Phylomon flitted from the shadow of one tree after another as he crept to Moon Dance. He'd killed a few slavers in town, but there were others that he had missed, he felt sure. And then there were the kinsmen and friends of those who had died. More than once, he'd faced reprisals by would-be assassins.

He felt bone weary after treating the farmer's daughter for a parasitic worm infection, but his very soul felt worn after killing the slavers. For a thousand years he'd been trying to save his people. Sometimes they seemed like ignorant children, too unwise and too willful for their own good.

By the time he reached the inn, it was well past midnight. He sneaked up the hallway to the guestrooms. The floors were carpeted with worn animal furs. After a thousand years of living furtively in the wild, he could move as silently as any man alive. There was no swishing of clothes, no thump of a footfall as he passed. The only sound came when a floorboard creaked beneath his weight. He halted, silent for long minutes so that anyone who might be listening for his return would think that it was only the old inn settling on its foundations.

He warily unlocked the door to his room, keeping as silent as possible. He cracked the door open.

Sure enough, he could smell an intruder, a big man, rank from sweat. He also smelled a tallow candle burning, with a hint of lavender scent—the kind that a whore might use to freshen her parlor. No one rushed the door, so he imagined that the man was hiding. He heard a soft snore, breath catching. He smiled.

More than once, a would-be assassin had fallen asleep while waiting for him. By slow degrees, Phylomon swung the door wide.

On a stool beside the bed, a single yellow candle guttered, burned down to a stump. That seemed odd. Assassins usually didn't announce themselves that way.

Beneath a tangled pile of blankets, a single bear of a man slept. Otherwise the room was empty. The occupant of the bed was none other than Theron Scandal, the innkeeper.

Phylomon woke the innkeeper with a kick.

"Oh, oh," Scandal said groggily. "It's late." He sat up, rubbing his eyes.

"I agree," Phylomon said. "I'd heard that this room didn't have vermin. I fancied that meant that for once I would sleep alone in a bed."

"My apologies," Scandal said. He stretched. "I was going to get you some dinner, but you weren't in your room."

"You want something more," Phylomon said. "I can see it in the way your shoulders bunch, and you lean forward. Out with it. I like bluntness in a man."

Scandal bunched his dark brows in thought, as if he were unused to such straightforward talk. "I'm worried about this trip I'm taking," Scandal said. "I told you that we had three humans coming with us, but I'm afraid that after tonight they won't be coming anymore."

"They backed out?" Phylomon asked.

"You killed them," Scandal corrected. "Denneli and Coormon Goodman, along with Anduil Smith."

"Three slavers were going with you? Makes you wonder how much a human innkeeper is worth on the slave blocks in Craal, doesn't it? I'm sure you would fetch a great price as a chamberlain."

Scandal's eyes widened. "They wouldn't!"

"They planned to, I suspect," Phylomon said, "yet they were going to too much trouble just to get at you. I suspect that they planned something more." The blue man bent his head in thought. "With the fishery down, I suppose that some in the town have moved elsewhere. You will have lost some fighting men."

"Ayaah," Scandal said. "They've been leaving all summer, looking for work down south. I've been worried: we've got three cannons pointed at the bay, but they won't do much good if pirates came over land. They could sail a ship up Muskrat Creek during high tide and walk over the hills in an hour. Sixty men of war, at night, could take this town."

"The slavers wanted your quest to fail," Phylomon suggested.

"Perhaps," Scandal said. "I've never liked Denneli Goodman. If you told me that he rapes babies, I'd likely believe it. But not the others. Coormon—not him. He was a wild kid, but I thought that he'd changed. And Anduil——always seemed a stout man, trustworthy, honorable. . . ."

Phylomon looked out the window, Freya had joined Woden in the night sky, and it was getting lighter. "I killed three men named Goodman tonight. They were your mayor's brothers?"

"Ayaah," Scandal said.

"I believe they were in it together," Phylomon said. "Jassic wanted his 'boys' to kill me. He may have been the ringleader."

"You think that there are more slavers?" Scandal said in disbelief.

Perhaps Scandal couldn't imagine such a thing, but Phylomon had lived too long. Too often a fair face had hidden a foul heart. Men who seemed saintly were little more than cunning monsters.

