《Wanderings》


 Chapter 1: Departures

    There was a cottage in a tranquil glade. The glade was located far inside a thick, dense forest, and it was only if you knew where to look that you might see the trail leading out. Appearing from somewhere in the woods behind the house a brook of cool, clear water flowed and gurgled its way past the cottage, disappearing into the thick underbrush just a little to the side of the trail.


    The glade itself was a small, open area of verdant green grass that twinkled in the sunbeams; sunbeams that somehow managed to be warm and bright despite the ancient, dark trees that encircled it. Occasionally, a creature of the woods emerged, a rabbit, say, or a deer, to feed on the fresh grass. Rarer still, a larger creature, a bear or wolf, would flit out of the darkness and run across the glade to disappear once again. Sometimes they would stop to rest in the sun for a moment, and an attentive observer would have noticed that they paid no heed to the smaller fauna around them, even in the middle of the winter when they were clearly malnourished and hungry. Even in the middle of winter, the light shone warm and soft on the glade.


    The cottage itself was small and basic. The wall curved around in a smooth gradient until it met itself again, forming a round area within. The roof was brownish-yellow thatch, the straw seemingly fresh from the harvest. The walls were weather-worn but carefully maintained, and the marks of repair work spoke of the many, many years its inhabitants had lived there. There were just a few small, round windows, the dim of the inside contrasting with the brightness outside to render any viewing of the contents of the cottage impossible.


    Now to the old man, for you would describe him so should you meet him. Above all things, he resonated an air of the turn of many seasons, of history been and gone, and his body carried the toll of these years. Only his eyes retained their youth. His eyes were blue as a tropical, shallow sea, and they shone from within. When he smiled, it was like he was amused by a joke you were not a part of, but his eyes communicated that the joke was not at your expense.


    On this morning, this man slowly swung himself out of bed, his legs gradually unbending as far as they could until his feet touched the ground. Using his shaking arms to sit himself up, he sat on the edge of his bed and looked out into the glade through the small, circular window across his room. As he sat, he smiled at the sight of another beautiful day. He remained this way for some time ¨C whether for minutes or hours it was impossible to say, in the timeless glade where he lived. Eventually, however, he lifted himself gently off the bed, forcing his frail body to rise to its feet, and once he had done so he leaned across the small bedside dresser and took up his walking stick. The stick was a plain mahogany one, without decoration. He hobbled out of his small bedroom and into the equally small kitchen.


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    It should be noted that though all this seemed to take a painstaking amount of effort, the old man not once seemed troubled. He was a soul without need to rush, a man who knew that what can happen will happen, if you just wait long enough.


    The kitchen had just one wooden counter nailed into the wall, next to which a ceramic oven sat, suffusing the cottage with warmth as the coals inside quietly smouldered. The old man turned his head to look at the table, drawn by the smell of the freshly fried eggs and baked bread that sat there waiting for him, next to a steaming mug of tea. Of their maker there was no sign, but the man did not seem surprised by this, and he slowly sat himself down to his breakfast.


    He took his time over the light meal, savouring each bite as if it were some rarest of delicacies, instead of the same fare he ate every day. In between each mouthful he reached for his cup, slowly lifting it to his mouth and breathing the steam before taking a sip. He tore the bread into smaller pieces with his hands, and dipped them in the yellow yolk of the eggs.


    The meal ended with the man sliding the final piece of bread in gradually expanding circles, soaking up the remains of the yolk that had spilt out onto the plate. With a final gulp of tea, he returned the still steaming mug to the coaster it had rested on throughout the meal, stood up, and slowly made his way to the door to the outside world.


    The glade fell silent as the door to the cottage slowly creaked open. The bird song ceased, and even the gentle breeze seemed to die down, as if afraid to rustle the trees. Only the soft sound of the waters of the brook continued. Several small animals raised themselves onto their hind-legs in curiosity, heads turning as they tried to see this rare occurrence. A wolf stood up from where it had been laying at the edge of the glade, and fixed a look on the door, unblinking.


    The old man stepped slowly out of the shadows within his house, stick carefully placed with each step ahead. His eyes were fixed directly towards the hidden, overgrown trail, the only possible path out this area. As he advanced, the animal heads turned to follow him. Any that stood in his path would move out of the way, but none retreated further than they needed to. These creatures were not afraid.


    The old man stepped through the knotted branches and was swallowed by the forest.

 Chapter 2: The Hamlet

    The old man came to a farmhouse. The building was a brown, timber-framed construction on the outside of which hung vegetables fresh from the fields. The whinnying of horses and lowing of cows could be heard coming from behind the house, and the braying of a donkey echoed over the hills.


    It was a fine day, the sun shining down powerfully and warming the old man, though the puddles and mud of the dirt path he followed to the farm told of rains not long passed. The man entered through the wooden gate in the wooden fence that enclosed the building, but he did not stop at the door to the farmhouse. Instead, he calmly and purposefully walked around to the back of the building, his slow pace never faltering.


    The old man walked as if he had been there before. His stick before him, he wandered down the side of the building, not once stumbling though the ground was a mess of the footprints of livestock. Rounding a corner, he entered the ungated barn, where the farmer was patiently milking his herd of cows.


    The farmer did not look up from his work as the old man approached, though a glance barely seen let it be known he was aware he had a visitor. The old man came to a stop a few paces from the farmer and leant on his stick, watching as the farmer squeezed out the rich white milk that would provide for him and his family. It was painstaking work, as the farmer had a lot of cows and this was only one of the day¡¯s many labours, but the farmer went about it uncomplainingly, finishing with one animal, removing the bucket, and then proceeding to the next. Occasionally, a cow would kick over the bucket, but the farmer would just sigh, pick up the bucket, and continue with his work.


    Eventually, the farmer was done with the task. Rising from the milking stool, he clapped his hands together in the satisfaction of a job done, and turned to look at the old man.


    "Who are you?" asked the farmer, though his voice betrayed little curiosity. It was simply a question. "Why have you come to my farm?" The old man stood up straighter, taking his weight of the stick and looking up at the farmer.


    "I would like to hear your story," said the old man, voice so quiet you may have thought it the wind.


    "My story?" asked the farmer. "I know many stories, my friend."


    "The story," whispered the old man.


    The farmer began gathering up the buckets, moving them to the side of the barn. As he did so, he cogitated on the meaning of the old man''s words.


    "Well," said the farmer, "I guess there is really only one story to tell."


    The old man''s face burst into a smile, and he nodded.


    "But I''ll need you to help me carry this milk to the cool room," the farmer said.


    The old man needed no encouragement. He hobbled over to the buckets, and soon had one in his one free hand. The farmer did well to hide his surprise. Though the buckets were heavy and the old man frail, not a drop was spilt.


    The two, the farmer and the old man, began carrying the many buckets of milk out and down into the cool of the storage cellar, and as they walked the many trips the farmer began his story:


    "There was a couple who lived on this farm, before. They had married young, and loved each other very much. In the fruitfulness of years, the wife bore two children, a daughter and a son. The daughter was first, and she was already walking by the time her brother was born. She would spend hours of her days beside the cot her brother lay in, the same cot she herself lain in night after night when she was small, the same cot their father had crafted out of wood he had gathered from the forests around their home.


    The daughter would carry her baby brother with her around the farmhouse, introducing him to the hidden nooks of the barn, the dusty attic of the house, the animals in the pastures beyond. Their mother and father would watch in pride and happiness as their daughter first carried the infant, then held the hand of the boy who walked alongside in her wanderings. How many times they must have looked up from the fields where they worked, looked up to see their daughter pointing and explaining the world of the farm to her baby sibling!


    With the turning of the seasons, so too did the family''s fortunes change. In the middle of one long, cold winter, not many years after the birth of the boy, the mother took ill. The children were frightened by the sounds of wracking coughs emanating from their parents'' room, terrified by the pale, thin countenance they saw whenever their mother emerged. But they would swallow their fear, and run to hug her, wrapping their arms around her neck and chest so tight, as if they thought that somehow they could bring back their joyful, beautiful parent through their love.


    But they could not bring her back. Every season saw the mother paler, more frail and gaunt. Every season saw her retreat more and more to her bed, for longer and longer times."


    The milk had been by this point entirely transported into the cold, dark cellar, and as the farmer set the last bucket down he stood up straight, blinking as if blinded by the memories.


    "But that is not the story you came for, is it?" asked the farmer, looking straight at the old man. The old man shook his head.


    "No," said the farmer, as if to himself. "The story you want comes after that, after many more winters."


    "The babies grew into fine children. Well-mannered, curious, and always helping around the farm, they grew stronger and wiser about nature than the few peers they had in the area. They worked with their father on the fields from a young age, trying with their childish hands to somehow make up for their missing mother. The sister, stronger and wiser than the little boy, would show him how, and help him as he struggled to keep up.


    Their father had not asked them to help, in fact he had tried to argue them out of it, but in the end he was forced to concede that he needed the assistance. His back was bent from the years of hard toil he had spent sewing and reaping, and his hands were no longer the firm, strong hands of the past, so the children worked, and did not complain."


    As he spoke, the farmer led the old man once more up the stairs and out into the brilliant sunshine of the day. They walked in silence for some time, the old man walking behind the farmer, smiling as he took in the butterflies that swarmed the gorse bushes dividing the fields from untamed nature.


