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Chapter One

Gustav knew he was being watched.

He had no proof, nothing more solid than a feeling, an instinct.

Instinct had kept Gustav the Whoreson Knight alive for seventy years. He knew better than to ignore it.

He had first experienced the sensation of being watched three days ago, on his arrival in this godforsaken part of the wilderness. He had been following an old trail that ran along the Deverel river. The trail was probably made by animals, although the humans who had once lived in this area might have borrowed it. If they had, they had long since returned the trail to the deer and the wolves, for theirs were the only tracks Gustav saw.

Knowing it likely that he was the only person to have set foot in this region for the past hundred years, Gustav was understandably disquieted to awaken his first morning in camp to the distinct impression that he wasn't alone.

He had no proof that someone was watching him. His nights, spent in a tent in the wilderness, were quiet, peaceful. He sometimes woke, thinking he heard stealthy footfalls outside, but he found he was mistaken. His well-trained war horse, who would have alerted him had there been anyone lurking nearby, remained placid and calm, undisturbed, except by flies.

During the day, while he proceeded with his investigation, Gustav tried every trick in the book — a book he could have written — to catch sight of the person who was dogging his steps. He watched for the glint that might have been sunlight reflecting off metal, but saw nothing. He madeabrupt stops, trying to hear footfalls that continued on after his ceased. He searched for signs that someone else was in the vicinity — foot-prints on the muddy river bank where he performed his daily ablutions, fish heads from the stalker's supper, broken sticks or bent branches.

Nothing. Gustav heard nothing. He saw nothing. Instinctively, he felt everything, felt the stalker's eyes watching him, felt those eyes to be hostile.

Gustav was not one to be deterred from his quest by an unsettling feeling, however. He had come here on a search he had begun forty years ago and he had no intention of departing until he had concluded that search. He had been exploring for three days and had found nothing yet.

He was not even certain he was searching in the right location. His only guide was a brief description taken from the mummified body of one of the monks of Dragon Mountain. Having quested for years, only to come to one dead end after another, Sir Gustav had returned to the Temple one final time.

The monks of Dragon Mountain were the repository of history in Loerem. The monks and their agents traveled the continent, seeing history as it was made and recording it on their own bodies. Preserved after death by the sacred tea the monks drank while they were alive, their bodies and all the knowledge that was recorded thereon were housed in the vaults of Dragon Mountain. Anyone on Loerem could travel to the mountain in search of knowledge of the past and find it among the slumbering dead.

Gustav had studied the historical records dealing with every race on Loerem specific to the time period in which he was interested. He had found innumerable possible sites where the object of his quest might be located. He had visited all those sites and a hundred more and had come up empty-handed. Was there a fragment of information he might have missed? Anything at all which might provide him with a clue? Had the monks truly studied all the records?

An acolyte listened to the elderly knight with intense interest and, by permission of the monks, took Gustav to the sacred vault. The two of them examined the mummified remains of the historians who lay there, each with their tattooed histories entwined around the composed limbs. Gustav recognized every corpse. After long years of association, he and these corpses had become friends.

"You say you have read them all," the acolyte stated. "But did you think to include this one?"

The monk paused beside a body of a human female who lay at the very end of the long row. Gustav looked at the body and could not recall that he had ever seen her before.

"Ah, likely not." The acolyte nodded. "Her area of expertise was the study of the pecwae race. Your earlier guides probably felt that the pecwae could have no possible connection to the Sovereign Stone."

Gustav considered this. "I cannot think that they would, but I have exhausted all other possibilities."

"Have you?" the acolyte questioned gently. "Have you considered the possibility that the portion of the Sovereign Stone for which you seek was destroyed in the blast that leveled the city two hundred years ago?"

"I have considered that, but I refuse to believe it," Gustav replied calmly. "The gods gave us our portion of the Stone, as they gave a portion to the other races. Ours is mislaid, that is all. Let us see what this chronicler of pecwae has to tell us."

The acolyte perused the tattoos on the body, murmuring to himself and shaking his head. The tattoos were magical. The historian transfered his or her thoughts onto the flesh by means of tattoos that would later transfer those thoughts to the monks trained in the magic. By placing his hand on the tattoo and activating the spell (the magic is a carefully guarded secret among the monks), the acolyte received into his mind all the images and words and thoughts of the monk detailing this portion of history.

Gustav watched the acolyte's face, watched the information pass over it like wind over a still lake. The ripples of thought cleared. The acolyte's eyes brightened.

"I have something," he said cautiously. "Do not build up your hopes too much. It is nothing more..."

Guardians of the Lost. Copyright © by Margaret Weis. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.