"There may be more," Phylomon said. "And if there are, we should be able to lure them out. Leave an open invitation for other townsmen to join us on the trip to Seven Ogre River. Perhaps our enemies will introduce themselves. I'm tempted to kill the first human who tries to join the quest. But what of the Pwi who are coming? Can they be trusted?"

"The Pwi didn't choose to come," Scandal said. "We've got a Spirit Walker in town. He ordered them to go."

"I've known many a Spirit Walker who couldn't look five days into the future. Is this one any good?" Phylomon asked, then realized that he could find that out himself. He could test the man's skills. If the Spirit Walker had seen the future, then he would know that Phylomon would test him.

Phylomon excused himself from the room, crept outside. He stepped into the street, looked around. With the moons up, there was hardly a shadow in town.

If the Spirit Walker had seen the future, it didn't make any difference which way Phylomon went, the shaman should be waiting ahead. Phylomon walked up the hill above the inn, through the brush, where the pines hid everything in shadows. A single large redwood stood atop the hill.

When Phylomon reached the redwood, the voice of the Neanderthal came to him from the shadows. "I am here," Chaa said softly. "I have been waiting."

Phylomon saw the Neanderthal then, sitting in the shadow of a rock. He bowed to the shaman in respect.

"Sit," Chaa said. "The night is lovely. It is good to enjoy the darkness while we still can. Soon, a greater darkness comes."

Phylomon sat at Chaa's feet and waited for the Spirit Walker to speak.

He knew that Chaa would say only what he desired to say, and Phylomon had seen the vast psychic powers of the pure-blooded Pwi too often to doubt the shaman's powers.

"You fear to take the serpent journey," Chaa said, "for you fear that your enemies will destroy you."

The shaman was perceptive. "I tell you this: Your enemies will have power over you. Time, death—these things you fear. You cannot live forever. You sense that you are growing old, and that your life will fail."

Phylomon had never told anyone this. His symbiote had kept him alive for a thousand years, and many people thought him immortal, but it could not keep him alive much longer. The Starfarers had had rejuvenation treatments that extended their lives for millennia, but that technology was lost here on Anee.

"The thing that you want most," Chaa said, "is to save your people, to save them even if they do not care enough to save themselves. This . . . this can be accomplished. You must walk the path of the crushed heart. If you go on this journey with Theron Scandal, perhaps it can succeed.

"Yet succeed or not, within three years, Phylomon, you will die for your efforts. Your death will be gruesome.

"So, this I must ask you. Will you go in the hopes of saving your people, knowing that it will hasten your end?"

Phylomon hesitated. He'd hoped for another decade or two, maybe even ten. He answered, "I suspect that if we took a poll of the dead, none of them would say that their deaths came easily."

Chaa nodded. "You have long been a protector of the Pwi ."

"Not just of the Pwi," Phylomon said. "My people are a danger to themselves. Always they have tried to find an easy path back to the stars, but their road leads them only down. Long ago, when some of our Starfarers proposed taking the Pwi as slaves to build their war machines, I warned them against this. Now, the slavers in Craal have fallen so far . . ."

"The time has come when you can protect us no longer," Chaa said. "The armies of Craal swell to six million. All your efforts to stop them will be vain. But Tull Genet can destroy the armies of Craal. I have asked him to go on this journey."

Phylomon drew a deep breath in surprise. He hadn't met Tull, did not know the man at all, yet hope suddenly flared in him. "I've battled the Slave Lords for eight hundred years, and in all those centuries I have lost that war one slow battle at a time! Their warriors outnumber us a hundred to one. Tell me that you do not speak in half truths! Tell me plainly that my death will mean something!"

Chaa considered. "The paths of the future branch a thousand, thousand directions in a man's lifetime. Because of this, it is impossible to walk all of a man's future. Even the best Spirit Walker can only see a few years down the road, and even then he may be mistaken. But I did not have to walk far into Tull's future. I tell you that within two years, Tull can crush their necks. The armies of Craal can fall. But only if Tull first makes the serpent catch."

"Then I will go with him, no matter what the price!" Phylomon said.

Chaa said, "I tell you now, the day will come when you regret this decision. Do not be afraid to teach him your secrets."