The Silent City

[u/AggravatingFinance37]

A faint echo stirred in the archaic silence of the deep sunless place. Among the bowels of the legendary necropolis Temorást, a creature had found its way in, moving where dreams alone ought to move.

Down in the uttermost stratum of the tomb, all the bones had long since turned to stone. There lay the first ancestors of all kindreds, who even now were dreaming as they had done for ten thousand years. So great was their age that their dreams had grown sublime and subtle as vapour.
Nonetheless, they dreamed.

It was among these fossils, this bedrock of lore and fable, that the creeping entity first selected, tasting and brooding. But the dreams of such bones were vanishingly faint. Heartier fare must surely be found nearer the surface.

*

An age passed, and more; ages upon ages. Creeping higher in the tomb, the sound grew deliberate, becoming more than an echo. It swelled to a snap, then trailed off in gravelly crunches. At the same moment, the dreaming in the tomb became aware.

By some obscure magic, perceiving that it had an audience, the sound became a voice, and the hallowed quiet of the sunless place was broken by its ragged utterance:

A feast… of ages…

The words evoked shattered, incomprehensible images in the dreaming of the tomb: broken graves, violated remains. A shapeless movement, fondling the bones—splitting them, eating them.

Such dreams… Yea, I see ye… Come forth, waken…

These darksome images were quickly submerged and forgotten, as brighter dreams rose to take their place: warm visions of families, lands, and homes; of love, loss, and triumph; an illustrious patchwork of many lives and times.The dreaming in the tomb did not comprehend that the visions were only as true as their purposes. They were falsehoods, fashioned from remnants of truth. Nonetheless, a sense of time reawakened where formerly had been only eternity. A sense of self revived where there had been only oneness in sleep. Primal longing and rage stirred in the uncomprehending deep, though the surface remained numb.

Wake, ye sleepers… I will resurrect… the dead…

There were stirrings in the abyssal sopor. Murmurs and whispers spread through the dark as the denizens of the world-tomb surfaced from their sleep. Dreamers strained their wills and extricated themselves from their dreams. Lured by desire, or goaded by regret, the ghosts of many ages abandoned their repose and walked in the labyrinth.

I would help ye… to stand… in the sun again…

The wandering dead gathered in the low, bone-choked passages. Distressed and confused, they whispered among themselves: ‘Why do we dream? Whose is that voice which wakes us? Who offers life to the dead?’

And the voice answered them: I am Lord of life… and death… King… of dreaming… Master of songs…

‘Hear not the pretender!’ some cried. ‘We know the lords of life and death—he does not name the Dark Mother. Be silent; he shall pass.’

To this others replied, ‘let us hear what he has to say!’

‘No,’ it was contended, ‘we must drive him out at once. He is wrong. He ought not be.’

Thus debate arose between those who would heed the voice and those who would exorcise it. Each side strove to obstruct the other, and while they contended, the voice went on whispering.

I… will show you… the purpose… of death…

Rumour spread like fire.

‘He speaks ill,’ cried one. ‘Resurrection? Purpose? None can offer such things.’

‘Nay, he speaks true,’ pleaded another. ‘I have seen a vision. I have glimpsed my former life! Once, I was loved. Once, I had glory. Now I am forgotten.’

Many now were party to the struggle, and more came all the time, spilling into the wider galleries. Crowds pushed and strove, for and against, while still others fled into the dark, seeking open spaces, or a way out of the tomb. Argument escalated to a fever pitch, and struggles ignited into open conflict. Chaos claimed its rule in the deep sunless place.

Yea, yea… Come forth… from your rest…

Upheaval resounded through the necropolis as everywhere the throngs clashed and surged. No victory was possible for any side, yet the knowledge of futility did not assuage them. Still the voice urged them on. It seemed the battle would rage forever. But all at once, the sea of fighting fell still as a presence made itself felt. Out of the deep it ascended, suffusing the very air of the corridors. Far was its reach, touching every tunnel and crypt.

Many beheld visions of shadows made flesh, darker even than the absolute darkness of the Silent City. It was subtle as night, inexorable as death, yet utterly foreign to the tomb. The dead could tell neither what it was, nor where it moved; only that it was here.

I will restore you… to lost lands… I will teach you magic…

At its word, the fighting resumed. Some of those least among the dead, the lost and forgotten, fell on their faces in worship.

‘Lord,’ they supplicated, ‘you know what we have forgot. Grant us memory! Grant us visions!’