    Their steps took them through a field where horses chewed quietly on the grass and upwards over a gradual slope. It took them several minutes to cross the field, the farmer apparently content to walk at the pace of the old man, and when they reached a turnstile he helped the old man over.


    Now, they walked down a small track that was surrounded by the gorse bushes, the thorns scratching gently at their skin as they made their way. Flies buzzed in the early afternoon light, and animals scuttled away unseen in the undergrowth. The track wound its way downwards until it came to a pond.


    The body of water was too small to be called a lake, though it was not possible to know its full extent due to the bulrushes that grew out of the shallow edges, concealing the point at which land turned to water. Frogs croaked and birds sang, while the occasional sound of some creature breaking the surface of the water could be heard.


    They came to the end of the track where a small area of grass opened out beside the pond. It was a natural clearing, not manmade, and had no notable features save one. On the edge of the clearing, where the pond lapped at the ground, here clear of bulrushes, was a small stone shrine.


    The shrine was a small roofed box, the side facing them open to the elements, sculpted out of a large grey rock. It was crude and worn, clearly carved by hand, and within was a shiny black rock, placed carefully upon a stone stand. The black rock was longer than it was wide, the top curved so that it gave the impression of a hooded figure. In front of the shrine lay a collection of wildflowers, in the centre of which lay a single white lily. The flowers were fresh, no more than a day or two old.


    The two men stood in front of the shrine, and the farmer spoke again;


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    "In the summer," the farmer continued, "the two children came here to play. After the seeds had been sown into the ground, but before the harvest, this was their place. This small period of freedom was their solace from the hard days on the farm, and from the pain of seeing their sole remaining parent so weak.


    They would sit here, beside the water, and talk. They would talk of the lands over the hills, lands they had never seen, had only heard of from the travelling merchants and teachers that sometimes came to their homestead. They possessed few books in the home, but the girl had taught herself to read from the ones they had - books of travel, books of adventure and heroes and monsters.


    The world they created over the hills was a world of dragons, magic, and excitement. Champions fought for the hands of beautiful princesses, while wizards conjured glistening ivory towers that touched the sky. Giant animals paraded down city streets, with long necks and huge feet, ridden by men. They would talk of these lands, far beyond the world they lived.


    Or they would play. The girl taught the boy the games their father had played with her, when she was as little as the boy was now, before their mother sickened and their father had to work all the hours he could. They would build piles of stones and see who could knock the most down with a rock thrown from afar, or scratch lines in the dirt to create jumping squares to test their agility. The sister was always the strongest, for the boy was barely over 5 or 6 years, but she would let him win sometimes, preferring the smile on his face to the feeling of triumph.


    Sometimes, they would merely sit, and watch the water skimmers and crawling things of the water. They found that if they sat truly still, completely at peace, that sometimes the animals of the woods would appear from the hedges and graze here. It was a challenge they often gave themselves, to see how long they could remain motionless so as not to disturb the rabbits that would eat there, or the wildcats that would laze in the sun. It was always the boy who moved first, his shame at failure obvious in the welling tears in his eyes, and his sister would always comfort him."


    The farmer strode suddenly away from the shrine, and began collecting the colourful flowers that grew at the edge of the clearing, picking each individually and with care by the bottom of the stem.


    "It was one such day, one of the many uncounted days, that they had their first argument. The boy had grown stronger, strong enough, he thought, that his sister should not be able to best him. They were playing some game, the rules of which were unclear in the way of children''s games, skipping pebbles into other pebbles in the hope of knocking one out of a crudely etched circle. The boy was doing well, but still his sister was a little ahead. The game went on well into the afternoon, the sun falling low on the horizon, but the boy refused to end the game until he had proved himself, begging each time for just one more try.


    The girl was clearly tiring of the game, and it had ceased to be fun for either of them a long time ago, but the boy would not stop. When it came again to the girl''s turn, after many others, she missed the circle completely, putting the boy in the lead should he make even the simplest of attempts. It was, perhaps, one of the many times she had deliberately faltered to allow her brother some measure of joy.


    But the boy did not feel joy. In its place, he felt shame and fury, a rage that swelled in his chest and spat itself out in a tirade of shouts and curses, a torrent of foulness that left his sister crying, muttering platitudes and excuses he was unwilling to hear. Oh, how he cursed her! The fury, once unleashed, poured out of him with a vehemence he was unable to explain. In later years, he would wake in the night with shivers and regret at the memory.


    The boy smashed her hand away that she held out in supplication. He pushed her to the ground when she tried to hold him. He screamed over her when she tried to speak, until eventually she lay curled up on her knees, head tilted over her feet as the tears poured down and the boy''s viciousness flowed about her. The sight of his sister, so hurt and so vulnerable, made the boy rage more at the knowledge that it was he who had caused such injury. He raged at her as he raged at himself, his disgust at his own actions feeding into the resentment he felt towards her.


    The girl was left huddled and weeping when the boy stormed off, his horror at what he had said finally overcoming the font of rage that welled from he knew not where. She remained that way as the twilight came, the buzzing insects of the darkness arising to flit around her, drawn to her warmth and blood. Eventually, the chill of the evening air forced her to stand, the tear stains on her clothes not yet dry.


    Her first thought as she stood was not for herself but for her brother. The night held dangers for young and old alike, and her brother was still unable to fend for himself. She looked around for where he had wandered, and saw the gap in the bushes where he had forced himself through."


    The farmer had finished picking the wildflowers, and he gestured to a part of the overgrowth that seemed indistinguishable from any other, but the old man knew this was the spot he meant. It led in the direction of a crop of willows, their branches hanging down into the water in an image of sorrow.


    The farmer walked to the shrine and laid the flowers down in front of it as he spoke, removing the older ones save for the lily, which he tenderly placed in the centre of the fresh bunch.


    "She pushed aside the weeds and brambles as her brother must have done, entering the far deeper darkness of the trees and the shadows they gave birth to. Clambering over gnarled roots and twisted vines, she searched for her brother as the sun dropped down to where it sleeps, awaiting the new day. The ground was awash with dry, brown leaves that cracked as she walked, and the night was full of the nameless sounds that roam this world outside the realms of man, yet she continued her search unceasingly and without fear. Her brother was all she was concerned with, now.


    It took her a while to find the place where the fallen tree lay, its thick splintered trunk collapsed and jutting out far into the pond. She knew instantly that it was a place such as this that would have taken her brother''s attention, for it offered a chance to penetrate into the reeds of the water and see a part of it they had never seen before. She started to climb along it, down on all fours to keep balance, the trunk moving and rocking slightly and bobbing in the water, making it hard to stay steady.


    Pushing aside the reeds and branches that blocked sight of further up the trunk, she advanced carefully but with great determination along it, surrounded on both sides by the black, swallowing water of the pond. It seemed far larger than it had in the daylight, and to look into it was to look into unfathomable depths.


    Finally, she came to the end of the body of the fallen tree, where it tapered to a point that no body could possibly have continued along any further, but of her brother there was no sign. Still the girl did not give up, or convince herself of some false reason her brother was not there. She knew, and did not question. So she turned herself around, and, balancing as carefully as she could, surveyed the waters to either side.


    She found her brother quickly, floating face down among the pondweed and rushes just the length of a man away."


    The farmer''s voice took on a halting, choking tone as he stood staring at the shrine, unblinking and eyes fixed as if he were no longer talking to another person, but rather reciting a chant of absolution that he had said for all his years.


    "She dove into the water with nary a thought, her heavy farm clothes no contest against the strength of her will, and though she had no knowing of the ways of the water, she made to her brother faster than the wind. She took hold of him, span him around so he was once more facing to the air, to the heavens.


    The stars shone above them as she paddled doggedly, keeping them afloat, and she prayed to them. And so it was the spirit of the water took them.


    They were dragged down to the depths, depths far surpassing the limits of belief. That this small patch of moisture could run so deep!


    The waning light of the surface faded swiftly as cold hands dragged her downwards, tightly gripping her by the leg. She was pulled down before even a last gasp of air, and her lungs swiftly filled with the water that surrounded and enclosed them. The darkness swallowed them both, more absolute and complete than the thickest of cloudy nights.


    And in this darkness the spirit came to her, and offered her a deal. She was brave, said the voice, to come this far without fear, without dread. It was unusual to see such a one, thoughts filled only with concern for another, not a thought for herself. The voice liked such souls.


    Thus did the voice offer the deal. Her brother could be saved, she was told, in exchange for her soul. The girl''s soul was to remain there, in the darkness, to attend and amuse the spirit of the place. Never would she see the shining stars again, nor had she any hope of heaven, but her brother would live, and she, too, would live, in a way.


    ''For to serve me'', said the voice, ''is to serve for eternity,'' and no god nor devil, no end nor death, could claim her once she submitted.


    The girl did not stumble over her reply, nor did she hesitate. She accepted at once, bowing her head to meet her fate, yet smiling as she watched her brother, eyes opening as he regained his life, be swept back upwards towards the world, and out to where the water lapped the clearing of their many games.


    The last sight he saw of his sister was her weeping tears of joy, tears of happiness to see her brother free of the fate she so readily accepted on his behalf. Her tears, somehow visible even in that watery realm.


    She did not hear his screams, his cries, as he lay amongst the rushes."


    The farmer reached for the black stone, taking it in his hands and turning it over and over in his palms. His eyes shone damply in the afternoon light.


