It had been a difficult conversation. Tob had, of course, been surprised by the salient facts he had missed, as usual. Yahim was not Yahim, but Yasminna, and now they were shipboard together on their way towards lands where Dolfanc were gathering. It was too late to send her back, and given her explanation, she would not go back even if sent. Tob mulled it over as he climbed through the hatch and into the open night air on the deck of The Northern Star, and walked to the forecastle at the front of the ship.

He found his three gods high off the port bow, and knelt facing them. They looked down on him with their usual inscrutability, and he looked up, hoping for some releif. Aware as he was of the men on deck and in the nest doing the watch of the hour, he kept his voice low - the gods could hear him just fine without shouting.

"Why? Why have you done this to me? I can't. I swear I can't, and you know I can't. I've failed at this task before. I'm not smart enough. I'm not strong enough. How could you give me two more women to protect, and send me with them right into Arleth Trauger's jaws?"

The waves lapped at the ship's hull, and a sail luffed somewhere high up one of the masts. The stars shined mutely down on the Ranger, who felt very small on the gigantic ocean. He felt vulnerable without any forest around him, and with nothing beneath him but an infinite depth of water. He looked down, unable to keep his gaze on the gods on whom he depended, and whom he felt certain he had failed, and would fail again.

Tob thought of Yasminna, and how he had considered her to be a small man called Yahim, but one responsible for his own safety, how he had escorted Mother Aislinn from a safe tavern to a safe temple, while Yahim went alone, intentionally, into situations where if she was discovered the results could be catastrophic, for her, for her country, and possibly for her entire world. If she was the vixen of Janus's dreams, she had to be protected, and Arleth Trauger would want her dead.

Mother Aislinn had Mathern to help look after her - this little Sundar had only good luck to look after her, and Tob found that luck never lasted as long he hoped. It chilled Tob's blood to think of the wharfside taverns she had skulked through, alone. The ship she had garnered passage on, alone, not just this one but the one that left the Sundar's homeland. A wicked man with truer sight than he could be her ruin, and the world seemed full of them.

There were more dangers ahead of them than he could count. There was no protecting this headstrong woman who needed more protection than Tob could offer. He felt the weight of impossible responsibility on his shoulders, and he felt the command of the gods. The gods did not accept refusal, did not offer succor, did not take Tob's duty away from him. Yasminna and Aislin were his charges now, more than even Janus. There were too many people he could lay down his life for, and only one life to divide among them.

In his mind's eye, he could see a wave of roaring dolfanc, crashing over Janus, Yasminna, and Aislinn, and he could not see any way that he could stop it. These three were not Ludd - they could not be sacrificed to keep them from the greedy hands of Arleth Trauger. If Janus's visions were correct, and Tob knew in his ever-certain heart that they were, these three may mean the world, literally.

Tob put his head on the deck, and felt like weeping. "Oh, help."