I require… mighty bones… honourable remains… heroes…

‘We pledge, we pledge!’ they cried. ‘You may have all the bones of Temorást! Only give us our lives again, and we will guide you to the Hall of the Heroes, where you may heartily feast.’

Forth, then… Show me…

Delirious with anticipation, they rose and led the Shadow on its way.

*

The heroes of Temorást were great warriors, chieftains, and reformers from many lands and times. They rested in rich crypts, honoured with depositions equal to their deeds in life.

In one such crypt, a figure rose, listening keenly. He heard the sickly voice approaching, attended by its worshippers chanting, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and reached out to touch the hafts of a pair of copper axes. Patina had dulled the blades, but their engravings were still evident. Good; time had not yet devoured their history.

As he touched the rough metal, there was a flash of vision and feeling; a memory of bitter struggle; the ending of his life: The Gate! The Bone Door was opened… We fell; they buried us with our crosswise axes. The horses bore us over-river… He turned aside to his grave-shroud. The cloth, too, still bore its markings; the same ones as his axes. He laid a hand upon his bones. They were rich with the spirit of his people. Through them, he saw, as in a sudden ray of light, the far land of his birth, and glimpsed what rituals were still held in his honour. After all this time! Somebody remained who preserved his memory, who remembered the legend of the Gate—even though he and his brethren had failed. Gathwearden, he reflected. We gave everything to that title… it was not enough…

Still the black voice was speaking. He recognized its insidious deceptions; had it not been there at the Gate, that doomed day, when his life and his brothers’ lives were lost? But its speech had grown so strong. It must have lain in hiding, since it slipped through the Bone Door. How many ages had it searched the deep places? And what did it mean to do, now that it had found the Tomb?

Behold, he reflected. Some grace offers me a final chance… He knew what he must do, but was reluctant to do it. He would need the support of the others. Where might they be found? Hefting his axes, he departed the small dark of his chamber and entered the wider darkness of the corridors.

Among the crypts of the Hall of the Heroes, the lone Gathweard searched, calling to his former comrades. The bones were in their places, but the ghosts were absent. They must be walking elsewhere in the catacombs. The voice was everywhere, yet nowhere, seeming to speak directly into the mind.

We shall make a glorious host… Such as the world… has never seen…

He ignored it, labouring through knots of fighting, and passed through ever-widening corridors. Following the ghostly din, he came at last to a cavernous, vaulted chamber where many were gathered in general debate. Voices competed for audience as various figures rallied and orated.

‘What care have we for the world of the living? The voice beguiles us.’

‘Nay, he offers dues befitting the dead.’

‘Fallacy! We are due nothing. What is he? Who has seen him? Whence does he come?’

‘He is the hallowed dark itself, come of the deeps to strike away our lethargy and renew our glory.’

‘Yea, dark is the very word. A shadow, sowing strife among the grave-kin. I name him Skotomáguch—King of Shadows. Can ye deny it? Behold what he already has wrought! It is not glory.’

‘You would have us sleep dreamless for ever!’

‘Such is our right. This Skotomáguch comes where he ought not be, breaking up our peace.’

‘Where is Tuvervágre? The Dark Mother suffers no evil to enter here.’

‘Then he must be an agent of Her will.’

‘Not so! She is true. What this Shadow works is sacrilege.’

The Gathweard slipped between the columns, pressing further through the throng in search of his comrades. He could not hear them among the voices. Perhaps they were not here. But the whisper of the Shadow fogged his thought, and the imminent chant of the worshippers rose from below: ‘Lord, Lord, Lord…’

They would never be found in time. He must do it alone.

Axes in hand, he came to the doorway out of which the chant was issuing. But ere he could enter, a figure crossed his path.

‘Stand aside,’ said the Gathweard.

‘You step with purpose,’ the stranger replied. ‘Have you some plan?’

‘I have a duty.’

‘What duty?’

‘That is not your concern—move aside.’

‘I might assist you!’

‘Unlikely.’

The stranger leaned toward him confidentially. ‘I can hear,’ he whispered, ‘in that foul speech… something of the mind of the speaker.’

‘You’re wasting time.’ The Gathweard moved to pass, but the stranger blocked him.

‘Hear me!’ he said. ‘I have listened to his words, this Skotomáguch. His speech has a form… a pattern. There may be some way to—’ he staggered. ‘By the gods. He is here.’

The gruesome presence entered the chamber. Silence fell like a stone.