    "This was all the spirit left me," he said. "I awoke with it in my hand, and no matter how I tried to release it, I could not. It remained sealed in my palm even as my father, who had come searching for us despite his exhaustion, carried my damp, damaged body back to the farmhouse. Only a few days later, once I had told my story to my parents, wholly and truthfully, did I find it possible to release."


    He replaced the stone.


    "We made this shrine for it the next day. My father brought me back to the place, and told me that the stone was all that remained of my caring sister, his loving daughter. We tended it all my father¡¯s life, and I tend it even after he too has left this world. The spirit of the water, and of my sister, remains, and watches over us."


    "And so you have your story. I am surprised I told so much of it to you, a stranger I barely know. It is not a story I often share."


    The old man nodded, the slight smile he always wore now one of thankfulness and empathy, and patted him gently on his arm.


    The old man turned and left, as the farmer sat down and stared at the shrine in the fading light, wiping the tears with the sleeve of his jacket¡­

 Chapter 3: The Village

    The old man came to a village. The village nestled within the depression of two hills, not deep enough to be called a valley yet deep enough that a traveller approaching from either end would be afforded a sweeping view of the buildings and their surrounding fields. The land around the village was a motley patchwork of varying colours, shades of green and yellow, brown and grey, and this ran far into the distance.


    The buildings of the village were a combination of pebble-dashed ones with red slate roofs and granite-bricked blue roofed ones, speaking of at least two separate generations of building work. A mill stood on the outskirts, sails slowly turning in the breeze that ran constantly between the slopes, and from somewhere within the clustered buildings came the sound of bells.


    The old man made his way patiently down through the fields that surrounded the village, sometimes climbing over stiles, sometimes finding a break in the hedges that separated them. He moved at a constant pace, never finding himself at a loss for a way to proceed. Again he displayed a familiarity with the terrain, though none of the inhabitants of this place would ever have claimed to have seen him before.


    His steps led him through the maze of small lanes and paths that crisscrossed the village, his stick ahead as if guiding him to his destination. An observer would not, however, have been able to discern that destination from his path, for it seemed more like he was merely enjoying the refreshment of walking, though had the distance he had already walked that day been known it would have shaken any man''s mind to its foundations.


    As he wandered along a cobbled lane that was the main and only thoroughfare of this small island of humanity, he was joined by a black robed man, who appeared from the door of a small gated house. The man had had a different purpose in mind when he set out, a place he had meant to head to directly, but he was happy to talk with this stranger to their village as he walked.


    "Welcome, sir," said the robed man, in affable tones. "I have not seen you in our village before, and I fear you have walked quite some time to reach here by foot. Might I ask where you come from?"


    The robed man was ruddy-cheeked and verging on large, though under the slight chubbiness there was a glint of muscle, defined even through the drab cotton cloth that hung loosely over his frame. Life in a village such as this did not allow one to run to fat, for there was always work to be done, even for a priest - as this gentlemen was.


    "Well, sir, I take it from your silence that you do not wish to tell me. Might I, then, ask for what purpose you have visited us here?"


    The old man paused in his steady pace, and turned to the priest.


    "I wish to hear the story," he said, blue eyes fixed upon the brown of the priest''s, the content smile still resting on this lips. His words seemed less than birdsong.


    "The story? Well, sir, there are a good many stories I know, I can tell you. Some I would tell with great delight, and some I am bound to keep until death. What story is it you wish to hear?"


    The priest appeared delighted at the old man''s request. He was a lover of stories, especially when he was the one telling them.


    "I wish to hear the story," repeated the old man, and it was possible there was just the slightest inflection on ''the.''


    "Well then, there is only one story I can assume is of such importance as to be called by such a definite article, and I am delighted - for it is my job as the spiritual guide of the people hereabouts to ensure the story is well known. Thank you, sir, for allowing me the opportunity to once more expound it. Would you care to take tea in my temple whilst I tell you of it?"


    The priest gestured in the direction of a building a little taller than those surrounding it, the double-doors a curious arched shape with some ornate gilding framing them. It was apparent that here was a structure that received more attention and more support than most of the others, yet in stonework it was little removed from the rest.


    The priest swept aside the doors with a flourish, spreading his arms wide and turning to welcome the old man to his temple. The old man walked inside and looked around, focussing upon every section and notable object one by one.


    The room was large and wide, some clever trick of architecture in the high roof creating the effect of more open space than there could possibly be. There were several rows of pews, pews without backs and curiously rounded at the top, meaning that those who sat on them would have to be very aware of their balance to keep from sliding back or forward to the floor. They formed lines facing the altar, which stood on a slightly raised floor at the front, a dark wooden table covered in a beautiful white cloth, on which was placed a golden idol.


    The idol portrayed a broad-shouldered man with four arms, sitting cross-legged with a sword resting across his lap. The man''s eyes carried no detail. They were blank, a tarnished gold. You could see this sculpture was not made from golden metal, but rather wood covered in gold leaf. In places, the leaf was flaking and the wood showed through.


    The priest, having momentarily removed to a side room as the old man looked around, returned carrying two porcelain cups balanced on saucers. He laid them down on a small table that sat in the corner to the left of the altar, and pulled up two small folding chairs that had been leaning against the wall.


    "There," he said, with evident satisfaction, "now we can relax and talk."


    The priest picked up his cup and took a small sip of the steaming brew, looking over the rim at the old man and raising his eyebrows in invitation to do the same. The old man gently took his and drank.


    "So, you wish to hear the story, then? It is the story that is the reason all this is here, of course. I have no doubt you have heard it before, but perhaps never from a mouth as scholastically trained as myself, if I do say. I studied at the seminary, you see."


    The priest waited to see if this provoked any reaction from the old man, but, none forthcoming, he continued.


    "Of course, you know of the eight Gods, the lords of all. I serve the highest of these; so mighty is he that we do not say his name. His image stands on my altar, as you see.


    Well, this land was not always as you see it now. No, indeed, long ago this land was not in fact land, but water."


    The priest''s eyes drifted and a smile came to his face, his tone self-approving.


    "All the land was water, water deeper than one can fathom, and within this watery realm the eight Gods lived. There was the highest, and Jor, the trickster, and Forel, the gambler, and the others whose names I need not mention now, though they are known throughout the land.


    And apart from these eight, there was the Goddess. Sister to the highest, she had the most beautiful and fair visage time has ever beheld, and so kind a nature that it outshone even her countenance. The spirits of the ocean could not but weep when they saw her, so great was her beauty, so great that it brought a joy that would overwhelm even the strongest of hearts.


    The highest and the Goddess were the closest of siblings, and he would build palaces and kingdoms of the most profound glory for her. He would cause the plants - for there are plants under the ocean, though you could not know. I have seen them, when I crossed the Great Sea for my studies - the plants to bloom in the brightest of colours, and the creatures to dance, all to please her, though she did not want of these things.


    The Goddess, for her part, was the protector of the highest. She kept him on the path of righteousness and love that other gods have at times fallen from - I suppose you know the tale of Gora, the fallen one? - She cared for and supported the highest in all his efforts, and his light shone all the brighter when they were together. Indeed, there are those who say the highest is the mightiest of all gods because of her guidance in those days."


    The priest had finished his tea during the telling of this, and the old man too. Standing, the priest walked to the back of the altar and produced a clay slab from behind, a slab ill-treated and battered, with a single rune imprinted on it.


    "All temples carry the symbol of Jor, though we do loath it so."


    The priests eyes narrowed as he stared down at the slate.


    "We keep it as a reminder of his crimes. Did you know they have temples to him now, in far away places? I have seen them."


    The priests voice carried hostility, anger.


    "Jor, the trickster. So foul a god that to even call him by such a title fills my throat with bile. But god he was, and god he is. And god he shall remain until the end of times.


    Jor is a loathsome creature, an envious spirit, and he burned when he saw the highest and the Goddess together. He desired to have the Goddess for himself, though she in her kindness paid as much care to him as she did to others. This was not enough for Jor, though. No, it was not enough that he be with her - no other must have her!


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    And so Jor schemed."


    The priest slammed the tablet dramatically on the edge of the altar, splitting it in two, sending grey splinters spinning through the air.


    "We break the sign of Jor anew every day," he offered in explanation.


    He walked over to a small square trap door flush against the back wall of the temple, and lifted it. Through it was only darkness, into which he tossed the halves of the tablet. The sound of the clay landing atop the many other broken tablets that lay piled below echoed out and through the hall.


    "Jor was crafty, and knew that he would not be trusted by the highest, nor the other gods. And so he left their realm, and swam through the currents of the world for years, for aeons, until one day he came upon the spirit of the water.


    The spirit of the water was a mind unkindled, formless. Jor discovered it in the deepest, darkest part of the ocean, a land that had never known the light of the sun above. Its whispered presence called to Jor as he swam, a song he could hardly hear and could not identify, though the gods knew all the creatures of the world.


    Jor searched many days to find the source of this whispered song, diving further and deeper than any of the gods had before, to the black wasteland of the cold depths. And in this silence, this absolute, true silence, he could hear the song.


    Would you like more tea?"


    The priest interrupted his recital without warning, looking up at the old man abruptly. Without waiting for a reply, he disappeared into the adjacent room and re-emerged carrying two fresh cups and, wedged under his arm, a glass cylinder.


    Placing the cups down next to the finished ones with care, he took the cylinder from under his arm and placed it upright in the centre of the table. The cylinder narrowed in the middle, like an hourglass. It was one seamless piece of glass, and the inside was filled almost completely with clear water, the air at the top serving only to make the liquid apparent within.


