I remember little of the journey, except that it was cold and wet, but I didn’t care. We were escorted again by the Royal Taezli Cavalry, for I recollect familiarly uniformed horsemen. I was a tiny Damastes, floating in the amniotic sea of the greater Damastes the azaz and King Bairan had created. I could watch, I could listen, I could even participate, so long as I never allowed any thought of the task set me to surface. Svalbard asked what had happened to Karjan. I can’t remember what I replied. He gazed at me oddly and asked if something was the matter. I — the real I — managed to snap that nothing was amiss, and for him to go about his duties. He clapped his fist to his shoulder and obeyed, and as he left, I felt the other, false Damastes’s rage. I’d saved Svalbard’s life, for if he’d persisted, he would have died. I would have killed another friend with as little hesitation as I had Karjan. That instant gave me, the real me, a bit of hope. I was not completely in that other’s power.
