"Jim, come on, Jim, wake up." Simon leaned over his friend, shaking him gently.

"Are you sure he wasn't hit?" Megan asked, glancing at the two men before turning her attention back to where Arguillo's men had been dug in. Had been, being the operative phrase. After Alex's surprise attack on them, the drug lord and his men had apparently decided they'd had enough and disappeared into the jungle, presumably heading back to civilization.

"I can't find any injuries, and I don't think he hit his head when he collapsed." He shook the sentinel again, lightly slapping his face.

With a low moan, Jim opened his eyes. "Simon? What happened?" He sat up slowly, his head pounding. "Sandburg . . . where's Blair?"

Banks leaned back against the tree trunk. "Inside the temple with Alex. They've been in there about 30 minutes. And you . . . passed out after the door shut behind them."

Damn . . . Jim wiped his hand over his face, trying to will his headache away. "Arguillo?"

"Gone," Connor answered, sitting down next to Simon. "What's our next move, Captain?"

Shaking his head, Simon looked at Jim. "It's your call, Ellison. I'm way out of my league here."

"Don't look at me for the answers; this is more Sandburg's area than mine." The sentinel got to his feet, tentatively extending his senses. What he got back was not encouraging. Hearing seemed to be on line, but vision was not. Smell was out too, and touch was, he ran his hand over the rough bark of the tree, kind of iffy. Well, if Sandburg and Alex were in the temple, then they would just have to go in and get them.

Gesturing for them to follow him, Ellison headed for the temple, climbing the crumbling stairs slowly, his gun drawn. Connor and Banks covered him, then moved forward themselves once he'd given the all clear. Reaching the top step, Jim stared at the carving of the eye, knowing it was the key to opening the door. Hesitantly he reached out his hand, letting his fingertips lightly brush over the raised stone. Words in a strange tongue filled his mind, as did visions of primitive warriors. Yanking his hand away as if he'd been burned, he took a step back, staring up at the immense stone structure.

"Jim, you okay?" asked Simon's worried voice.

The sentinel tried to shake off the strange sensation. "No, Simon, I'm not. But I think I understand this place's purpose."

"Enlighten us," Connor said, when Jim didn't elaborate.

Crossing to the stairs, Jim sat down, resting his head in his hands. "This is the ultimate test of Sentinel and Guide. When a pair was determined to be ready to . . . " he searched for the words to translate what he'd seen in his mind. "To be joined . . . they would come here. If they successfully passed the trials within, they would be allowed to see the eye of God."

Simon sighed, wishing desperately for a cigar. "In English, Jim."

Ellison shrugged. "That was the closest I could come to what I saw in my mind."

"But what does it mean?" Megan asked. "Alex is a Sentinel, and Blair is a Guide, does that mean they came here to be 'joined'?"

Jim's jaw muscles clenched. "It's what the temple wants; it's why it called them."

"Then we have to stop them, Jim!" Banks said urgently.

The sentinel shook his head. "We can't."

Blair came awake with a groan. Sleeping on a cold stone floor had done nothing to ease his aches and pains. He hadn't slept too long; the torch was still burning. "Alex?"

"I'm here," she said, her voice drifting back from the shadows. "Just taking a look around." She entered the pool of light cast by the torch. "This place is . . . talking to me. There's some carvings over there, and I can read them!" Her eyes sparkled with excitement.

Getting to his feet, Blair took the torch and followed her to the other side of the space, glancing around with interest. The room they'd entered when the temple door opened seemed to be some kind of foyer, or waiting room. He could make out the deeper shadows of several openings in the other walls, and wondered where they led. He came to a stop in front of the wall with the engravings. The stonework was incredible; he couldn't believe the amount of detail there was in the pictograms.

"Can you read it?" she asked him. He shook his head. Taking his hand, Alex pressed it against the wall. Blair gasped as images flooded his mind. Hundreds of Sentinels and Guides had come here through the millennia, though he knew immediately that they were the first to enter the temple in a long time. It was a maze, he realized, one that could only be navigated by a sentinel/guide pair using their talents together to survive the obstacles the temple would place in their path. At the end of the maze, he could see the goal, a small room with a grotto, two pools holding the sacred water, heated by the energy of mother earth. He had to go there, they had to go there. Pulling his hand way from the warm rock, he looked at her.

Alex's expression was guarded. "Are you sure?" she said hesitantly. "Once we step through that door, there's no going back . . ."

