"I suppose that would take a long while," Thero threw in.
"Yet, as things have turned out, I now believe Seregil may have been wise to wait," said Nysander. "It is more than a sense of obligation or fear which keeps you with him, is it not, Alec?"
"Of course. But the idea that I could be sitting here three or four hundred years from now—" He stared down at his plate, shaking his head. "I can't imagine it."
"I sometimes still feel that way," said Thero.
Seregil looked at the younger wizard in surprise. In all the time he'd known him, he'd never heard Thero reveal a personal feeling.
"I'd guessed it when I was a boy," Thero continued. "But it was nonetheless overwhelming to have it confirmed when the wizards examined me. Yet, think of what we'll experience in our lifetimes—the years of learning, the discoveries."
He's almost human today, Seregil thought, studying his rival's countenance with new interest.
"I made a poor job of telling you," he admitted to Alec. "I was feeling a bit shaky that night myself, after seeing Adzriel and all, but what Thero says is true. It's what has kept me sane after I left Aurenen. Long life is a gift for those with a sense of wonder and curiosity. And I don't think you'll ever have any shortage of those qualities."
Nysander chuckled. "Indeed not. You know, Alec, that for over two centuries I have studied and learned and walked in the world, and yet I still have the satisfaction of knowing that should I live another two hundred years there shall still be new things to delight me. Magyana and I have gone out into the world more than many wizards and so, like Seregil here, we have seen many friends age and die. It would not be truthful to tell you that it is not painful, yet each of those friendships, no matter how brief, was a gift none of us would sacrifice."
"It might sound hard-hearted, but once you have survived a generation or two, it becomes easier to detach yourself from such feelings," added Magyana.
"It isn't that you love them any less, you just learn to respect the cycles of life. All the same, I thank Illior the two of you found each other the way you did."
"So do I," Alec replied with surprising feeling. He colored slightly, perhaps embarrassed by his own admission. "I just wish I could have talked to my father about it, about my mother. Seregil's spun out a good theory about what must have gone on between the two of them, but now I'll never know the real story."
"Perhaps not," said Nysander. "But you can honor them by respecting the life they gave you."
"Speaking of your parents, Alec, tell Nysander about that nightmare you've been having since Rythel got killed," Seregil interjected, sensing the opening he'd been hoping for.
"Indeed?" Nysander cocked an inquiring eyebrow at the boy.
"Can you describe it?" asked Magyana.
"Dreams are wondrous tools sometimes, and those that come to you more than once are almost always important."
Seregil kept a surreptitious eye on Nysander while Alec went through the details of the nightmare; he knew the old wizard too well not to see a definite spark of interest behind Nysander's facade of thoughtful attentiveness.
"And that's always the last of it, and the worst," Alec finished. Even with the morning sun streaming down through the glass dome overhead, he shifted uneasily as he described the final image.
Magyana nodded slowly. "Violent events can summon up other painful memories, I suppose. Though your father died of the wasting sickness rather than violence, it must have been a time of terrible fear and pain for you."
Alec merely nodded, but Seregil read the pain behind his stoic expression.
"Yes, and coupled with the shock of learning your true parentage, it could create such images in the mind," Nysander concurred, although the look he gave Seregil showed that he had other ideas on the matter.
"I would not worry too much about them, dear boy. I am certain they will pass in time."
"I hope so," sighed Alec. "It's getting so I hate to go to sleep."
"Nysander, do you still have that book of meditations by Reli a Noliena?" asked Seregil. "Her philosophy might be of some use to Alec just now. I seem to recall seeing it on the sitting-room bookshelves somewhere."
"I believe it is," replied Nysander. "Come along and help me look, would you?"
Nysander said nothing as they descended the tower stairs.
As soon as the sitting-room door was firmly shut behind them, however, he fixed Seregil with an expectant look.
"I assume there is some matter you wish to discuss privately?"
"Was it that obvious?"
"Really now. Reli a Noliena?" Taking his accustomed seat by the hearth, Nysander regarded Seregil wryly. "I seem to recall that you have on numerous occasions referred to her writings as utter tripe."
Seregil shrugged, running a finger along the painted band of the mural that guarded the room. "First thing that popped into my head. What do you make of this dream of Alec's, and the headless arrow shaft? I have a feeling it's tied in with" — Seregil paused, acknowledging Nysander's warning look—"with that particular matter about which I am not allowed to speak."
"It does seem a rather obvious correlation. No doubt you are thinking of the words of the Oracle?"
"The Guardian, the Vanguard, and the Shaft."
"It is certainly possible that there is a connection, although why it should suddenly surface now, I do not know. Then again, it could conceivably be nothing more than it appears. Alec is an archer. What stronger image of helplessness could there be for him than a useless arrow?"
"I've tried to tell myself that, too. We both know who this Eater of Death is; I've been touched twice by the dark power and was damn lucky both times to get away with life and sanity intact. So I want to believe that Alec isn't getting pulled into this web, but I think he is, that that's exactly what that dream means. You believe that, too, don't you?"
"And what would you have me do?" Nysander asked with a trace of bitterness. "If we are dealing with true prophecy, then whatever must happen will happen, whether we accept it or not."
"True prophecy, eh? Fate, you mean."
Seregil scowled. "So why dream? What's the use of being warned about something if you can't do anything to avoid it?"
"Avoiding something is seldom the best way to resolve it."
"Neither is sitting around with your head up your ass until the sky falls in on you!"
"Hardly, but forewarned is forearmed, is it not?"
"Forearmed against what, then?" Seregil asked with rising irritation as an all-too-familiar guarded look came over the wizard's face. "All right then, you're still guarding some dire secret, but it seems to me that the gods themselves are giving hints. If you're the Guardian, which you've admitted already, and Alec, our archer, is the Shaft, then am I the Vanguard?" He paused, mentally trying the title on for size. But the bone-deep feeling of certainty he'd had about Alec eluded him. "Vanguard, those who go before the battle, one who goes in front—No, that doesn't resonate somehow for me. Besides, the Oracle wouldn't tell me to guard myself. So why would he tell me anything at all unless—"
"Seregil, please—"
"Unless there's a fourth figure to the prophecy!"
Seregil exclaimed, striding excitedly back and forth between the hearth and the door as the myriad possibilities took shape in his mind. "Of course. Four is the sacred number of the Immortals who stand against the Eater of Death, so—"
The inner certainty was there now. No matter what answer Nysander gave, he knew instinctively that he was on the right track now. "Illior's Light, Nysander! The Oracle wouldn't have spoken to me as he did if there wasn't a reason, some role for me to play."
Nysander stared down at his clasped hands for a moment, communing with an inner voice. Taking a deep breath, he said quietly, "You are the Guide, the Unseen One. I did not tell you before for two reasons."