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firesparks, robbing him of any existence in the Afterlife.
    It was a risk he could abide.
    All thought receded, replaced by a distant thudding that grew ever louder with each breath.
    The pulse was at the same time alien and familiar to him. There was a hint I of the old world, a hum that had beat in the veins of every soul born on Seren soil; the deep magic in the Island of Serendair had a unique ring to it, and it permeated the blood of those whose lives had been brought into ex- istence there. But this was only the slightest trace in the rhythm that made up the rest of the heartbeat.
    When he had first learned to listen to his skin, he had heard a roar of drums.
    Countless chaotic, cacophonous rhythms had thundered directly into ' him, threatened to overwhelm him, to drown him like the echoes of waves in a canyon.
    Here he heard barely a whisper.
    Because the blood that pumped through the demon-spawn's heart was almost totally of this world, he could not discern its rhythm, could not track it. The blood of the new world swirled around the evanescent flutter from the old world like ocean waves, like a windstorm of dried leaves in the last vestiges of autumn; and occasionally he could taste some of its traits. He chased them with his breath, tasted the mix and dip of tones, looking for the deep shadow tone he was hunting.
    There would be warmth in a pulse-wave that broke over him—that must! be from the child's unknown mother—followed by the chill of ice; be- queathed by its father, the Rakshas, the artificial being that had sired all these! cursed progeny of its demonic master. There was something feral in there as! well, something with red eyes and a wild, brutal nature. Rhapsody had said! the Pdor used the blood of wolves and other night creatures when it constructed the Rakshas. Perhaps that was it.
    Still, each passing moment the ancient rhythm grew slightly louder, a bid clearer.
    Achmed opened his left hand and held it aloft, allowing the gusts ofl wind to dance over his palm.
    Each intake of breath became slower, deeper, each exhalation measured When the pattern of his breathing matched that of the distant beating heart! he turned his attention to his own heart, to the pressure it exerted on thi vessels and pathways through which his blood flowed. He willed it to slow! lowering his pulse to a level barely able to sustain his life. He drove all stray!
    thoughts from his mind, leaving it blank except for the color red. Everything else faded, leaving nothing but the vision of blood before his mind's eye. Blood will be the means, the prophecy had said. Child of Blood. Brother to all men, akin to none.
    Achmed held absolutely still, remained utterly silent. He loosed the pulse of his own heart, willing it to match the distant heartbeat. Like trying to catch a flywheel in motion, he could only synchronize with one beat in every five, then every two, until each beat matched perfectly. He clung to the tiny burr of the ancient blood, followed it through distant veins, chased its flow, gathered its ebb until from that whisper of a handhold he crawled into his victim's rhythm. Their heartbeats locked.
    And then, as the trail became clear, as his prey became unerringly linked to him, another tiny, discordant rhythm shattered the cadence. Achmed clutched his chest and staggered back as pain exploded like a volcano inside him.
    Over his agonized groan he could hear Rhapsody gasp. His body rolled down the rocky outcropping, battering his limbs against the frozen rock ledge. Achmed struggled to find consciousness, catching intermittent glimpses of it from moment to moment, then fading into darkness between. The two heartbeats he had found wrestled inside his own; breath failed him. He clenched his teeth. The sky swam in blue circles, then went black.
    He felt warmth surround him. The wind that tickled his nostrils was suddenly sweeter. Achmed opened his eyes to see Rhapsody's face swimming among the circles.
    'Gods! What