    "I brought this with me when I returned from the seminary. As the story continues, you will see how precious this is."


    The priest sat and returned to his tale.


    "Jor heard the song of the water, and was intrigued. The ocean''s voice was not one that could ordinarily be heard, you see, for all life makes a cacophony that drowns out such an amorphous thing. Only here in the depths was it apparent.


    So Jor called back to the spirit of the water, using his godly powers to strengthen and amplify the song, calling it into being. And after a time - the length of which is the subject of much scholarly debate, you know. I myself wrote a most fascinating piece on the matter - the spirit of the water became consubstantiate.


    Oh what a glorious achievement by that most base of gods! Oh that another had found and summoned it!"


    The priest spread his arms out dramatically, calling his soliloquy out to the roof and heavens above. Any other soul would have been revolted by such an arch over-actor, by such conceit and egoism, but the old man merely continued listening in earnest.


    "For Jor was the first and only god to meet this spirit, and Jor it was that told the spirit of the lands above, of the people and souls that resided within the very body its being. The spirit listened keenly and without guile, being naive and unknowing of the world, and so came to perceive the world as Jor told it. And above all, Jor placed the Goddess.


    The spirit heard of her splendour, of her radiance, and the spirit asked many questions of her. Jor, in his cunning, knew that to say too much would be to risk losing the spirit''s ear, and so he gave only breadcrumbs of answers, always leading the spirit to ask more and yet more about her. For many days they spoke of the Goddess, until the spirit of the water could take no more and demanded to see her, to meet her.


    And Jor smiled, for he knew he had found the method for all his schemes."


    The priest stood, beginning to pace the stage in front of the altar, moving in the frenzied, passionate way he did every time he performed this tale for a captivated clergy, strides wide and furious.


    "He told the spirit that he would bring her to meet it, that her radiance would fill and brighten this black place in which the spirit was fated to dwell. He told the spirit this, and then he flew! Flew back to the realm of the gods.


    His return was marked with gladness and delight, the creatures and gods ecstatic to see their brother returned after so long, and the Goddess was quick to come and greet him. He asked her for her time, and she assented, and for many hours they talked of his travels, of the things he had seen, of the waters he had tasted. And eventually the cunning Jor did reveal to her that he had encountered the spirit of the water, and told her how happy it would make the poor, trapped spirit to see her in her loveliness.


    The Goddess, kind of heart in spirit and deed, did not hesitate, but consented to depart immediately, for the idea of the sorrowful, lonely spirit led her to despair. So they departed, saying not a single farewell to those who still rejoiced in the return of Jor."


    The priest had stepped up into the pulpit, speaking out over the pews to the empty congregation, seemingly forgetting the presence of the old man.


    "When they arrived above the depths, the deceitful Jor asked her to wait, for he wanted to give the good news to the spirit himself and ready it to greet her, and so he descended alone.


    The spirit was delighted to see his friend so soon after having departed, and greeted him with roiling currents that swirled around him with more power than a maelstrom, though these subsided when Jor put on a low, crestfallen face.


    The spirit was calmed, then saddened, and then enraged as Jor told how he had brought the Goddess all the way here, only to have her refuse to meet the spirit at the final moment. Such a creature as lives in this pitch darkness, the Goddess was said to have cried, could not be worthy of any such as her.


    Jor conjured great lies and untruths, deceit upon deceit, convincing the spirit of the water that the Goddess found him repulsive and repellent. As he span his web of lies, the water raged more and more, a storm forming in the deep that tore up the sand beneath and lifted the darkness up towards the surface. Jor heightened such rage and embellished his lies until the bottom of the deep soared up and out towards the surface, blocking the rays of the sun even just below the water¡¯s end


    The spirit raged for hours, for days, driving the light away as Jor marvelled at the power he had unleashed.


    And within this darkness, a single light shone.


    The spirit of the water took the Goddess down into the deeps, never to return."


    The priest''s shoulders sagged and he let out a great exhalation, the fire of his sermon burning from him. He recovered himself, and walked calmly off the pulpit and fell heavily to the chair where they had drunk tea.


    "Jor returned to the realm of the gods alone, satisfied in his deviousness, content in his malice.


    But Jor had not accounted for the shock with which the realm would respond to her disappearance. Even in this short time, the space of just a few days, her brother had become fearful in the absence of his sister. When Jor arrived he was instantly grasped by the powerful spirits that served the highest directly, and was dragged with great protest before him. Within the court of the palace, Jor faced the wrath of my lord.


    The highest smote him mightily, refusing to hear the lies and deceits that Jor created in his own defence. The malice of Jor had been apparent from the instant of his arrival, the foulness of his action suppurating out of his very being, tarnishing the already darkened realm. The highest knew that Jor was responsible for his sister''s loss.


    For many weeks the highest rended the being of Jor, forcing him through such a variety of hells that Jor almost lost his very self. Only Jor''s hatred remained burning within, and through this hatred he kept the whereabouts of the Goddess well hid. The highest could not make him tell.


    It was only when Jor was taken to the window of the highest tower that overlooked the realm that he did repent. All the tortures of the highest could not make him speak, but his first sight of the realm, now dull and grey, the spirits themselves weak, made his tongue wag as if it were a living creature."


    The priest abruptly jumped to his feet, gesturing for the old man to follow him through a small doorway that led to some narrow winding stairs. They began to climb as he spoke.


    "The highest moved as soon as he heard Jor''s confession. He sped towards the depths, but found himself blocked. He could not approach the place where the spirit of the water lurked, nor did he receive any response to his threats, promises, and entreaties.


    So the highest tore at the water itself, resolving to drain the ocean until he had emptied it, exposing the spirit and his sister. He threw the sea up in a tempest of great magnitude, flinging it up into the skies, sending up in his rage and desperation even the spirits that had served and loved him so faithfully, where they hang even now above us as the celestial bodies.


    The sea raged as it was torn from the earth, churning the land below it to form the very mountains and valleys we know today. Storms raged and lightning scorched the newly-exposed earth, and the remaining spirits gasped in the atmosphere, clawing in this crisis at the dirt around them, forming the flowers, the trees, the creatures of our new world.


    Yet for all this power, the highest could not overcome the power of the water. Though its body was rent asunder, the spirit would roll back in on itself, whole and unharmed, remaining powerful at its core. The highest could not penetrate."


    The two men came to the top of the winding staircase, and to a worn wooden door that the priest opened with a heavy iron key. Swinging the door inwards, a chill breeze swept in and passed them down the stairs as they stepped out onto the flat rooftop.


    From this vantage point, they could see over the buildings of the village and to the distant mountains on the horizon. The priest pointed to the grey of the towering peaks.


    "Just beyond those mountains lies the Great Sea, and within its boundless depths still lies the spirit of the water, and held deep within the Goddess cries for the loss of her world, trapped until the end of time. The water contained within the glass you saw holds water drawn from those depths, and with it and the idol of the highest we pray for the reunion of the two, for the time when all mankind''s spirits are once again released from this mortal form and re-join our gods in paradise."


    The priest rested his hands on the parapet and looked out towards the distant mountains.


    "Thus does the story end. And yet..."


    The priest glanced at the old man, then turned once more to the mountains, and a weight seemed to fall on him.


    "...and yet, I find myself wanting to tell you what I have told no-one else. I find myself wanting to tell you of the times I find myself staring at the glass cylinder my years of study and abstinence were rewarded with and wondering whether I have made some grave error. I find it hard not to speak of the fisher folk I met on my travels who laughed and jested at the fools who paid in gold for water they took from the hull of their ships, amused mightily by the value of a tale of distant travel to some fabled point on the sea.


    And I find myself troubled by the teachers I had who spoke less of our lords and more of the worthless peasants they considered their worshippers to be. And troubled by the course my own path has led me to, for at times I too treat my congregation as little more than gullible halfwits..."


    The priests eyes widened in surprise at words he had not expected to express before a stranger, and he turned with an astonished face to look at the old man, fearful of what judgement he might find there.


    "Who are you, that draw such words from me?"


    But the old man did not speak, nor did he judge. He bowed in thanks for the hospitality of the priest, and turned away. He left the village whilst the priest remained, staring out at the distant mountains as the sun settled below the land.

 Chapter 4: The Town

    The old man came to the outskirts of the stone town walls. The walls were barely higher than a man, and they encircled the clustered grey buildings that competed for space within. Wooden shelters and huts leaned against the outside of the wall in hope of some modicum of the protection they offered to those inside.


    At each of the four corners of the compass lay a gate and connected gatehouse, in which a guard could often be found lazing as the agricultural traffic passed by, only having to occasionally rise for the inspection of unknown visitors.


    On this day, however, the guards were on double shifts and all were out, for each gate faced a veritable avalanche of traffic. Horses kicked up dust and whinnied in the lines upon lines of carts they pulled, and children played around and through the unmoving cartwheels. Hot, sweating adults shifted uncomfortably on hard wooden seats in the midday sun, reins held in hand as if somehow to urge speed upon the arduous process of registering to enter.


    The old man was walking calmly and sedately through the middle of all this, untroubled by the heat and dust, when a voice behind him called.


    "Ho, venerable sir!" came a strong male voice.


    The old man stopped in his steps and turned unhurriedly around. He came to face a young man in an ornate and flowery dark blue uniform trimmed with gold thread, kept through some effort free of the dust of the road.


