Dutiful wisely allowed Thick a moment or two to bask in our attention. "Thick has told you most of the story, but let me add a bit. I told you of a great presence. I was — well, not watching — I was experiencing her, or it I suppose, and being slowly drawn closer and closer. It wasn't frightening. I knew it was dangerous, but it was hard to care that I might be absorbed and lost forever. It just didn't seem to matter. Then the presence began to recede. I wanted to pursue it, but at that moment I became aware of something else watching me. And it did not feel so benign. My sensation was that while I'd been contemplating that presence, this other being had crept up on me.

"I looked around and saw that I was at the edge of a milky river, on a very small clay beach. A great forest of immense trees stood at my back. They were taller than towers and shaded the day to dusk. I didn't see anything else at first. Then I noticed a tiny creature, like a lizard, only plumper. It was on the wide leaf of a tree, watching me. Yet once I saw it, it began to grow. Or perhaps I shrank. I'm not sure. The forest grew bigger as well, until when the animal stepped down onto the clay, it was a dragon. Blue and silver, immense and beautiful. And she spoke to me, saying, 'So. You've seen me. Well, I don't care. But you will. You're one of his. Tell me. What do you know of a black dragon?' Then, and this part was very odd, I couldn't find myself. It was as if I had looked at her too hard and forgotten to remember that I existed. And then I decided I would be behind a tree, and I was."

"This doesn't sound like the Skill," Chade interrupted irritably. "It sounds like a dream."

"Exactly. And so I dismissed it when I awoke. I knew I had Skilled briefly, but I thought that then sleep had crept up on me, and all that followed was a dream. So, in this dream, in the odd way that dreams have, Thick was suddenly with me. I didn't know if he had seen the dragon, so I reached for him and told him to be quiet and hide from her. So we were hiding, and she became very angry, I think because she knew we were still there but hiding. Then suddenly Thick was gone. And it startled me so much that I opened my eyes." The Prince shrugged. "I was in my bedroom. I thought it had just been a very vivid dream."