
him. He had tried several times to seek permanent oblivion, but each time, his second conscience, like an
old and evil companion, kept him alive, chained to its own purposes.
A door swung open and warmer air surrounded him. He put out one hand to catch his balance and
touched the cracked, weather-splintered planks. Inside, light flared. He staggered free of the stranger's
grasp and slumped into a crudely wrought chair.
He was in some sort of servants' quarters, an old scullery perhaps, though he could not make out
anything beyond a rickety table along one wall. A pitcher, its rim cracked and jagged, sat beside an
equally decrepit bowl. He couldn't make out the rest of the room's contents without turning his head, and
that meant risking another wave of nauseating pain.
"Drink," he pleaded, gesturing with one hand.
The stranger bent over him, and it seemed a mantle of blue light rested across his shoulders. The hood of
his cloak hid his face. He placed one hand on Eduin's forehead.
Rest.Rest now, and forget. We will speak tomorrow.
Eduin woke again to a dim, watery light. He had been drifting in and out of strange, restless dreams in
which faceless men pursued him, and each time he tried to hide, he was discovered. Now he lay on a
crude pallet on the floor of a room that should have been strange, but felt familiar.
Aside from his physical discomforts, the urgency of his bladder and the thick cottony film in his mouth,
he could not remember a time when he felt more at ease. More inwardly still. It was as if a voice that had
been raging at him, night and day, had suddenly fallen quiet.
He sat up, his spine crackling, muscles stiff. The light came through a window, layers of oiled cloth
instead of glass. A candle, thick and irregular, shone from the other side of the room. On the floor beside
his pallet, he spied a mug. It contained water rather than wine or even rotgut ale, but he drank it down.
There was a faint lemony taste that cleared his head and eased the dry-ness of his throat. It gave him the
strength to haul himself to his feet, to the door and outside. The drifted snow burned his bare feet. The
alley was deserted, and he discovered with some surprise that this mattered to him. He relieved himself
against the side of the building.
As quickly as he could, he scurried back inside. There was no fireplace, only a small stone brazier filled
with ashes. Still, the walls kept out the worst of the wind.
Heartened, he explored his surroundings. The pitcher contained more of the lemony water, and beside it
was bread, only slightly moldy on one side, and hard cheese. He could not remember when he had last
eaten. Chewing slowly, he finished it all, except for the moldy part. Once he would have eaten that, too,
but now the smell disgusted him.
Several circuits of the room revealed no trace of its owner's personal effects. The floor was bare wood,
stained and gritty with dried mud. The sleeping pallet was of the poorest sort, layers of straw and
blankets too tattered for any other use, laid over a frame of wooden slats to keep it off the floor. The
back of the door bore a row of wooden pegs, some broken off like rotten teeth, and herehis own jacket
hung. The worst of the surface filth had been brushed off and the padding stuck out in threadbare
patches. He found his boots shoved into a corner. As he pulled them on, he reflected that for all
appearances, the room was his, and yet he had no memory of ever being here before. Certainly, if he had
come upon the few reis for rent, he would long since have spent them at the ale shops.