    "My master sits inside this carriage, and he offers passage for one who must be weary from walking."


    The man spoke in very formal tones, clipped and direct, staring straight ahead towards the gate.


    "He would be most gratified if you would join him, though we shall be some time getting within the town limits."


    As the young man spoke, the door to the side of the fine black carriage swung open, a gloved hand briefly visible pushing it ajar. The old man smiled, bowed to the younger, and climbed stiffly aboard.


    The inside of the cabin was sumptuous, rich velvet hangings and silk cushions atop soft seats. Despite the fierce heat outside, the cabin was cool and the air dry, maintained by the deep purple curtains closed across the windows.


    Within sat a large moustached man in a fine suit, a dark waistcoat under a rich brown jacket, pinstripe trousers adding a lively air, and a tall top-hat sat on the seat next to him. He smiled a broad smile and offered the seat opposite him to his guest.


    "Good day, sir!" bawled the gentleman. "I am delighted you accepted my offer - it is too hot a day to be walking out there, and with the crowds coming through for the Call I fear you will not find a place to rest with ease."


    He removed his gloves and held out a large hand to the old man, who looked at it for a few seconds before reaching out with his own. The gentleman took the small, frail-looking hand within his and shook it, a handshake of considerable enthusiasm and force that he had always felt gave the measure of the man behind it.


    Though he had not wanted to hurt or injure his new guest, he was rather surprised when instead of encountering a light, docile grip he instead felt as if he were the one being guided, his hand''s motion locked with the old man''s movements, seemingly irresistible.


    The handshake was over in a matter of moments, and the gentleman stared down at his traitorous hand in disbelief. By the time he looked up again, he had managed to convince himself he had been mistaken in the sensation of such power from so meek an elderly, clearly guileless man.


    "Yes, well..." he cleared his throat at the brief discomfort, "Most glad to welcome you. This is but a humble carriage,"


    ¡­and here he swung his hands out in false modesty at the opulence,


    "... but it is surely a place of good rest for a weary traveller. So, where are you travelling to, sir? Surely you are not answering the Call? I must say it is not for one such as yourself!"


    The man snorted with laughter at his wit.


    "I have come to hear the story," spoke the old man, a hush that should have been inaudible above the sounds of the traffic outside yet came through clear and pure. Something within that voice made the gentleman cease his guffaws and straighten, running his moustache between his thumb and forefinger.


    "Which story would this be, sir?" asked the gentleman.


    "The story."


    "Indeed? A fellow of few words, then."


    The chortles in the gentleman''s voice were more subdued now, feeling forced.


    "I suppose, for a traveller to this place, at this time, there is only one story to tell. Do you wish to hear why the Call has gone out, why these people flock to this town, and through it to those distant mountains?"


    The old man nodded, and smiled.


    "Very well!"


    The gentleman''s voice regained its booming tones, re-energised.


    "A good choice of conversation for such a time as this!"


    Leaning back and folding his large arms across his chest, the man began to tell his tale.


    "The land of our Prophet lies across the distant mountains, far across the span of seas beyond. An arid land, where date trees grow twisted and gnarled, and the people stand not even shoulder-height to a man of these lands, they say. They say the sun shines higher and hotter there than any place else on the Lord''s green earth, and that to suffer the chill of the night is to know the cold of the highest peaks where the old gods lie banished.


    ¡°Many years ago was our Prophet born there, to a trifling trader family of little renown. They moved often across the desert land, from villages of rock to towns of flotsam and driftwood, peddling what little wares they had to provide for their next journey.


    ¡°The Prophet would play with his brothers and sisters on the cart as they journeyed, much as the children play outside on the road now. They would play such games as they could devise from the meagre items in the cart, and it was during one of these times that the Lord spoke to him.¡±


    The gentleman had a long golden chain that hung from his neck and ran down deep into the inside of his waistcoat, and he pulled on this as he spoke. He drew out a pendant that hung from the chain, an golden hour-glass shape suspended within a bright circle of silver. The precious metal must have been worth more than most inhabitants of the nearby town would ever see, but he did not draw it out to show it off. No, he seemed barely conscious of the fact he had taken it out, for he began rolling it through and across his fingers without looking at it.


    "The Prophet had found a seashell, a rounded conch that had lain unthought of and unregarded at the bottom of the wagon for who knows how long. The shell was of a translucent pink such as the boy had never seen, and something within it called to him. He carried the shell away from his family, stepping off from the slow moving cart safe in the knowledge that he could once again catch it up.


    ¡°Beside the rocky road on which they travelled lay many collections of cracked sandstone boulders and stones, providing a multitude of places for a young child to conceal himself. Taking advantage of one of these, the Prophet crouched down and placed the shell to his ear, and heard the voice of the Lord."


    The wagon began advancing again as the man spoke, slowly rocking from side to side as it progressed.


    "Long had the voice of the Lord been hidden in this land, kept from his people by their sin and by their wilfulness! Finally the time had once again come for the Lord to test his people, to judge them as they judged each other.


    ¡°And so the Lord spoke unto the Prophet, bidding him have his parents change the course of their passage and head towards the coast, to the great town that stood there.


    ¡°Some other mortal would have doubted, would have challenged the Lord to prove himself, but how fortunate we are that the Prophet was chosen, for he knew in his very soul that here was the one true Lord, and he knelt before him with no cunning in his heart! The Prophet agreed to the Lord''s bidding, and left to fulfil his commands.


    ¡°But as the Prophet left the shadows, the covetous eyes of Salan, his elder brother, looked on..."


    They were interrupted suddenly by a rapping on the carriage door, which the gentleman swung open to reveal the young man dressed in blue finery, the driver of the carriage.


    "We have passed the customs point now, my lord," said the young man, bowing deeply. "It shall not be long before we reach the inn where we have our reservation, sir."


    "Excellent, excellent!" smiled the gentleman, clapping his hands together.


    Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.


    "Now, I must prepare my case, my honoured guest, but I shall continue as I do so. Please forgive such rudeness."


    So saying, the gentleman drew a large brown case from below the seats as the driver closed the door and disappeared from view. The carriage began rocking again as the gentleman continued his story, while he unlocked the bag and sorted through its contents.


    "The Prophet and his family came to the coastal town, and soon his father''s business blossomed. The father would frequently come to the rocky coast where his children played, taking aside his young son and asking his advice, though he was barely a boy of six.


    ¡°The shell guided the Prophet and his family well, leading them to great fortune and favour throughout the land. Everywhere the Prophet went he praised the Lord''s name in recompense. He tended to the poor and performed great miracles, bringing the rains when needed and breaking the tempests that threatened the fishers of the area. The more the Prophet praised the Lord and carried out great works in his name, the more his family prospered.


    ¡°And though the Prophet shared his fortune with all those around him, and hid not a single portion from those who were in need, though his generosity was boundless, still Salan fumed in his jealousy. So, one fateful day, when the Prophet was yet barely a young man, Salan stole the shell, and ran from the land.


    ¡°The horror and woe that fell upon the Prophet was terrible to behold. He raged and cursed to the sky at his own stupidity, for leaving the shell unguarded! He implored the Lord to speak unto him once more, but was met only with silence.


    ¡°For many years the Prophet was without the Lord''s guidance, yet he did not submit to despair or fail the people of his land. He carved as best he could to the ways the Lord had shown him, and was rewarded through his own efforts with yet more riches and power, ''til one day he was crowned king by the acclamation of the people! His people built towers of such splendour as they had never seen, and traded far across the world. They grew in richness and in happiness as one - King and subjects.


    ¡°Yet the Prophet was never without fear that he would depart from the ways of the Lord, and for all this time he not once gave up the search for the lost shell, nor his lost brother. And in the fullness of time, his wish to see his brother again was granted."


    The old man and the gentleman both looked up as the carriage came to a stop, and the doors once more swung open. The young man was joined now by a handful of liveried servants and a bowing, scraping individual who introduced himself as the owner of the inn. Escorting the gentleman down from the carriage and thanking him profusely, all the while bowing repeatedly, he said how honoured he was, and that their finest room was ready for their illustrious guest''s stay.


    Turning to the old man, he clearly assumed some connection with the honoured gentleman, and accorded him all the pageantry and hospitality the gentleman had received, until both men stood on a landing outside two large oak doors.


    "Well now," chuckled the gentleman, amusedly, "It seems being in my very presence has gained you a fine room for the night! Do not worry..!" he boomed, holding out a hand as if to stop the old man, who had not moved in the slightest, from refusing such largess, "... I am more than happy to provide this for you, so long as you join me for dinner. We still have the rest of the story..?"


    The gentleman''s question was rhetorical, and he did not wait for a reply as he span and entered his room, servants and attendants bustling around him.


    They met again in a wide drawing room across the landing from their rooms, the gentleman arriving well before the old man. By the time the old man sat down, across the wide round oak table covered with the accoutrements of fine dining, there were several empty wine glasses in front of the gentleman. His cheeks were flushed red above his evening wear.


    "My friend!" he called, far louder than necessary. "Welcome, and good evening!"


    He leaned heavily forward and swept up a wine glass, holding it out behind his chair for the waiting attendant to refill. This glass he slid across to the old man, then took another for himself. The old man bowed in thanks.


    "Still a man of few words, I see!" he said, laughing. "Then, as we eat, why don''t I finish the tale?"


    The old man bowed, a look that may have been gratitude crossing the ever-present gentle smile, and they both began to eat as the story continued.


