The kitchen portal brought Alec out in the hills above Zikara. Camouflaged well in his drab clothing, he worked his way down, finally coming across a dirt road. He followed this until he reached a side path, which took him up to a grotesque mockery of the oracle’s precinct. The grove was dead, and beyond it a black altar held a stinking mess of rotting birds and offal; the entrance was through the mouth of a hideous stone head. Alec half expected the jaws to snap shut on him as he ducked inside. Inside was the tunnel Klia had told him of. It ran back into the hillside and was lined with unlit torches. Taking one down, he tried to light it with flint and steel, but after considerable effort and muttering under his breath, he gave up. There was no choice but to go into the darkness. He took off his shoes and padded forward in silence. By the time he’d left the reach of daylight behind, however, he could see a soft glow framed by the end of the tunnel and guessed it was about fifty feet in length. It ran fairly straight. He crept forward cautiously to the mouth of the cave. It was empty except for the unpleasant drawings on the wall. Directly across from the tunnels the black opal glowed in its golden setting, an almost perfect match to the one Seregil had had made.

He went back up the tunnel and looked for a place to watch for Klia without being seen. He found a depression in the rocky hillside overlooking the site where he could lie down and settled in to wait.

Lying still like this he didn’t get hungry quite as fast as he did when he was hiking around, but he’d still eaten twice before he saw Klia coming up the trail. He waited until she’d reached the entrance, making sure no one was following her, then whistled to catch her attention. She looked around quickly, then gave him a relieved grin as he scrambled and slid down to join her.

“She may be watching.” She waved him into the shelter of the tunnel but pulled back from his touch. “Don’t. She smelled you on me last time.”

“Of course. Klia, we’ve figured out a way to free you.”

“Thank Sakor and Illior! How?”

“Well, you’re going to open the seal.”

She gave him an incredulous look. “You can’t be serious.”

“I am. It’s the only way.”

“I won’t do it! What is my life compared with the risk of letting her back into the world? We have no idea what she’s capable of. I don’t believe she’s shown me more than a particle of her power.”

“We’re ready, Klia. We’ve killed a dyrmagnos before. All we need is for you to open the seal.”

“Alec, it’s insane!”