Taking a deep breath, Blair thought back over his life, all the years he'd spent searching for a Sentinel, his elation at finding Jim, his disappointment as that relationship had never matched his expectations, had never become what he'd imagined a Sentinel/Guide pair was capable of. He stared at the carvings again. Now he knew why. Part of it had been him; he hadn't understood what he was. And part of it had been Jim, who wouldn't admit he needed anyone else if his life depended on it. The memory of Jim's harsh words in the bullpen still stung. "I don't need you, or anyone else . . ."

He felt Alex's hand rest gently on his shoulder. She needed him; that was vibrantly clear to him. He turned his head so their eyes met, bringing his hand up to cover hers. "I'm sure." The smile that lit up her face matched his own.

"What do you mean, we can't?" Connor's tone was stunned. This wasn't the Jim Ellison she knew, the one who would move heaven and earth for one Blair Sandburg.

Jim rubbed his temples; the pressure behind his eyes wasn't going away. "Only Sentinels and Guides can enter."

"That's never stopped you before," Simon responded, confused by the sudden change in the ex-army ranger.

Letting out a long sigh, Jim tried to explain what he'd absorbed when he had touched the stone eye. "The door won't open for me, because I don't . . ." He hesitated before voicing his worst fear. "Because I don't have a Guide. And even if I did, we still wouldn't be able to stop them. Once a Sentinel/Guide pair enters the temple, they have to pass the tests to get out. If they don't . . . this temple will be their grave, as it has been for so many others." He got to his feet abruptly. "We may have a long wait. I'm going to see about setting up camp." Descending the stairs, he disappeared into the jungle.

Megan stared at the stone carvings, reaching out her hand to trace the images. To her, they were just rough worn rock, and she pushed at them half-heartedly, a little disappointed when they didn't move. She turned around to face Simon. "Do you think they'll make it, sir?"

The tall man shrugged. "I don't know, Connor. Sandburg's been in worse scrapes than this, but he's always had Jim at his side. Alex is the unknown variable here." He stared out across the clearing. "And I really don't know which will be worse for Jim. To have them make it through, or to have them perish."

Megan had no answer for him.

Alex took a torch from the wall, and lit it from the one Blair carried. "So, which way do we go?" She turned around slowly, examining the five openings in the walls. She pointed out a line of carving. "This says the Guide will follow the path of power, and the Sentinel shall keep them safe."

Blair chewed his lip for a moment, contemplating the ancient riddle. "I think it means I'm supposed to know the way to go. But the 'path of power' . . ." He shrugged. "I don't know."

The Sentinel touched the symbol for Guide in the phrase she had read, then turned back to him. "Didn't you tell me that Chopec guy had called you a Shaman?"

Nodding, he remembered the story he had told during the interminable hours spent driving down the coast. "Yes, Incacha called me the Shaman of the great city." A twinge of regret washed over him. He was leaving everything behind . . . which, he guessed, was the whole point of this place, where Sentinel and Guide ceased to be two individuals and became a single entity.

She pointed at the carving. "That can be translated as 'Shaman' as well as 'Guide'."

Shaman . . . shaman . . . they were in contact with the spirit world, weren't they? As well as the natural world . . . and path of power . . . what did they call those points in the earth? Something to do with magnetismÖley! That was it, ley lines! Lines of power in the earth itself, which shaman and other spiritualists could draw on to help them. Maybe that was what the carvings meant; maybe he was to follow the ley lines through the maze. Okay, that was as good a theory as any, except Blair had no idea what a ley line should look like. He closed his eyes for a moment, letting himself sink into a light meditative state, trying to attune himself to the earth around him. When he finally opened his eyes, he saw a faintly glowing vine leading from where he stood to one of the entrances.

"Oh, wow . . ." he breathed.

"Blair, what is it?"

"I can see the path of power. It's this way." He started toward the door.

Alex stepped in front of him. "Let me check it out. I'm supposed to keep us safe, remember?" Blair nodded and followed as she approached the opening in the wall. Placing a hand on her back, he anchored her as she extended her senses then indicated it was all clear. Taking her hand in his, they stepped into the darkness.

They spent the better part of the next twenty minutes simply walking, changing directions a number of times, always following the ley lines Blair was becoming quite proficient at reading. They paused at another intersection of two corridors to catch their breath. "How's the leg?" Blair asked.

