Corvan stayed in place until he was certain the lizard would not return, then pushed back from the edge, lay against his pack, and looked up through the skylight. Through the murky glass he could not see any individual lumiens overheard, just a dull light around the edges of the grimy pane.

  Now what was he to do? Tsarek was gone, Kate was missing, Tarran was dead, and Tyreth was on her way to the prison cells from which he had just escaped. Should he try to retrace his steps along the walls and attempt to rescue her? With the palace guard on high alert, looking for the one they thought was Tarran, that idea seemed doomed to fail. It might be better to search around the temple building and locate Rayu and Kate. Jorad could help him, and the High Priest had just told the younger priest to help him before sending him into the secret passage. Maybe if he lowered himself into the room, he could follow Jorad into the hidden passage behind the tapestry?

  Pulling out the hammer, Corvan held it up to the skylight. "Please, help me know what to do," he whispered but the hammer hung cold and lifeless in his hand. The sense of power and the blue glow had faded away when Tarran died, abandoning him in a dark and brutal world.

  No matter what he did next, the Chief Watcher now held the only key to the door leading home. He would either need some other way to get that door opened or else find another route back to the surface.

  His father would know what to do. At that thought, he put the hammer away, pulled out the round crystal, and watched the curtain of stars move slowly around the outline of Castle Rock. His father's face did not appear, but the memory of what he said that night on the rock came back clearly.

  “Your grandfather made me promise I would give it to you before your birthday. He said you should be old enough to choose between fear and duty by then.”

  Why would his grandfather think he would be ready to choose between fear and duty by the time he was fifteen? That same night his father said a leader must do right by others, no matter what it cost, but he wasn't a leader and didn't want to become one. He just wanted to go home and have things back the way they were before he found the hammer. If the people here wanted it so badly, he would make a deal and give it to them in return for showing he and Kate the way home.

  The grating creak of an opening door startled him so badly the ice glass slipped from his hand and rolled toward the edge of the balcony. Corvan lunged for it, but he was too late. It fell and a second later he heard a sharp clink from the stone floor below. Hopefully it was not broken.

  Corvan turned his attention across the upper reaches of the temple building. Where was the door and who had opened it?

  “I am over here,” a hollow voice called from the other side of the room. “You need to make your way around the ledge. There is a door here that leads into the passages.”

  Corvan tried to look past the curtain of twisted vines from where the huge lumien had fallen. “Who are you?”

  “I am Jorad,” the man stated flatly. “The High Priest pointed you out when he was being taken away. He made me promise I would help you. Come over to the door.”

  Corvan stood as best as the slope ceiling would allow, pulled on his pack, and scooted around the ledge. At least that explained the High Priest’s signal with his praying hands. He was showing Jorad where to find him.

  The green-robed priest was kneeling in front of a short door set into the short pony wall that supported the pointed roof.

  Jorad squinted at him as he drew near. “How old are you?” the man asked, his tone betraying that the question was not idle curiosity.

  Corvan reached to pull his hood further over his face and discovered it had fallen back when he was laying against his pack. “Fourteen. No, fifteen now, I guess,” Corvan said. He studied the young man’s face for a reaction, but all that registered was a look similar to that of the bigger boys at school. Jorad was doing his duty, but he was not happy about it.

  Jorad pointed to the main room below. “The Chief Watcher will be sending the palace guard through the city to find the one he thinks is Tarran. I suspect the soldiers will be back as soon as it is light to search the priest’s quarters out behind the temple gardens. We must leave here immediately … Cor-Van.” He jerked his head to the door behind him where a circular staircase wound downward.

  Corvan looked away from the man’s searching gaze. “I'm not the leader you are looking for. I don't—"

  Jorad cut him off. “I need your help to get Tyreth out of the Watcher’s prison.”

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  “I need find Kate and get her home before she dies.”

  "Kate? Who's that?" Jordan asked.

  “The girl I followed down here. She is from my world. She has red hair and—"

  “Yes, I have seen her,” Jorad stated.

  Corvan took a step back, and Jorad grabbed his arm to keep him from falling off the ledge. “Kate is here at the temple?”

  “No,” Jorad said, releasing Corvan’s arm and moving back into the doorway. “Rayu found her on the broken side of the city. She is still there but she is very ill.”

  “I need to go to her,” Corvan said, trying to move past the man.

  Jorad put has hand on the door frame and frowned. “Tyreth and her father will die if we do not help them right away.”

  “Can't your priests rescue them?” Corvan asked.