    "It is more than a decade later that our story resumes. The Prophet is now a king, and a beloved one at that. His people live humble yet worthy lives, and his charity knows no bounds. It is, in fact, a holy Kingdom.


    ¡°Word of this prosperity reached the Prophet''s brother, Salan, one day, where he now lived as a merchant deep within the desert and far from the ocean town he had fled. Salan was a poor merchant and a poor man, and the only passion he felt was the passion that burned at the sight of the shell he kept hanging from a chain around his neck.


    ¡°For the shell had never spoken to him; the Lord had never revealed himself to so base a man.


    ¡°Terrified of his brother''s vengeance, and hoping that one day he may find a way to make the shell speak, he had fled as far away as he could, until one day he had come to this small, wind-blasted town. And here he wasted away, ''til even the fiery hate that had filled him so began to wane.


    ¡°But hearing of the success of his brother, and his ascension to the kingship, reignited those fires that smouldered quietly within his soul, and he determined to return and face him, to demand his part of his brother''s great fortune. So he journeyed back across the desert, hitching and performing whatever services he could for passage, no matter how dirty or mean.


    ¡°When Salan arrived in the kingdom, he was amazed at the luxuriant gardens, the extravagant fountains, the sheer wealth shared by all who resided there. He cursed himself as a fool for abandoning his brother, yet also smiled inside at the thought of all that he would now receive. He set off to his brother''s palace, a dusty, dirty, weather-worn beggar in form, a devil in being.


    ¡°When Salan came to the great golden gates that led to his brother''s throne room, he declared himself to the guards upon the door, but they laughed and mocked him, this filthy creature who claimed the brotherhood of their most-beloved monarch! They turned him away without a second''s pause, removing him from the courtyard and warning him on pain of death never to return.


    ¡°Salan, unable to enter the throne room, seethed and plotted, but saw no way that he could pass the guards. Frustrated, enraged, he stalked off unthinkingly to a place he and his brother had often played, the rocky coast where once their father had sought guidance from his son.


    ¡°And waiting for him there, unknowingly, was the Prophet. Some vagary of fate had led the Prophet to that coast, at that time, some pent up memory of the times in their childhood when they had played together in happiness and innocence.


    ¡°Salan saw the Prophet at the same time the Prophet saw him, and despite his filthy, torn robes, despite his matted, knotted beard, the Prophet knew his brother on sight, and rejoiced.


    ¡°But Salan did not rejoice for the long-delayed reunion. No, Salan rejoiced for the riches he felt were coming to him.


    Such riches as would make mine seem somewhat meagre, don''t you think?"


    The gentleman abruptly interrupted the story to gesticulate around the room, at the attentive servants awaiting around the room, at the largess on the table, the food they could not possibly eat by themselves.


    "I did not ask for this, you know. None of this. This was a fate thrust upon me..."


    The gentleman seemed to deflate, eyes staring inward at some unseen memory, some uncalled-for recollection, then shook himself. He drank heavily from another glass of wine, and held it out for refilling.


    "Anyway...


    ¡°The Prophet took his brother in with him when he returned from his secret solitary wanderings, and led him through the palace. He introduced him to his family, his new-born sons and daughters, and took him to the mausoleum in which their parents spent their eternal rest. He gave him fine new clothes, and fed him the richest of meals. And not once did he ask after the shell, which, though he did not know it, dangled from the neck of his brother not two steps distant.


    ¡°And Salan thirsted more and more as he saw the extent of his brother''s possessions. It was not enough that he would receive what he asked for; he wanted to take it all. So one night, the Prophet entered his chambers to find his brother awaiting him, the shell of the Lord in hand.


    ¡°The Prophet wept upon seeing the shell; he fell to his knees in gratitude, praising his brother for returning what was lost. Salan, enraged at the knowledge that his brother yet loved and trusted him though he felt only hate, struck the Prophet a blow to the side of his head.


    ¡°The Prophet entreated with his brother, asking what the cause of such violence could be, and Salan poured forth his scorn. He screamed at the Prophet, ranting and raving about how his brother had taken all that he could have become from him, and demanded his kingdom.


    ¡°The Prophet was lost, unable to comprehend the source of such fury from a sibling long missed. He promised Salan that anything he needed, anything he asked, would be his, for he was his brother.


    And Salan asked for one thing:


    ''Make the shell speak to me.''


    ¡°And with those words the Prophet knew his brother was lost, for no-one can instruct nor order the Lord.


    ¡°The Prophet stood, and told Salan that he was lost, and told him he could still be saved, but Salan would not hear him. He threatened to smash the shell, holding it high above his head.


    ¡°The Prophet, seeing the thing he had sought for so long threatened, seeing the holy symbol so profaned, was overcome with an unthinking passion. He struck out at his brother with the closest object he could find, a knife. A fruiting knife, a carving knife, I know not, but it was weapon enough that in one strike Salan lay dead at his feet.


    ¡°Now the laments of the Prophet were redoubled! Salan had never understood that it was not through desire for wealth nor power that the Prophet wanted the shell, but merely so he could further the Lord''s work.


    ¡°Yet the Lord''s voice did not come to the Prophet again, for he had struck down his brother, and such a sin cannot be forgiven. This was a law known by men for ages long past, and followed throughout the kingdom. Not even the King, the father of the land, was immune from such a crime. He was exiled before the next sun. He was exiled across the sea, and he came to this land."


    The gentleman was now slumped deeply into a large green armchair besides the fireplace, the old man perched on the edge of a similarly substantial chair. He was once more toying with the golden hourglass pendant around his neck.


    "My ancestors inhabited this land for generations before the Prophet came, you know. My father and mother were part of the ruling council, worshipping the false gods. I remember the day the Prophet arrived at the city gates, surrounded by the followers who came with him in exile, and those who joined him on the way. I was barely old enough to walk.


    ¡°They burned the city, razed it to the ground. The gates, never closed, were broken off their hinges and crashed to the floor, and those who refused to renounce the false gods were bound to them and drowned by the very water they believed sacred. I saw my parents die this way, the water poured over their faces as they yelled defiance of the one true Lord. They were drowned slowly, over hours, and I was made to watch the entire time.


    ¡°It was then the Prophet''s followers decided I should be brought up in the ways of the great Lord, that some trace of the heathens of this land be redeemed. And so I grew up in fabulous wealth, basking in the warmth of the one true God."


    The gentleman leaned forward, eyes curiously sober and heated, and spat into the fire. He stared unblinking at the old man, defiance in his gaze.


    "And now we make the Call in the name of the Lord, to go forth and retake the land of the Prophet. Now these people gather from all corners of the continent to return across the ocean in a host, and subdue by arms as they were themselves subdued before."


    The gentleman seemed unaware that his hands held the hourglass pendant in a grip so tight his knuckles had whitened.


    "There is your story, old man. I hope it has been a good one. I have listened to it all my life, and the flame of it burns within me. It burns my very soul, if I possess such a thing. I doubt it very much, some days."


    The gentleman sat back and gazed into the fire as the logs crackled and sparked, seeing the memories only he could, as the old man stood, bowed, and quietly left the room.

 Chapter 5: The Graves

    The old man came walking down a gentle slope overlooking a small cluster of buildings, walls covered with ivy growing thick over every surface. The cobbled streets passing between were wide and lined with trees, their pink and blue blooms pouring scent into the air.


    It was a warm, still day and the sun shone high overhead amongst the few white clouds as the old man came walking along the road; a road that was flanked on either side with rows upon rows of gravestones.


    The gravestones stretched up the sides of the hills, shining white in the midday sun, the bright stone they were made from vivid against the deep green of the grass fields they stood on. They were effectively numberless, stretching over the tops of the hills and continuing to an unknown extent beyond, but the small number of people that walked through the lanes that criss-crossed them paid little heed. Only a few figures could be seen walking amongst the graves, crimson robes rippling in the breeze as they trimmed any blade of grass that had grown too long, or kneeling to clean the stones with a soft, dry cloth. It was one of these robed figures, crouched to clean a gravestone near the road, that called to the old man as he walked by.


    "Alms for the dead, sir?" the robed man asked, leaning over the low stone wall that separated the graves from the road. "I don''t believe I have seen you in this town before, sir, and it is something of a tradition that you give alms when you first arrive here."


    He proffered a small wooden box towards the old man, who looked down at it then back up at the robed man.


    "Sir?" The man shook the box a couple of times with a clink of coins, but the old man merely leant on his stick and remained silent.


    "Are you not from around here, then?" The robed man asked, a hint of puzzlement appearing in his voice, as if confused as to where this thought had come from. He heaved himself up to a standing position, resting the coin box on the wall and clasping his hands together. "You don''t know what... all this... means?"


    He gestured at the fields of graves.


    The old man looked around slowly at the landscape, then back to the other man.


    "I would like you to tell me," the old man said in his whispered tones.


    It was a few hours before the robed figure, the monk Melvius as he introduced himself, could finish the day''s tasks. The old man waited patiently, and when eventually he was finished Melvius walked with the mysterious visitor until they came to a small cluster of buildings surrounding a plaza of stone arches and benches. Individuals and small groups occasionally crossed the square, while small birds hopped along the arches overhead and sang into the evening light. A small cafe sat on the edge of the plaza, a couple of old wooden seats placed outside, and they sat here, looking over the square.


    Melvius had been ordained into the church many years ago, he explained, and after ministering in a variety of locations, he was now spending his autumn years tending to the endless graves of this town.