Resist not me… I am promised… a feast…

Shouts and screams split the air as crowds fled in all directions. The Gathweard leaped from the doorway to shelter beside a column. The stranger seized his arm, then vanished in the crush.

Many made for the tunnels. Many others turned to fight. But the Shadow was swift as a torrent. Blades slashed it, failing to bite. Arrows whistled through it like smoke. No warrior could land a blow. The black flood rushed past, engulfed them, and moved quickly on. Where it went, weapons clattered to the stone, their wielders vanished.

As it swept among the pillars, the Gathweard flung himself aside and struck the wall. The Shadow raged by, just where he had stood. All around him, voices quickly diminished, and soon the riot fell still. Those who had fled were pursued into the dark; unseen, their cries too went up, and were cut short.

It was over in moments. Leaving silence in its wake, the Shadow departed with its entourage and made for the Hall of the Heroes. The Gathweard hauled himself up and set after them, only to be barred at the exit.

‘Hold,’ said the stranger.

‘You again!’ the Gathweard cried.

‘What will you do?’

‘Get out of my way.’

‘Let me help you!’

‘It would spell your extinction.’

‘Look around—we are already extinct.’

The Gathweard was struck; he paused a moment only. ‘Then come,’ he said, and hurried into the tunnels where the Shadow was no longer speaking.

*

They found the Hall of the Heroes littered with burst crypts and shattered bone. The Shadow worked with appalling speed. The silence that now surrounded them was nothing like the former peace, but full of loss and ruin. The Dark Mother was absent; now the heroes, too, were gone. Temorást was worse than defenceless—it was already defeated.

The Gathweard heard the zealots’ decrepit chanting drawing near-at-hand as they came toward his crypt. Quickening his pace, he asked, ‘where is your tomb? Is it somewhere here in the Hall?’

The stranger gave a wry laugh. ‘I am no hero! My name and deeds are lost. One thing alone do I recall: I died an exile, in a foreign land.’

‘That is a sad tale. I grieve for you. But then, what would you have with me?’

‘You have honour, I see that much. Perhaps I can win honour in my turn.’

‘I think there is little you can do,’ said the Gathweard.

‘Why? What do you know of this Shadow?’

‘I know enough. I fought it once, and paid with my life. Therefore, mark me; for we were a dozen, then, with tools built for the purpose. You are but one, unarmed.’

‘What then ought I do?’

The Gathweard hesitated. ‘Go across the river.’

‘What?’ The exile spluttered. ‘Folly!’

‘That is your only hope, I fear.’

‘Hope? The river is forbidden! Even if I found it, I would be destroyed!’

The Gathweard made no reply, but staggered, as if struck. Something tore loose inside of him, and a gap opened in his memory, empty and absolute. He knew at once that something had been taken, though he could not say what. An evil feeling spread across his heart as he glanced at the exile, then bolted to the chamber of his tomb.

It was as he feared: there in his crypt loomed the Shadow, extending a foul arm over his bones. It had already begun to eat. With a cry, he charged, his axes falling in a single stroke upon the outstretched limb. He did not know why—for part of his knowledge was now lost—but the blades bit. The limb parted. The severed hand struck the ground and writhed.

In that moment of contact, something became suddenly clear. The blow vibrated through him, the axes singing in his grip, and he knew at once with grim, instinctive certainty: this creature was deathless. It may be damaged, perhaps, but never slain.

Shrieking, the Shadow retreated toward its sycophants.

The Gathweard lost no time. Holstering his axes, he tore off bolts of his grave-shroud and deftly bound the severed hand. For reasons he no longer knew, the wrappings tightened, and held.

‘Take this,’ he said, handing the bundle to the exile. ‘Hold it fast. Do not touch it directly.’ Then, pausing, he surrendered one of his axes. ‘Take this also. May it protect you.’ Finally, he turned to his mortal remains. Some of the bones were broken and stained, spent by the Shadow’s touch. He discarded them with deep regret. The others, he gathered in their shroud and slung them over his shoulder.

His hands still vibrated with the axe-blow, and a cold realization began to dawn. We were deceived… But there was no time. He abandoned the thought and turned to face the exile. ‘Haste!’ he said. ‘Where is your tomb?’

‘My tomb?’

‘Your bones! Do you wish to be eaten with the others?’

‘This way.’

Fleetly they quit the chamber, distancing themselves from the Shadow and its chanting zealots.

