Sea of Silver Light

"Look," she said as she filled her arms with deadfall, "it wasn't a very nice joke, okay. Seen. But if we can't use Renie's name in front of him, if we can't use your name, if we can't talk about anything that's really going on, that's going to slow us down. What's more important, fooling this guy or finding Renie?"

!Xabbu nodded slowly. "Of course you are right, Sam. Let us just see what Azador has to say for himself tonight—it is normal for us to ask him what brings him to our campfire—and then we will try to make sense of things."

"Of course you would want to know my story," Azador said expansively. The fire had warmed him; but for his swollen ankle and a certain damp-dog look to his upper lip, he seemed completely recovered. "It is full of danger and excitement—even, if I must say it, heroism. But what you really wish to know is, how is it that Azador comes to you in this godforsaken place, yes?"

Sam wanted to roll her eyes, but restrained herself. "Yes."

"Then I will tell you a secret." The handsome newcomer leaned forward, raising his eyes and looking from side to side in a children's-theater gesture of confidentiality. "Azador has been following you for a long time."

She resisted the urge to look at !Xabbu. "Really?"

"Since . . . Troy." Azador sat up and folded his arms across his chest as though he had performed a magic trick.

"What . . . what are you talking about?"

He smiled kindly. "Do not try to trick me, pretty lady. I have been all around—I have seen more of the network than any other man. You are the only people in this place. I saw you on the mountaintop—yes, you remember! I see it on your faces. I know you are the same people I followed from Troy."

Sam was trying to make sense of this. Were they in trouble? Were all !Xabbu's warnings to her now useless? She looked from the Bushman's intent face to Jongleur, whose expression was entirely unreadable. "But . . . but why would you follow us? If we were the people you think we are, that is."

"Because you were with the man Ionas. I knew he was more than he admitted to me, and when I saw him lead you and the others into a temple in the middle of a burning city, I knew he was looking for a gateway. Do not forget, Azador has been all over this network! The Grail Brotherhood has pursued me everywhere! There are some that say that I am the bravest man in all these worlds." He spread his hands in a gesture of humility. "I myself would never make such a claim."

His silliness was begi

"Why were you following this . . . Ionas?" !Xabbu asked.

"Because he was my friend. I knew he would get himself in trouble in that Trojan world—he had not done the things I have done, seen the things I have seen. I wished to help him, to . . . protect him."

!Xabbu was carefully keeping doubt off his face. Sam cleared her throat, "So you followed . . . these people . . . into a temple?"

Azador laughed. "You wish to keep pretending, little lady? Very well—I have nothing to hide. Yes, I followed Ionas and . . . his friends into the temple. All through the maze—I could hear them just ahead of me. Then they stopped. I stopped, too, out of sight in the corridors behind them while they argued. It was a long argument, and I thought the gateway was broken, that they would all turn back and I would have to follow them out into the city again, where people were being killed like animals. But instead the gate opened and all went through, with much shouting and more arguing. I waited as long as I could but I was afraid the gate would close again, so I went through."

"But if Ionas was your friend, why didn't you want to be seen?"

For a moment a flicker of irritation crossed Azador's face. "Because I did not know the people he was with. I have many enemies."

"Okay," Sam said. "So you went through. And. . . ?"

"And found myself in a strange place—the strangest yet. I heard voices on the mountain ahead of me, so I waited until they began to move, then followed. Slowly, slowly, and very quietly. You . . . or should I say, the friends of Ionas. . . ?" He smiled in a way that Sam felt sure he thought extremely wi

There was a sudden stir beside her. Sam realized that Jongleur had sat upright; from the corner of her eye she could see tension in the lines of the old man's body. In all this strangeness, what had grabbed his attention so firmly? "Everything came apart," she prompted.

"And then I do not remember much," Azador said. "I fell. I think I hit my head." He reached up and massaged the base of his skull. "When I awakened the mountain was gone and I was surrounded by nothing—all gray, like a fog, but with no up or down. I have been searching ever since, and even when I found a world to be in, there was no one there. Azador was alone, except for the hunting creatures. Until I saw the light of your fire."

"Hunting creatures?" !Xabbu poked up the fire. "What are those?"

"You have not seen them? You are lucky." Azador patted himself on the chest. "Shapes that freeze the blood. Monsters, ghosts—who knows? But they hunt men. They hunted me. Only on the river was I safe, so I built myself a raft."

Satisfied with the drama of his recitation, the newcomer sat back and gazed solemnly into the shifting flames.

"So we've let you get warm at our fire," Sam said. "What else do you want?"

"To travel with you," he said promptly. "There is safety in numbers, and you will have much benefit from pining Azador as a companion. I can trap animals for food, I can fish. . . ."

"We don't eat," Sam pointed out.

". . . And I can build a raft with my bare hands!"

"Which keeps sinking, you said." She looked to !Xabbu, half-amused, half-disgusted. Was it just chance that kept saddling them with horrible traveling companions?

"There is no Ionas here," !Xabbu said. "I can say with truth that I have never known such a person in this world."

"Ah, even with your different faces, I knew that he was not with you," said Azador cheerfully. "After all, Ionas was brave, in his way—for an Englishman, that is. He would not have stayed silent and pretended he was someone else with his friend Azador standing before him. But if he is lost somewhere in this world, then I will find him."

Sam looked at !Xabbu, who was watching Jongleur, but the old man's face was again an impenetrable mask. When !Xabbu finally turned to her she saw that, beneath his composed expression, the only person here she trusted was just as worried and confused as she was. She almost used his name, but caught herself. "So what should we do, then?"

He looked at Azador, who was smiling confidently. "I do not know," !Xabbu shook his head. "I suppose you will travel with us, Azador. For a while, at least."

The newcomer smiled and ran a finger along the bottom of his mustache. "You will not regret it. This I swear."