"Stings like a son of a bitch, but I've got it dialed down." She peered intently down both hallways. "I thought there were supposed to be tests. If the gods or whoever are testing to see how easily we get bored, then I'm already there . . ."

Blair giggled. "This kind of reminds me of a really bad game of D&D, where all we did was wander through the dungeon and never found any monsters. Come on, it's this way." He took a step out into the cross hall.

The faintest of scrapes sent Alex barreling after him, shoving him to the ground. "Shit, Alex! What the hell?" Blair had dropped the torch, but it still blazed. Glancing back over his shoulder, Blair could see a nasty array of sharp spikes occupying the space he'd been forced to vacate. "Oh . . . damn . . ." he whispered. "Alex, you okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. Just crawl out from under these things okay?"

Blair did as he was told, getting to his feet shakily once he was beyond the trap, giving her a hand up. Picking up the torch, he said, "Guess that was a reminder, huh?"

She nodded. "Let me go first from now on, okay?"

"You won't get any arguments from me," he replied, and they headed down the stone passageway, much more carefully than before.

Once again they wandered the small cramped corridors, a multitude of chambers and side halls beckoning, but Blair wasn't fooled. The ley line clearly marked the only safe passage, and neither he nor Alex had any desire to stray from the path, despite the interesting carvings and artifacts they glimpsed tucked away in the little rooms. It didn't hurt that along with the treasures were the bones of Sentinels and Guides who had been unable to resist the temptations.

After the third such warning, Blair leaned against the wall just past the doorway, his face pale. "Blair?" Alex took the torch from him, and set it in one of the wall notches that were conveniently scattered throughout the temple. "You okay?" Her hand went to his forehead. "You're not running a fever anymore . . ."

He looked into her concerned eyes. "What if we die here? I mean, what have we got that these other pairs didn't? We've only been working together for . . ." he counted on his fingers, "six days." He jerked his head in the direction of the room. "They probably had years together before they came here, and yet they failed . . . I mean, I really don't have anything to go back to, but I'm not ready to die yet . . ."

Brushing his tangled curls out of his face, Alex moved closer to him. "I'm not ready to die yet, either. And I trust you to lead us out of here." The grim expression on Blair's face changed to shocked surprise. "Ever since that night in the motel room, since the moment you discovered what you are, what we are together, I've put my trust in you. I've given up everything I am, the life I used to lead, the things I used to want, to follow you. And if that means wandering through an old temple dodging danger and looking for the eye of god, well, then, that's what I'm going to do."

Blair had trouble swallowing past the lump in his throat. She thought that much of him? She was putting her life in his hands, his shaking hands. "I . . . I don't know what to say, Alex. I . . . no one's ever really . . . believed in me before."

Tilting her head down, she leaned her forehead against his. "I believe in you. Now you gonna lead us out of here, or are we just gonna stand here the rest of our lives?" Taking a step back, she held out her hand to him. Grasping it with his own, he lifted the torch down, centered himself, and started down the hallway, the ley line clearly visible in his mind's eye.

A few minutes later, they came to the end of the line. The hallway they were following deadended at a chasm so wide Blair couldn't see the other side. He peered carefully over the edge. He couldn't see the bottom either. His heart pounding, he backed up rapidly.

"What's the matter?" Alex followed him.

"What do you mean 'what's the matter'? Didn't you see the great big hole there?" He tried to keep from hyperventilating. "Heights, why did it have to be heights?"

She glanced behind her, then turned back to him, her expression puzzled. "What hole?"

Blair looked past her. The pit was still there. "There's a great big hole in the floor; it's so wide I can't see across."

Frowning in confusion, Alex said, "Blair, there's no hole there. The hallway just goes on a little ways, and then there's a door at the end." His expression told her he wasn't convinced. "Look, I'll walk down there and show you it's okay."

"No! Alex!" He lunged after her, but was too late. She walked past the edge of the chasm and . . . nothing happened.

Turning around to face him, she said, "See? There's nothing to be afraid of. It's perfectly safe."

Blair shuddered. She was standing on thin air. "Huh uh. I'm not going out there . . ."

She held out her hand to him. "Blair, which way does the path lead? Toward me?" He checked, then nodded slowly. "Then you have to trust me. Give me your hand."

He took a small step forward. If you believe you'll be okay, you'll be okay. Don't look down. He reached out toward her, feeling her strong fingers wrap around his. Closing his eyes, he stepped off into space . . . and didn't fall. Keeping his eyes squeezed tightly shut, he followed her, a death-grip on her hand.

