“Actually, you nearly encountered one with me,” Thero told him. “Remember the night you helped me escape from Mardus’s encampment in Plenimar?”

“The howling we heard?”

“It was a kind of dra’gorgos, conjured by the necromancer dyrmagnos, Irtuk Beshar.”

“You saw it?”

“It captured me. And though it was nothing like what poor Karis described, I have no doubt that it was something of that nature. The blackness and the cold he spoke of?” He tightened his arm around Mika again, frowning. “It was just as he described.”

“Then how do you protect yourself from something like that?” asked Micum.

“By taking proper precautions that I was unable to do that night. There are amulets I can make. That should protect us.”

Micum grimaced. “You don’t sound too sure of yourself.”

Thero’s expression was hard. “I’ve never had to put it into practice, but given my experience of them, I made it my business to be prepared if I ever met one again. We’ll be ready.”

“Will we need Karis?” asked Klia.

“I think he’s too frightened to be much of a guide. Give me an hour,” Thero replied. “I don’t want any of us walking around unprotected. Stay together in Klia’s room for now. Come, Mika, I have a new lesson for you.”

The wizard and his apprentice disappeared and didn’t return for nearly two hours. When they came to Klia’s chamber at last, Mika was proudly holding up a collection of what appeared to be golden sester coins, each strung on a leather cord.

Seregil took his and noted the new markings on each side of the coin. They weren’t pictures, but rather some sort of writing or symbols, done in raised lines of silver that had been fused to the gold. The metal was still warm from whatever Thero had done to it.

“Put them on,” Thero instructed. “Don’t take them off for any reason until we get back to Skala.”

“Will this work for me?” Seregil asked, slipping the cord over his head and tucking the amulet away inside his shirt. Magic—good or evil—had a way of going wrong around him—a fact that had both ruined his aspirations as a wizard and saved his life more than once.

“I hope so,” Thero replied. “It acts on the dra’gorgos, rather than on the wearer, so you should be safe.”

“Very fancy,” said Klia, putting hers on. “Did it have to be made from gold, or are you just showing off?”

Thero smiled. “The magic is in the silver; the gold amplifies it for the kind of magic it’s to ward off.”

“I helped make them,” Mika put in, holding up the one that hung around his own neck on the same chain as the Astellus amulet the sea captain had given him.

A servant knocked on the door. “The steward from Mirror Moon has arrived to greet you, my lords, and guide you to the estate. He’s in the front courtyard. Lady Zella has sent your baggage on ahead.”