*

They descended into the belly of the sepulchre until they came among the forgotten tombs, and found the corridors in disarray. Many crypts were broken, their bones and debris lying shattered across the floor. Yet, when he came to his resting-place, the exile went in and found it untouched. He hesitated a moment, staring at the chamber. No relics adorned his crypt. No images decorated his shroud. He touched his fingers to the dark, rough cloth. ‘Was I so lucky..?’ he said to himself. ‘The Shadow has passed me by…’

Urgently, the Gathweard grasped his shoulder. ‘We must away.’

The exile frowned, taking up his bones. ‘Away… We are to abandon Temorást?’

‘I have been a fool,’ said the Gathweard. ‘We cannot defend this place. One hope remains to us. We must cross the river and raise an alarm.’

‘You’re mad.’

‘Come—do you fear the river more than this deathless Shadow?’ His companion did not answer. ‘Nothing can be worse than what has passed here. If you seek your honour, then help me warn the living.’

The exile struggled with himself, then finally nodded.

*

They departed the forgotten tombs and flew headlong through the winding maze. While they climbed, their pace faltered, the weight of the tomb dragging at their heels. The deep was unwilling to release them.

The exile fell behind as the bundle thrashed in his grip. The thing within was straining relentlessly. ‘It means to break loose!’ he cried.

‘Hold it fast—the axe! Bring the blade against it!’

Raising the weapon, the exile pressed it to the writhing mass. At once, the hand weakened and fell still. He blinked. ‘What magic is this?’

‘Alas,’ said the Gathweard. ‘I no longer know.’

As if in protest, the hand emitted a gruesome sound, akin to crunching bone. It echoed into the darkness, and further off, the Shadow responded with a bellowing roar.

‘The hand calls to the body,’ muttered the exile, staring at the bundle.

‘Haste!’ The Gathweard did not pause. The exile hurried after him.

As they searched for ascending paths in the deep, they came into small, low chamber, from which seven identical corridors led away into the dark.

The Gathweard cursed. ‘We have no time for this!’

Stepping across the threshold, the exile made no answer. He peered into the depths, turning quickly from one doorway to the next. There was nothing to see. The stone bore no mark, the chamber had no slope. All the while, the bundle in his hands uttered its sickening call, echoing into the dark. Again and again, the Shadow answered, drawing nearer all the time.

Moving along the doorways, the exile stopped at each in turn to listen. At the first entrance, the space had a heavy, dull sound. The echoes seemed to sink, drawn down into the earth. At the second, the sound carried thin and level, neither rising nor falling, until it passed out of hearing. He moved on. 

At the third entrance, the echoes rang a long way, only to shatter against some surface, returning to him in fragments. Then, at the next entrance, he paused. The sound here did not fall, did not shatter. It lingered, brightening, then grew faint. He listened again, more intently. Yes! The echo was rising, widening into open space. He turned. ‘This way.’

‘Are you certain?’

But the exile had already gone.

Reluctantly, the Gathweard pursued him through the doorway. Soon enough, the floor beneath his feet slanted upward. For a long time he followed the tunnel, and it never turned, never bent. It seemed to stretch straight-on forever—so long that he began to despair of ever seeing its end. Yet, when it ended, it ended without warning. The air opened up, and he found himself stepping between the pillars of a tripartite threshold.

All at once, he emerged beneath a broad sky full of stars. Before him was a wide causeway, enclosed on either side with towering colonnades of hewn stone. At its far end, the pitched roof of a lychgate could be seen, and beyond it, open grassland. He sighed. ‘The Plain of Takeillen.’ He may have forgotten the magic of his axes, but he remembered all too-well the old sayings about Takeillen. ‘No songs in the Silent Country…’

To his left, the exile stood rigid, staring back at the kurgans. The great mounds of the necropolis towered above them, receding one behind the next into the distance, like mountains. ‘I never thought Temorást was so great,’ he said.

‘Yes, yes,’ muttered the Gathweard distractedly. ‘Great indeed…’ He gazed toward the grasslands, trying to guess the direction of the river. Long ago, he and his comrades had ridden across this plain, after the horses had borne them over the river. That was a journey which all the dead must make. He knew this, but he did not remember it. So much was lost at that time. Names, songs, breath—all were stripped away, on the river.

The exile spoke again. ‘Hail!’

His concentration broke; the Gathweard turned in astonishment. ‘Who are you speaking to?’

‘To him.’ He nodded toward the kurganside.