Finally he felt her come to a stop. "You can open your eyes now."

Blair did as he was told, gasping as he realized where they were. They'd made it, they were in the grotto. Turning around slowly, he took in the two pools of water, the markings on the wall, and several shelves carved into the stone, each one holding a number of sealed jars and urns. Taking the torch from him, Alex lit the other ones scattered around the room. When she came to the wall with the inscription, she stopped to read it, then turned back to him. "This is the ritual, the rite of joining . . ."

He moved to stand beside her. "I know." And he did. It was as if walking into the room had awakened memories he didn't know he had. Walking over to the jars, he began selecting certain ones, along with some empty clay bowls. Alex followed him, choosing containers from a different shelf. There was silence between them for nearly half an hour as each of them bent to their tasks, Alex opening bottle after bottle, sniffing and tasting the contents carefully before she measured them out, mixing the ingredients with water she drew from the pool.

Blair, too, mixed the powders he found in the urns with water, filling several bowls with brightly colored paint. When he finished, he leaned over one of the pools, using the reflection in the water to draw the markings of a shaman on his face. Stripping out of his dirty, sweaty clothes, he continued to paint the mystical symbols on his skin, until he was covered in the twisting, curling runes.

Moving to Alex's side, Blair began to work on her, words from a forgotten language falling from his tongue. Using his fingers as a paintbrush, he drew the stripes of a warrior on her face, and the symbol of her spirit animal, the jaguar, on her back. She returned the favor, outlining a wolf in blue paint over his spine. Together they finished the job, covering her body with the markings of the Sentinels.

Raising the bowl containing the drink she had created, they chanted, asking the ancient ones for strength, for wisdom, for belief and trust. Blair held the bowl as she drank, and she did the same for him. They moved apart then, sliding into the warm embrace of the water, the two pools symbolizing the separate paths they had to travel before becoming one.

Blair relaxed in the water, feeling his spirit float free of his body, and with a rush, he was traveling back through his life. Moments from his childhood flashed before him, turning rapidly into his college years. The images didn't slow until he came to Jim. He saw the big detective slamming him against the wall, then just as quickly, he was shoving the sentinel to the ground as a garbage truck roared by overhead. On and on the memories raced, the good equaling the bad, but never overcoming it, the scales forever remaining static. And then there was Alex . . . his excitement at finding another Sentinel, his despair at discovering she was a criminal. The night he'd discovered his own calling was followed by her declaration of earlier that day, of giving up everything she was for the promise of a new life with him. He knew without a doubt the next vision was of the future. He was walking on a beach with Alex, his arm around her waist, and they were laughing together. She pressed his hand to her stomach, and he felt the flutters of another life growing within. The scene shifted to a hospital, and he held their daughter in his arms, handing her carefully to an exhausted, but smiling Alex.

His spirit re-entered his body then, and he gulped in air, flailing for one panicked moment in the pool. Awareness of where and when he was returned to him, and he clung to the stone ledge, turning his anxious gaze on Alex. She, too, started as she came back to herself, and splashed water out of the pool.

Her blue eyes met his, and she crawled out of the pool, kneeling on the stone path between them, waiting as he did the same. She held her hands out to him and he grasped them with his own, palms touching, fingers interlocking.

Wolf running through the jungle, toward a spotted jaguar. Both animals leaping into the air, colliding, combining in a burst of brilliant light, the eye of god.

When the light faded, Blair was back in the temple, in front of his Sentinel, knowing that their joining went far deeper than their clasped hands. "Alex . . ."

"Drea," she answered automatically.

Blair smiled at her. A new name for a new beginning. Cradling her face in his hands, he leaned forward, his lips on hers sealing their commitment with a promise of the future.

Blair awoke slowly, silently cataloging the sensations he was feeling before he opened his eyes. He was comfortably warm, and the rush- covered ground beneath his body, though not as soft as he would have liked, was tolerable. He stretched, slightly surprised when his injured side didn't protest, then he remembered one of the unexpected side effects of the joining had been healing. Both his and Alex's wounds had vanished the instant they had joined hands. Alex . . . no, Drea, he thought, and his arm tightened instinctively around the body curled up next to him.

She made a contented little noise, and moved closer to him, her cheek rubbing against his shoulder. Blair opened his eyes, taking in the still burning torches, the twin pools of water, and the remains of their paint and drink mixtures. They would have to clean up before they left, he thought. He gazed at her, a mixture of emotions flowing through him at the sight of her vulnerable, naked body, the lines of paint smeared and blurred by their time in the water, and their exertions of the night, if it had been night, before.