    "The stream of life runs fastest at the start," he explained, "and slows as it closes on the ocean at its end. But I did not bring you here to hear of my life, but of the fields outside," he continued.


    "The Unforgotten Graves, they are termed. You must have come a long way indeed to have not heard of them."


    He and the old man drank their tea slowly, gazing out over the plaza in the soft evening light as he spoke.


    "This land has seen many wars. Many wars, more than we have records for. It has been invader and invaded, oppressor and oppressed. It has taken war abroad and brought war home. The histories tell of times when our people were tortured and killed in the vilest of ways, and of times when it was our people torturing and killing. It is a hard thing to reconcile, such knowledge, but we did so for the longest time. Honour, you see. We believed we were honourable.


    ¡°For centuries the warriors of this land began their lessons in fighting even before they learnt the names of their forefathers. It was a hard training, one designed to remove the chaff from the grain - by the flail if necessary. Many could not make it through these trials at all, and not all of those who failed walked away with their lives.


    ¡°This was not the way of it when I was a child, but we still looked on our martial past with fondness and pride. Duty and loyalty were the virtues of this land, unto death. A rigid hierarchy emanated from the Emperor who protected and guided the souls of his people. To defy this hierarchy was to defy the Emperor himself, to defy the very heart of the land.


    ¡°Thus did our warrior class develop, above and apart from the common people. Peasants and merchants alike bowed when they passed, and to them was given the best the land could offer, and a place in the heavens below. There were many wars in which we were victor and fewer wars in which we were vanquished, but gradually, then suddenly under the last Emperor, the empire expanded.


    ¡°Our armies poured over the continent in an unstoppable wave, and all who stood in opposition were drowned. With each victory we grew stronger. At its height, the empire held sway over vast swathes of the continent. This expansion saw the flourishing of our culture, the enriching of our people, and the further strengthening of our warriors. It was said to be a golden age.


    ¡°But such great success was not enough for the last Emperor and his advisors, however. It was his ambition to be ruler of all the lands between the great sea and the western, to be king of kings, and he could not abide the few lands that still resisted him.


    ¡°One such land was a great land of forests and mountains. The Emperor''s men had been repeatedly rebuffed in their attempts to treat with the inhabitants, attempts that began in dialogue but ended in violence. Such resistance was anathema to the Emperor. He denounced the dwellers of the forests for insulting the power of the sceptre and nation, and he assembled his first army since the height of the campaigns.


    I remember the day I joined that army."


    The man gestured down at his worn body.


    "This was a long time ago, and I was a different man.¡±


    ¡°The Emperor force-marched his army across half the continent. I remember seeing him amidst the cohorts, his golden palanquin carried high ahead. Every evening a great tent, larger than any building I had ever seen, was laid out and the army camped around it. Half of the tent was exposed, merely a roof to protect from the elements, and half was sealed, the Emperor''s quarters. I could see him from time to time, standing over a map of the empire with his generals, lit by the light of the hundreds of candles they set every night. He wore thick robes of a material I had never seen - I later learned it was silk - and hid his face beneath a golden mask. They moved wooden pieces across the map as if playing a game, in which I came to realise we were less than pawns.


    ¡°We did not resent him for this, though. No, he was our champion. It was through his brilliant leadership that we had attained such heights, that our enemies lay dead or dying and our people reaped the rewards. Every time I saw him my heart leapt with joy and thankfulness. He would lead us to further greatness, I believed.


    ¡°It took a long time for my feelings to change. The terrain changed as we marched. We crossed mountains and meadows, forded rivers and built great bridges over ravines. I remember once we came to some great black rocks that towered into the sky, and when we ascended them we could see far into the distance. In every direction were green meadows that gave such a feeling of peace it seemed impossible to think we were an army marching to war, that soon we would be fighting and killing. Peace can be as penetrating as sudden violence, you know?


    ¡°Soon, though, we came to the edge of the forests that marked the borders of the land we had come to claim. We camped at that edge the first night and it must have been just a few hours before dawn that I was woken to the sounds of yelling, of screaming, and the clash of steel and crackle of flames.


    ¡°Our arrogance was almost our undoing that night. We had assumed the locals would be stunned by the size of our army, cowed into submission at the mere sight of us.


    Instead, they attacked at the first chance, setting fire to the tents and stabbing at those who ran in a panic from within. I was nearly gutted myself as I fell out of my tent, saved only by luck and a bad aim. As it was, a lump was torn out of my arm..."


    Here he raised the cuff of his robe to reveal a livid purple scar on his upper arm,


    "... and I barely managed to take my knife from its sheath at my ankle. I don''t remember how I got that knife between the ribs of my attacker, but I did, and for the next hour all I remember is soul-sucking desperation. We fought tooth and nail, and eventually succeeded on driving the attack off, but we lost a great many men. Too many men."


    The story was paused as the man stopped and stared out across the plaza, to the graves that rose on the hillside far behind.


    "I think it was the presence of the Emperor that saved us. The moment he emerged from his tent, armour shining brighter than the flaming light surely allowed, sword raised in defiance to the heavens, we redoubled our efforts. The enemy fled.


    Once the battle was finished, we had time to take stock of the dead, and our losses. We had lost not only men, but a good deal of our supplies too. The Emperor''s caravan remained, but most of the rest of the supplies had gone up in the flames. From now on, we would be living off the land.


    ¡°But we did not believe our situation to be dire. We remained certain of our eventual victory, only now we knew it would require a good deal more toil. The perfidy of the enemy served only to reinforce our resolve.


    ¡°The next day, soon after we had cleared the ruins of the night, a messenger appeared from within the trees. He came alone, unarmed yet unafraid, standing tall and proud in his barbarian animal skins, larger than our strongest warrior. I remember how the work stopped throughout the camp, all eyes turning to focus on him until one of the Emperor''s escorts strode up to him. There was a conversation inaudible to our ears, and then the messenger was taken into the great tent and out of sight.


    ¡°A few hours later he re-emerged, and sprinted off into the undergrowth without a second look. Back in the tent the generals stood clustered, silently watching the departing figure. We all noticed their thoughtful expressions. I was called into the great tent soon after.


    ¡°My officer found me as I was sharpening my sword and told me I had been summoned to the Emperor''s council. I couldn''t understand! Why me? I was a low-ranking nobody, one of the many lowly soldiers that make up the bulk of the army - what could they possibly want with me?


    ¡°To be sure, it was not unheard of for the Emperor to meet his men. He was not like the Emperors across the great sea. No, he fought alongside his men and he would sometimes be found walking amongst the camp, a handful of guards at his sides inspecting and questioning. I had never spoken to him personally, but knew many who had, receiving some small compliment or answering some query.


    ¡°¡­ But to be summoned to the council - I was shaking so hard I nearly cut myself as I tried to put my sword back in its sheath! In the end I had to leave it unsheathed, hiding it under the blanket of my roll bed. I ran as fast as I could to the edge of the tent, paused to catch my breath and compose myself, and stepped inside to be nearly decapitated.


    ¡°In my haste I had failed to announce myself. The guards'' blades crossed beneath my chin, the sharpened metal V of instant death pressing against my throat. I had to explain, very, very slowly, that I had been summoned here, and I do think that had the Emperor himself not looked up and beckoned me through they may not have heeded my explanation and would have cut me down where I stood.


    ¡°He was stood at the campaign table with his staff, several men clustered around a great map that showed what was known about this area. I rushed over and was motioned to stand quietly a few steps away whilst they continued their discussions.


    This wait gave me the opportunity to look over the layout of this land, and I remember being surprised by how little we knew of the area. Our camp was marked with a golden X, and a few miles further in a clearing on the edge of a river was marked with a smaller one, indicating some search party I had no knowledge of. All between was forest, and the other side of the river was... nothing. The banks were marked as forest, but beyond that was terra incognita. I think I knew what they were sending me to do before they told me.


    ¡°I had been a hunter before I was a soldier, you see. Some of my fellows had commented on my prowess in moving through the forest, and it seemed not only my fellows. I had never thought much of it.


    The Emperor himself spoke to me.


    ¡®The messenger that just left,¡¯ he told me, ¡®came bearing a message from their queen.¡¯


    This was the first I had heard of any queen, but I was too frozen with awe and fear to react.


    ¡®They say they have a great host awaiting us, one that will grind us into dust if we do not treat with them in the next three moons. My generals assure me we can resist any attacks from such barbarians...¡¯ and here he gave them such a stare they shuffled uncomfortably, ¡®but I wish to confirm this claim.¡¯


    He was sending me to scout the barbarian army!


    ¡°To this day I do not know why it was I and not one of the scouts. I have heard different reasonings from others who were there. Some tell me the scouts had been wiped out in the raid, or long before. Other suppose I was not the only one sent out, that I was one of many. My own opinion is that I was expendable, a cheap piece to lose in return for the chance of valuable information. Either way, I will never know now..."


    The monk cleared his throat and stood as he placed a few copper coins onto the table. The old man stood with him. The sun was below the horizon now, the plaza enveloped in shadow and the birdsong silenced.


    "At this time we light the candles beside the graves. If you come with me, we can continue as I work."


    They walked side by side towards the fields of graves.


    "I left that evening with nothing but a hunting bow and my small pack of provisions. A sword would have been too cumbersome for what I needed to do, and besides I was only used to battling in formation. I wasn''t trained in swordsmanship in the manner of our officers.


