The Acolyte gazed at the drowned thing before him. It was naked and pale, its flesh swollen with sea water, its eyes the dark gray-green of a gale-tossed sea. It moved slowly. So it was the usual clumsy sort, not one of those that leap or run with devilish speed. The Acolyte put his knife away and shouldered his pack, thinking that if he jogged the three miles back to his boat he would reach it well ahead of this blasphemy, with plenty of time to launch his boat and get well away.

  Then he thought of the goat prints in the trail. Goats meant goatherds. There were people somewhere around him, not far off. If it could not catch him the maremorbo would turn its attention elsewhere. Would this village of farmers and goatherds be ready for it? He could not risk that. He knew his master the Provost would not much care, since like most in the College he thought little of common people and considered their lives someone else’s concern. But the Acolyte did not want the destruction of a village on his conscience. Perhaps that meant he had spent too much time out in the world, as some had told him. But he could not simply walk away.

  But what, then? He doubted he could destroy a maremorbo with only his knife and staff. He looked around him. To his right, away from the sea, the hills rose and steepened, and there might be cliffs and crags. He began to walk in that direction. Not too fast, for he did not want the monster to lose sight of him, just a good walking pace that he could keep up all day if need be. The monster followed.

  The Acolyte moved deliberately through the pine woods. He set each step carefully, making sure he did not trip or fall, while also looking ahead as far as he could see among the dense trees. No mistakes, he thought. The maremorbo followed with grim certainty, and he could not afford to fall or become trapped. Nor could he afford to lose sight of the monster, and at times that meant he must stay within twenty paces of it. The breathless plodding of the maremorbo was like constant pressure on his mind, twisting his nerves and wracking his muscles. The more carefully he trod across the uneven, stony ground, the more often he seemed to step on the edges of rocks; the more carefully he looked ahead, the more often he scratched his face on pine boughs. But there was nothing to do but keep going.

  He had chosen the right way, at least. The ridge he was walking continued to narrow, and at times the rocks were so large or the ground so steep that had to help himself up with his staff or his hands. The maremorbo kept right on after him, using its hands as well. Sometimes when he was on a steep stretch and it was on more level ground it came dangerously close, and he had to scramble to keep out of its grasp.

  At length there was not much farther he could go. The trees fell away and he stood on a rocky hilltop. He searched around for the most likely spot to face the maremorbo. He moved freely now, hopping from rock to rock, since the drowned thing could not lose sight of him on this windswept hill. He was in luck; all along the north side of the hill was a slope so steep it might serve. He took his stand on a rock about two yards across, nearly level on top, the edge of the drop just a few feet away. He took his staff in both hands. As the monster shuffled toward him he began to recite, under his breath: “In fear’s grim shadow, what I have studied will defend me. Through clouds of confusion, what I have learned will guide me. When night falls, I will count the stars.”

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  It was upon him, its arms raised in a wrestler’s stance. How, the Acolyte wondered, did it know to do that? What sort of mind did it have? Swinging his staff up he poked its end toward the monster’s face. It did not respond but kept moving toward him. He struck it between the eyes and took a step to the side. It turned toward him. He skipped back to where he had started and swung the staff hard at the maremorbo’s head. It made solid contact and the shock nearly staggered him. But it did not stagger the maremorbo, which turned back toward him and reached out its arms to grab him. He took a step back, slipped off the rock and fell.

  His staff dropped from his hands as he raised them to block his fall. He saved his head but one hand landed in the crack between two rocks and twisted with sickening pain. Looking up he saw the monster looming above him, reaching for him. Desperately he hurled his body into a roll and just escaped its grabbing hands. It kept after him, bent over in a crouch, its swollen hands reaching, their jagged nails just missing his leg. He rolled again, but the monster was faster. It grabbed again and caught his left arm, the wounded one, and his vision went dark from the pain. Without thinking he drew his knife with his right hand and lashed out. He felt the knife bite home; sinking deep in the soft, waterlogged flesh of the monster’s arm. And stuck there; unable to retrieve it, he let it go. The maremorbo released its grip on him and let loose another moan as it gazed quizzically at the knife in its arm. The Acolyte rolled away again. Taking a second to get his bearings he saw the cliff edge and scrambled toward it.

  The maremorbo turned and followed. Without weapons, with only one good arm, the Acolyte imagined himself grabbing onto the monster and pulling it over the edge with him, so they might fall to their ends together. He let it come close again, looming over him as he crouched on the ground. Then one of its feet slipped on the uneven rocks, sliding down toward its other leg so its feet were almost touching. He pounced. Kicking his legs forward he scissored them apart so one went on each side of the monster’s legs and brought them together. Then he rolled, hoping to bring the monster toppling down. At first he thought he had failed, that it was too strong, its grip on the earth too solid. But its great ungainly mass was ill-balanced, and after a moment it began to totter. It reached down for the Acolyte’s leg but the motion only unbalanced it more, and it began to fall. Twisting hard, the Acolyte tried to help it. And then it was gone, tumbling down the steep rocky side of the hill, bouncing from rock to rock until it plunged fifty feet through the air and landed with a sickening smack on a shelf of stone.

  The Acolyte retrieved his staff and found a gentler way down the slope. It took some time, but he reached the great pale body lying ruined on the rocks. It was not moving, and it was obvious why: the side of its head had been smashed in, and sea-soaked brains were oozing from its broken skull. Its magic life extinguished, it began to rot just as the ship had. The Acolyte knelt. “Go forth on the sacred wind, oh soul,” he said. “Let it carry you across land and sea, desert and mountain, beyond the oceans to the timeless land of the dead, where there is no pain and no sorrow, where you will rest until the end of days.”

  He pulled his knife from the monster’s arm and started back toward his boat.