He would have been content to lie there a while longer, but his stomach growled, and he realized he couldn't remember the last time they'd eaten. Rolling onto his side, he leaned over her, nuzzling her cheek before whispering in her ear. "Drea, wake up. We need to get going."

"Mmmm . . ." She turned onto her back, opening her eyes to find her mouth inches from his. A hand in his tangled mass of hair tugged him down toward her, and she brushed her lips lightly against his, nibbling, tasting, teasing her Guide, feeling him respond to her touch. His hand traced lightly down her side, over her hip, and up the back of her thigh. With a long sigh, she moved away from him, to the pile of clothes she'd discarded the night before, and began getting dressed.

He followed her, pulling his own things on, then rinsing out the bowls they'd used and placing them, and the jars of ingredients, back on the shelves. Snuffing all but one of the torches, he joined her at the room's only door. "I wonder if it will take as long to get to the exit as it did to get here."

Drea shrugged, then stepped through the opening, with Blair right behind her. She came to a stop so suddenly he ran into her back. "This is too weird . . ." he finally managed, gazing around the room. It was the foyer, the place they'd started on their journey. Everything was just as they'd left it, their backpacks leaning against the far wall.

"This whole trip has been strange," she said, shouldering her pack, and handing his to him. "I really wanna get out of here."

Blair stuck the torch in the holder he'd taken it from when they had first entered the temple, then, joining hands with her, they pressed their palms against the small eye symbol scratched into the wall. The door slid open silently, and they walked into the gray shadows of a predawn morning.

Simon Banks shivered slightly, and pulled the lightweight blanket closer around him. Whoever said the jungle was hot obviously had never spent the night there. Yawning, he stared at the remains of the fire, wondering how long it was until dawn. He must have dozed off, because when he opened his eyes again, he knew he was dreaming.

Two warriors stood in the center of the camp, both of them nearly the same height, but there the resemblance ended. One had light hair, pulled back tightly in a braid, his . . . no, her, face tiger striped. She appeared to be standing lookout, as the other one set something down close to where Jim still slept. The second warrior was dark where the other was light, his long hair hanging loose, framing a face painted in a vaguely lupine design.

Their images were blurry without his glasses, and Simon blinked, trying to focus more clearly. When he opened his eyes again, the warriors were gone, but he glimpsed a patch of gold and black fur, and a streak of silver disappearing into the trees. Again he blinked, and this time his eyes remained closed, as he dropped back into a heavy sleep.

Jim Ellison was dreaming. He was running through the jungle, chasing after something, some animal that stayed just a few steps ahead of him. Breaking out of the underbrush, he entered a clearing, the temple of the Sentinels rising ominously from the center of the glade. Notching an arrow to his bow, he proceeded cautiously, the hair on the back of his neck raising.

The figure of a wolf appeared at the top of the temple steps. Jim expected it to run at the sight of the Sentinel, but the wolf simply sat on his haunches and waited as Jim climbed the stairs.

A few steps away from the animal, Ellison stopped, laying down his weapon, and holding out his hand in supplication. The wolf whined sharply in its throat, then rose to its feet, shaking its head slowly. Turning its back on Jim, it walked away, vanishing into the forest. A few seconds later, the wolf's keening howl split the air, followed by the coughing scream of a jaguar. And for the first time in nearly four years, James Ellison was truly alone.

He awoke with a gasp, his heart racing. Automatically, he reached out with his senses, searching for the stimulus that had disturbed his rest. Within seconds he knew what had changed; his Sentinel abilities were gone.

Ellison sat up slowly, his movements knocking over a backpack sitting on the ground next to him. Reaching for it, he pulled it into his lap, unzipping the bag. Inside was the container of nerve gas. Leaping to his feet, he scanned the area, but found no trace of his friend, his partner, his . . . No, Blair was no longer his guide. He belonged to Alex now . . .

Stumbling to a fallen log, he sat down heavily, leaning his head in his hands. Blair was gone, truly gone. Nothing Jim could do, nothing he could say, no apology was going to bring him back. And with his disappearance, Jim had gotten what he'd always said he'd wanted. He was just like everyone else now, he was normal.

Somehow, that hardly seemed like a fair trade. He sat there for a long time, watching the sun rise over the forest through tear-blurred eyes.

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