rose to his feet. “What if he’s not so lucky this time? What if he doesn’t come back? That’s what my dreams were telling me.”

“Couldn’t we take some sort of precautions?” asked Alec. “Like the dra’gorgos charm?”

“That’s the question, isn’t it?” Thero murmured.

“You’d better meditate damn hard on that one!” Seregil growled.

“I’ve never encountered anything quite like this,” the wizard told him. “I’m afraid it will have to be trial and error.”

“Trial and—”

“It’s all right, Seregil,” said Alec. “If I go in the same way, I should be able to get out the same way, too. Thero?”

“Plausible, but not proven.”

“Exactly,” said Seregil. “In those dreams, I couldn’t get to you, no matter what I did.”

“You didn’t need to, apparently,” Alec pointed out. “I got back on my own. And this may be the key to finding out what happened to Toneus and the duchess. That’s why we’re here, right?”

“We don’t know what we’re dealing with.”

“We can begin by knocking down that wall, whenever the workmen get here,” said Micum.