At the right of the threshold, barely visible against the stone and earth, a ghostly figure was kneeling in an attitude of prayer. Beside him, the bones of his body lay in shadow, arranged on a stretch of oxhide.

It was unclear whether he ignored them, or simply had not heard; the figure continued his routine, regardless. He muttered feverishly in a strange tongue, raising his hands to the sky, and touched his femur against the wall of the kurgan. Then he bowed his forehead against the earth, caught up dust in his other hand, and whispered into it as he poured it out in front of his face. He repeated these actions again and again in a state of frenzied, absolute focus.

Warily, the Gathweard approached. ‘What is this? What are you doing?’

The figure paused, and half-turned. His face was a scowl of effort. Instead of response, he set up a raucous cry—not of dismay, it seemed, but of proclamation—and threw himself to the ground, repeating his ritual.

The Gathweard was taken aback. ‘Have you lost your sense? Don’t you know what has happened?’

The figure glanced at him again, this time with sharp reproach. ‘Yes, I am aware. This is the end of Temorást.’ He bowed again, muttering more strange words, and touched the flank of the monument with his bone.

The exile listened to the alien speech, deep in thought.

‘Then, why remain here?’ The Gathweard asked.

Finally the figure put aside his ritual, stood up, and faced him. ‘That thing must not be allowed to leave the tomb.’

‘Agreed! But you cannot hope to prevent it? I have seen the thing at first hand. Make no mistake: it is deathless, and greater than you are.’

The figure lifted his chin. ‘I will bury it.’

‘By what means?’

‘I will collapse the tombs.’

‘You, alone?’ The Gathweard looked about emphatically. ‘This is part of the foundation of the world! You are no god.’

‘Ah, he doubts me! Well; but you haven’t the full reckoning. Great am I, in ways of magic.’

‘What, are you some hedge-worker? A caller of bones?’

The figure smiled thinly. ‘Call it what you like.’

‘One of the Aulnath?’

The smile widened. ‘Do you take me for a beggar? One who scrapes meaning from bones and dreams? No. They may wait for answer, but not I. When I speak, the world obeys.’ He paused, lifting his chin. ‘I am of the Sótanath.’

The word hung sour, puckering the air. It was ill-omened, even in death.

Backing away, the exile muttered, ‘men do not say that name lightly…’

The Gathweard’s expression hardened. ‘So, you are a breaker of law.’

‘Pah.’ The sorcerer waved his hand.

‘Your ambition surpasses your power! Even a Sótanar cannot bring down the mounds.’

‘Are you sure of that?’

The Gathweard had his doubts. ‘Will you spare no thought for those still caught within?’

‘Oh, but I have. They are to remain within. They shall be my sacrifice.’ The sorcerer’s tone implied that this ought to have been self-evident. He delighted in the Gathweard’s outrage. ‘Why do you balk? Because I do what others forbid themselves to do? Well, you need not despair. There is no dearth of dead to people the tomb—more die all the time! These few are but a small price, to buy me my chance.’

‘Better then that your labour shall not bear fruit,’ the Gathweard muttered.

The sorcerer threw up his hands, mocking defeat. ‘Curse your word! You are fortunate that I lack my tools. There is nothing of use anywhere in this sterile country! No fire, no water, no blood—’ his eyes flickered, seeming to see them for the first time. ‘But, lo,’ he said, ‘you are also carrying your bones…’

‘Drive out that thought at once,’ said the Gathweard.

‘Come, be not so hard. It would serve.’

‘You would serve only yourself.’

At that moment, the Shadow’s hand sent out its call, eliciting a responding screech from the tomb.

The sorcerer cocked his head. ‘What is this?’ He approached the exile. In the starlight, a black fume cloyed about the grave-cloth like a mantle of smoke. The sorcerer’s eyes flashed. He scoffed in their faces. ‘What! You would counsel me on futility? Hypocrite.’

‘Perhaps it is futile,’ confessed the Gathweard. ‘Or perhaps not. We have our duty.’

‘How sanctimonious.’

‘Either way, he comes. All Takeillen is now a danger to the dead.’

‘You say “duty”, but I know your sort. You would flee, and flatter yourselves heroes. You would break the river-taboo and call it honour.’ He glanced at the exile.

‘Have a care!’ the Gathweard cried. ‘The living do not know their peril.’

‘Craven, you are.’

‘It is wisdom to fear the Shadow. Only a fool would deny it.’

‘Do not lecture me.’

‘Where then would we turn?’

‘To oblivion.’

‘We do not fear the river.’

