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crimson as it seeped down about his shoulders. It gathered in a stain that mimicked the spread of his collar. Why had he worn it here, this emblem that he so rarely donned? What had moved him to make such a gesture? Usually he scorned such regalia....
    Usually ...
    His thoughts were a whirlwind. He struggled to think clearly.
    It’s wrong. Somehow. Wrong.... He tried to remember how this meeting had come about, but he couldn’t. His past was a void. His present was a sea of despair. He couldn’t focus.
    How did I get here? Why did I come?
    Things began to swim in his vision: the collar. The Patriarch. The gleaming white robes he never wore. And some fact that lay hidden among those things, something he could sense but not define....
    It’s wrong , he thought. All of it.
    And the room began to fade. Slowly at first, like a tapestry that was frayed at the edges. Then more rapidly. The collar shimmered where it lay, then vanished. The Patriarch’s ivory silk became a curtain of light, then nothing. The chamber ...
    ... became a room on a ship. His ship. The Golden Glory.
    “Oh, my God,” he whispered. His heart was pounding with the force of a timpani; his throat still tight with fear. He lay there for a moment in utter silence, shaking, letting the real world seep in, waiting for it to banish the terror. Listening for sounds that would link him to the present: the creak of tarred timbers, the soft splash of ocean waves against the prow, the snap of sails in the wind. Comforting, familiar sounds. They had roused him from similar nightmares before, on similar nights. But this time it didn’t seem to help. This time the fear that had hold of him wouldn’t go away. The trembling wouldn’t stop.
    Because it hit too close to home, he thought. Because this nightmare might yet come true . What did the Patriarch really think when he read Damien’s report? Did he take it at face value, or did he discern the subtle subterfuge with which it had been crafted? What kind of welcome would await Damien when at last he returned to Jaggonath?
    I shouldn’t have risked it. Shouldn’t have dissembled. If he ever finds out....
    Fear lay heavy on his chest, a thick, suffocating darkness. He tried to reason it away—as he had done so many times before, night after night on this endless journey—but reason alone wasn’t enough this time. Because this fear had real substance. This nightmare might yet come to pass.
    After a while he gave up, exhausted. And sank back into his fear, letting it possess him utterly. It was a gift to the one who traveled with him, whose hunger licked at the borders of his soul even now. The one who had inspired his dream, and therefore deserved to benefit from it.
    Damn you, Tarrant.

    Quiet night. Domina bright overhead, waves washing softly against the alteroak hull. Peace—outside, if not within him.
    He went to where the washbucket lay and splashed his face with the cool desalinized water, washing the sweat of his fear from his skin. His shirt was damp against his body and the night wind quickly chilled him; he took down a woolen blanket from a masthook and wrapped it about his shoulders, shivering.
    Drenched in Domina’s light, the deck glittered with ocean spray. Overhead the sails stirred slightly, responding to a shifting breeze. For a moment Damien just stared out across the sea, breathing deeply. Waves black as ink rippled across the water, peaceful and predictable. He tried to Work his Sight, and—as usual—failed. There was no earth-fae on the ocean’s surface for him to tap into.
    We could be on Earth now , he thought. For all this lack of power ... would we even know the difference? But the comparison was flawed and he knew it. On Earth they would be speeding across the water, abetted by the kind of technology that this planet would never support. Blind technology, mysterious power. Here on Erna it would have doomed them long before they left port, when the doubts and fears of the passengers