It was almost as if he could feel the worm crawling down his throat and winding through his innards. He gagged again, but miraculously the worm didn’t come up this time.

The effort had cost him. He was exhausted, and one worm would not dispel his weakness. Water was easy enough to come by here due to frequent rain, and the forest was constantly clouded by a liquid haze that slimed his skin. He sipped water off leaves. It was acrid, but had failed to poison him thus far.

He didn’t trust the murky pools and streams he had come across, nor did he chance eating any of the black berries growing on thorny stems. There were mushrooms growing everywhere in the decay of the forest floor, but he lacked the knowledge of how to tell the safe ones from the poisonous ones. He suspected few, if any, were without some taint in this forest.

Alton slicked his hair back, wincing at the tender bump on his head. He could not remember exactly what had happened, or when. He remembered standing atop the breach, then nothing. When he awakened to this nightmare, it took time for him to remember who and what he was, and he’d been very ill and disoriented from the head blow.

His body had other hurts as well. His cheek was swollen with an oozing, painful bite of some kind, and he ached all over. He hadn’t broken any bones in his apparent fall from the breach, but his right side was pretty banged up, especially his hip.

Did his uncle send rescuers to search for him, or had they left him for dead?

I cannot depend on them to enter this hell and find me. I’ve got to find my own way out.

He was surprised nothing had attacked him while he was unconscious, or even when he dared to sleep fitfully in the overwhelming black of night that blanketed the forest. The undergrowth rustled all around him, and he heard the occasional pad of feet. Sometimes he caught the glint of baleful yellow eyes in the shadows.

At least once during the night, some creature had come right up to him and snuffled his elbow. After that experience, he never hesitated to draw on his ability to shield himself whenever he felt threatened. Doing so, however, exhausted him.

He sensed something else at work in the forest, as well. The intelligence he had sensed from the other side of the wall surrounded him here. He didn’t doubt this very same intelligence was all that held back the predators that would otherwise tear apart an injured man. It chilled him to think that something without apparent form could possess such power.

He was grateful for the protection, but he suspected it was not provided out of a sense of charity. In fact, it frightened him to think it had so much power over him. What would happen when the intelligence grew bored with him and decided to drop its protection?

“Got to find the wall,” he croaked.

It was his only chance of escape. But which way was it? The clouds and mist obscured the sun and moon, so he couldn’t discern direction. If he actually located the wall, how would he know which way to turn to find the breach, without a point of reference?

One thing at a time, one thing at a time . . .

The first step was nourishment, for if the predators of the forest didn’t take him, the constant wet and chill of the place, and starvation, would.

With this in mind, he scooped up a grub, feeling all the eyes of the forest watching him with great interest.

Occupying the body of a feline, the sentience crouched beneath the fronds of a fern and observed the man. It watched him constantly, watched him while he slept, watched him while he hunted, watched him while he voided. He was injured and weak, and this feline wanted badly to eat him, but the sentience suppressed the urge, and kept other predators at bay as well.

Somewhere, in some long ago time, the sentience had learned that observation was an essential tool for gaining knowledge about others. You watched the subject move about his daily life, and observed how he reacted to his environment. Sometimes you manipulated the situation to see how well the subject adapted.

In this case, the sentience observed the man was desperate, and not adapting at all well to the forest.

The man’s presence also prompted the re-emergence of memories. At one time, the sentience considered the people this man belonged to as repugnant.

Barbarians, Hadriax had called them.

Hadriax—thoughts of him aroused even more memories. The sentience remembered him standing tall and proud as the ship he sailed upon departed home for far seas and lands unknown.

Oh, Hadriax, with your sandy hair and eyes of blue.

He had been a soldier, scholar, and gentleman in the court of Arcos V, and the sentience’s fellow adventurer and best friend.

The sentience lingered in its memories of piers crowded with well-wishers who tossed flowers into the harbor waters as the ships made way. The fishing fleet and the flagship of the Arcosian navy escorting them out . . .

Terravossay, the capitol of Arcosia, and the imperial seat, rose above the harbor, and that was their last glimpse of home, of the great buildings of the city with their fluted columns and golden domes, their perfect symmetry and playful fountains, the carvings in bas relief and statuary adorning courtyards. A place of intellect and culture.

High above all the other great buildings were the turrets of the God House, and higher still, the palace of the emperor of Arcosia.

Sorrow washed over the sentience, and the feline it inhabited yowled in pain, and groomed itself to find comfort.

I am in this place, not Arcosia. Why?

The only answer it could summon was the idea of adventure, though this did not seem entirely correct. There was more to it.

As the sentience considered the man, it remembered bringing war to his people, many years of it. Yes, there had been conquest. Conquest for the glory of Arcosia.