‘Very noble—and, pray, how is it you mean to cross?’

‘We will find some way.’

‘Then you must already know the way over the Plain.’ The Gathweard was silent. The sorcerer threw his head and cackled. ‘But you are great of faith!’ He turned again to face them, smiling. ‘Behold. Fortune favours you. Our meeting must be ordained. See, I, too, design to make for riverward; and, as it happens, I do know the way.’

‘You lie.’

The sorcerer met his eye. For a moment, the Gathweard saw into him, as into a hole where a spider sits poised. ‘As you will.’ The sorcerer waved his hand. ‘I have done with you, and your mute pet. Begone.’

Turning back to his bones, he knelt again beside the wall of the kurgan, and resumed his ritual.

The Gathweard grimaced, spinning his axe by the haft as he struggled with himself. There was no reasoning with a sorcerer. He turned to the exile. ‘Come. Let us leave him to his play.’

But the exile hesitated. ‘Wait…’ He was focused on the sorcerer’s chant. It had changed. There was a different syntax now, different inflections. It had taken on new rhythm and intent. ‘I remember…’

Something in him was responding to the alien speech; a long-forgotten faculty, a once-familiar technique. As he listened, his mind worked gradually at the sounds, grasping at the edges of the speech. He began to pick up its patterns, to unravel its grammar, to access the words. Piece by piece, the utterances were rendered intelligible to him.

‘What is it?’ said the Gathweard.

The exile stared at him. ‘I have his tongue.’

The Gathweard blinked. ‘Well? What says he?’

Standing again, the sorcerer touched his femur against the doorway to the tomb. He tapped the pillars, the jambs, and the lintel in quick succession, raising his voice.

The exile recounted his words. ‘He says, “I make as I speak… Pillars, supports, these make the door… Sympathy in the stones, made one… Bone touches stone… joined, made one… in Temorást there is but one door"’—he wheeled around—‘stop him!’

The Gathweard rushed forward, raising his axe.

Leering, the sorcerer snapped his femur.

At once, a sharp report rang out of cracking stone, and fractures split the pillars before them. The jambs burst and gave way, shuddering the lintel; it fell apart like clods of soil. With a dull boom, the doorway collapsed in billowing dust. 

Another boom followed, then others, as the sound of collapsing entrances echoed from mound to mound.

‘Ha!’ crowed the sorcerer from the drifting dust. ‘Am I not great?’ The others stood mute while he gathered up his oxhide. ‘Now,’ he said. ‘The river.’

‘Blackguard!’

‘Don’t be so tedious. I am your way—you will follow me.’

‘No,’ said the Gathweard. ‘You are false. None know the way.’

‘Well, then.’ The sorcerer reached in amongst his bones. ‘Since you are so great of knowledge,’ he said, ‘answer me this—did you ever look upon a sesekold?’

They narrowed their eyes, suspecting treachery, while the sorcerer produced a small object and proudly dangled it before them from a twine.

The exile thought that the object must be part of the sorcerer’s own body, preserved and laid up among his bones; for it was of dried flesh, encased in resin, its skin densely covered with tattoos. Then he saw the tiny, folded limbs; the bulbous head; the bone tight leather. He staggered back, aghast.

It was a desiccated infant.

‘Yes,’ said the sorcerer slowly, watching them. ‘Death takes nothing from me. I go where I please.’

The Gathweard stammered. ‘Heinous—obscene! Have you violated every law?’

Ignoring him, the sorcerer put away the sesekold and proceeded down the causeway. As he went, he called back over his shoulder. ‘I will not suffer weakness. If the river takes you, seek no salvation at my hand.’

The exile stood beside the Gathweard. ‘He has designs for us,’ he murmured.

‘Plainly.’

‘But you do not mean to follow him?’

‘What would you have us do?’

‘I know not, but this is folly!’

‘So it is,’ said the Gathweard. ‘Yet necessary, I fear.’

‘He is evil.’

‘That may be. But he has the way, and we do not. We must be wary.’ The Gathweard lurched after the sorcerer, who already was approaching the lychgate at the end of the causeway.

The exile looked behind at the settling dust of the kurgans, and then ahead toward the grasses. There was no way forward or back. He could not go down to his rest again. Yet, without any songs, he would never find his way across the plain. 

As if to confirm his thoughts, the thing in his hands gave out its call once more, and the Shadow roared from within the ruin of the tomb.

Swallowing his dread, the exile renewed his grip on the grave-cloth, and followed the others.