He took it down and sat again, holding it carefully, as though it were something alive and potentially dangerous. The girl was caught between wanting to lean forward and want¬ing to scramble away, in case anything might jump out at her. When the stained cloth had been folded back, she stared.

"It's a statue," she said at last, almost disappointed. It was about the size of one of the privy garden's red squirrels sitting up on its hind legs, but there the resemblance to anything ordinary ended: the hooded figure, face almost entirely hidden, was made of cloudchip crystal, gray-white and murky as frost in some places, clear and bright as cathedral glass in others, with col¬ors ranging from the palest blue to pinks like flesh or watered blood. The squat, powerful figure held a shepherd's crook; an owl crouched on its shoulder like a second head. "It's Kernios." She had seen it somewhere be¬fore, and reached out her hand to touch it.

"Don't!" Barrick pulled it back, wrapped the cloth around ii again. "It's… it's bad."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know. I just… I hate it."

She looked at him curiously for a moment, then suddenly remembered. "Oh, no! Barrick, is that… is that the statue from the Erivor Chapel? The one Father Timoid was so angry about when it went missing?"

"When someone stole it. That's what he said, over and over." Barrick flushed, a bold burst of red on his pale cheeks. "He was right."

"Zoria's mercy, did you…?" He did not speak, but that was an answer in itself. "Oh, Barrick, why?"

"I don't know. I told you, I hate it. I hate the way it looks, so blind and quiet, just… thinking. Waiting. And I can feel it all the time, but it's even worse when I'm in the chapel. Can't you feel it?"