  “There are few of us left here at the temple and most are old, like Rayu. The priest’s compound is empty. The Chief Watcher ordered all the rest of us to the outlying settlements to inspire the workers who are harvesting food. Tarran was working to bring us back together but now …"

  “Don't we have some time before that water ceremony the Chief Watcher talked about?” Corvan interjected.

  Jorad sighed heavily. “Yes, but the High Priest was poisoned by that lizard’s claw and might not have long to live.”

  “The lizard said he would live until the ceremony, and I promised I would get Kate home. She can't survive down here. I need to make sure she’s alright.”

  Jorad looked across the room. “I understand what it means to lose someone you love.” He turned and stared into Corvan’s eyes. “Also, if you do not fulfill your vow to take Kate to safety, you will forfeit all rights to be the Cor-Van.” He gestured to the door. “Come, I will take you to Kate.”

  Jorad descended the tight circular staircase and Corvan followed him. “I can't be your Cor-Van,” he said firmly, his voice echoing in the confined space. The priest shot a warning look over his shoulder and Corvan dropped his voice to a whisper. “I'm just a kid who fell into your world. I want to find Kate and go home as soon as I can.”

  Below his feet, Corvan could see Jorad shaking his head, but the man did not respond.

  At the bottom of the round stairwell, they followed a narrow passage around a few corners, then up an incline. Jorad opened a door, they emerged behind the tapestry and then stepped through the hole the Chief Watcher had cut into the heavy cloth. As Jorad examined the torn fabric, Corvan walked around the table, avoiding the piles of smashed lumien, to where his star glass had hit the marble floor.

  He expected to find shattered bits, but the crystal disc had broken neatly in half along a curving line. One side was midnight blue and the other a brilliant white, sparkling like a newborn star. When he touched them together, they two pieces stuck to each other with a magnetic charge, but the outline of the Castle Rock and the stars did not return. He pulled them apart, then let them connect again. Joined as one piece, they looked like the two-toned pendant Kate’s mother wore, the black and white one she claimed kept her life in balance and her relationships in harmony. Corvan gave his head a shake. Hopefully this new version of the star disc would work better for him than it did for her.

  Dropping the connected pieces in his pocket, Corvan walked back to find Jorad sitting in the unbroken chair, gazing at the pulpy mess on the table as if he might cry at any moment. Corvan stood beside him and waited for the priest to speak.

  Jorad gestured to the table. “Our mother plant was our only hope against the growing darkness in Kadir. We had such high hopes but now we will never be able to replace those the greedy beasts have consumed.” Anger flashed in his eyes as he looked up at Corvan. “If you are to be a leader, you must learn that if your pleasure causes others pain, then your pleasure is wrong. Selfishness is the source of all evil.”

  Jorad stood and thrust the chair away so hard it toppled onto its back. “Come,” he said, heading toward the secret door behind the tapestry. “There will be enough light for us to move freely in the streets. It is a good thing you are still wearing Tarran’s cloak. The Broken may have lost their minds to the lumien seeds, but at least they do not yet attack the priests.”

  Corvan didn’t understand everything Jorad just said but once again he was amazed again at how differently everyone saw the cloak he wore. It was as if they decided what it was when they first saw it, then afterward they could not change their minds. He could only hope it would fool the ones the called ‘the Broken’. They sounded dangerous.

  As he turned to follow Jorad, a glimmer of fierce red light from the tabletop caught his eye. Stepping through though the mounds of lumien flesh, he peeled back a piece of lumien skin to reveal three bright red gems sparkling on the table. “What are these?” he asked.

  Jorad rushed to his side. “They appear to be tiny lumien seeds, but they never glow red like that.”

  Corvan pointed to the wet spot surrounding the gems. “When that lizard cut it down, before it fell, I saw drops from the severed stem fall into Tyreth's blood so maybe that's why they're red.”

  Jorad's face brightened as he carefully gathered the small objects. “It could be that each of these is a seed that will become a new mother plant.” He stared at them sparkling on his open palm, then he turned his eyes to the torn tapestry. “Could they be red because Tyreth is . . .” His voice trailed off, as he retrieved a small cloth pouch from inside his cloak, dropped the seeds inside and pulled the drawstring shut. It appeared he was about to tuck the pouch away in his own cloak, but then he paused before holding it out to Corvan.

  “The Cor-Van is the guardian of light,” Jorad said.

  “But that’s not me,” Corvan replied. “You should hold onto them. You are a priest and those belong here in the temple.”

  Jorad’s face was tense.

  “If you do not accept this responsibility as the Cor-van, the only future for Kadir is eternal darkness.”