    ¡°I carved a path through the night, using the stars as my guide, until I came to the clearing I had seen on the map. There was nothing there. Whoever had been here had moved on, or been taken. The latter thought made my teeth chatter.


    ¡°Crossing the river was a daunting task. It was wide and fast flowing, and had no obvious crossing points. I explored up and downstream for a couple of hours, finding nothing. By the time the sun was once more rising, I was too tired to continue my search so I hid myself in the nook of a tree, and slept.


    ¡°The next afternoon was fortunately dark and overcast, allowing me to move earlier than I had expected to be able to. I found a narrow area of the river and waded out as far as I could, using a strong branch for support. When it deepened, I floated out on my back and allowed the current to carry me, gently pushing myself towards the other bank.


    ¡°Did you know that some people actually try to swim against the current when crossing flowing water? It''s apparently a natural reaction when panicking. They are the people who the current takes. It is as we learnt in childhood: fight the flow and you are swept away, join the flow and it will take you where you need. This is true, and saved me.


    ¡°I had barely clambered out of the water when I heard them. Three men, large spears at their sides, looking out over the water and talking quietly. I couldn''t have been more than the length of two men away.


    ¡°They stood on a large rock that rose out of the bank and gave an excellent view of both sides - everywhere except the small sheltered pool I had climbed from. I had been lucky. A tree must have collapsed into the river and been carried away at some point, leaving a wide hole where its roots had been. Knotted branches above kept this pool hidden from view, and it was possible to crawl out and up into the forest through a cramped tunnel of roots without being seen.


    ¡°I moved further into the trees a quickly as possible, still soaked but valuing my life more than my comfort. It was some time before I felt able to stop and take stock.


    The oiled skins that I had wrapped around my pack had been torn on some rock during the crossing water had flooded within. The bow was ruined, its string wet and stretched, and most of the food too, but the smoked meat I carried was still edible, so I ate it and threw the pack away. I wasn''t too worried about food - I would not be here long, and I had greater fears.


    ¡°I admit I was panicking by now. I thought I was calm and in control, but all my actions were rushed. When I look back it is clear I was hurrying in order to return to the camp as soon as I could. I didn''t stop to dry my clothes, and the chill air set me shaking. I moved too fast through the trees, and caused too much noise.


    ¡°They found me at the same time I found them. The sounds of metal on metal, of fire and revelry, and the smell of roasting food led me to the host. It was enormous. A break in the trees revealed a vast clearing filled with people and tents, filled with the energy of a people on campaign. Blacksmiths tempered iron outside, men fought with wildly spinning spears within wide sparring circles, while all drank and laughed. I could see women and children too - they travelled together, something I had never seen. The numbers shocked me. This army was far greater in size than ours.


    They must have come from behind me, because something struck me on the back of the head and everything went black."


    The monk had crouched down beside one of the white cubic graves and begun polishing it, carefully wiping with first one cloth and then the other to draw out the stone''s lustre in the candlelight.


    "When I awoke my hands were bound and I was being carried between two giants of men. Their arms must have been bigger than my chest. They threw me down so that I landed on my back, winded, and when I regained my senses I found that I was in front of a raised chair with someone sitting atop.


    ¡°The chair was a shining black material I have never seen before or since, inlaid with pearls and other precious gems. It was wide and deep, a throne, and its occupant was a tall, fiery-eyed woman with close-cropped hair, a thin crown on her head. She wore the breeches of a man and carried a sword at her side, another sight I had never dreamt to see. I say this to men now and they mock me, laugh at me, but I tell you: here was a warrior-queen that could lay rent the greatest of our army. I saw this the instant she looked at me, her gaze boring to my very core, and I cannot speculate on what she saw when she looked at me. An insect, perhaps, some small creature barely worth her noticing.


    ¡°I crawled to my knees and bowed low, my shaking no longer due to the cold. When I tried to raise my eyes to look at her once more, I was kicked from behind and my face crushed beneath a foot into the dirt.


    ''You do not rise until the Queen permits you to,'' a voice growled behind me.


    ¡°I remained there, trembling, and listened to the footsteps of the queen as she strode around me, inspecting me. The gathering had fallen quiet now, so quiet I could not believe all those people I had seen remained, and her steady footsteps were loud in my ears.


    Eventually she returned to her throne and permitted me to raise my head.


    ''You come from the eastern lands, do you not?''


    She spoke our language! Another surprise. I nodded hurriedly in assent.


    ''You come to spy on us? To judge our strength?''


    Again, in my fear I could only nod.


    ''Well, then, tell me. What do you find, when you see my people gathered here?''


    ¡°I do not remember exactly what I said in response, only that I stumbled over my words and became close to incomprehensible in my fear, but I know I said anything I thought would appease her. I spoke of her vast armies and how we would be swamped by them, of how they outnumbered us many times over.


    ''So you know you cannot win against us?''


    ¡°Now, there''s the rub. Even in my terror, a lifetime''s belief in the obvious destiny of our people and our Emperor prevented me from replying.


    She asked again.


    ''No barbarian army can stand in the way of the Emperor,¡¯ I replied.


    ¡°I flinched from a blow that never came. Instead, I gradually became aware that the queen was laughing, a quiet, throaty chuckle. Her people all around began to laugh too, until it filled the forest.


    ¡°When the cachinnation ended I thought my time had come. I was sure I would be killed there and then. Instead, hands dragged me roughly to my feet and the queen stood up on the step of her throne. She fixed me with a stare so powerful I could not blink.


    ''Go to your Emperor'' she sneered - and even now part of me raged at such a tone - ''and tell him we are not a violent nor unmerciful people. If he would meet my envoy at the river before the second moon from today, we will treat with him. He is to send no more than those who can speak directly for him, and I will do the same. I guarantee him safe passage. My men will show you the place.''


    ¡°She dismissed me from her thoughts in an instant, and I was dragged away by the same two as had brought me there. They said nothing as they led me away from the light and into the forest, all the way back to the river.


    ¡°We arrived much further upstream than I had been before, to a place of rapids. Somehow, within the foaming torrents they knew a path across that dampened me to no more than my waist. We crossed without incident, but when I looked back I could see no sign of the path we had taken. To try without their guidance would have been madness; only those blessed by the water herself could cross alone.


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    ¡°I was taken to a clearing not far from the river. At first I was confused. Surely they did not mean this was the meeting place? This side of the river was where our army was located. No matter how swiftly a few could cross the rapids they could never get their army across in good time or order. I was mystified, and questioned my escorts.


    ¡°It seemed at least one of them also had some knowledge of our language, as he replied.


    ''If the queen promises safety, there is safety. If she promises war, there is war. There is no honour in lies.''


    Barbarian honour! I would have laughed had I not been so cold and fearful.


    They left me there and disappeared into the night, while I made my way back to camp by the stars above."


    The old man had watched the monk clean the first few gravestones, and now he too was crouched down and cleaning. To the monk''s surprise he had produced two cloths from somewhere within his pockets. Where he wiped the stones they gleamed, reflecting the candlelight. It seemed almost as if the stones the old man cleaned shone with more than the light of the candles.


    They continued as the story progressed.


    "I reached the camp before dawn, and was taken immediately to the Emperor''s tent. He and his advisors were still awake, though I could see no evidence of fatigue on his face.


    ¡°They made me give a full account of what had happened on my journey, pressing me for more detail at every juncture. It took until the sun was high in the sky for them to be satisfied. I was swaying from hunger, barely able to stand, by the time they let me leave. I thought they were done with me.


    They were not.


    ¡°I was called back into the Emperor''s presence later that afternoon, roused from my sleep by an armoured boot in the ribs. I struggled to focus on what they were asking of me through the haze of exhaustion, until realisation struck me like a bucket of iced water.


    I was to lead them to the clearing!


    ¡°I couldn''t understand. I had given them the direction, shared the compass points and landmarks with their closest subordinates, but it was me who would lead them.


    The confusion must have been evident on my face, for one of the generals in the room demanded to know if I was questioning the wishes of the Emperor. I had to beg on my knees that this was not so.


    The next day I woke early, before the rest of the camp, and met with the Emperor''s men a short ways away. The Emperor himself was not there, but several of his generals and advisors were. They said little save to instruct me to lead the way.


    ¡°As we moved through the trees we were joined by a large number of our compatriots, appearing suddenly from where they must have been waiting since hours before. Soon, we had a far greater number of escorts than the queen could possibly find acceptable.


    We reached the clearing in the early morning light. The shadows of the trees crossed the ground like the bars of a pauper''s prison, making it hard to see what awaited us beyond.


    ¡°It was I that was sent to investigate. I trembled as I entered the clearing, exposing myself to whatever might lurk in the woods beyond, but no arrow came for me. The others emerged soon after, guards spreading out and searching the area.


    I couldn''t comprehend what they were planning. What were we doing here with such a large group? There seemed to be no reason except to enrage the queen, and my confusion only increased when they set up several long tables in the centre of the clearing, taken from the horses'' sides.


    ¡°Upon these tables were laid rations I was unaware still remained. They must have been taken from the Emperor''s own kitchen wagon. There was mutton and lamb, some strange red shelled creature I had never seen, and a great variety of rices and bread.


    More than that, there were large skins of wine and beer, more than enough to leave our group on the floor twice over. I thought they must be mad to plan for such a feast here - we would be smashed by the first enemy party to come through!


    As soon as the feast was set, several men were sent to sit around and indulge themselves whilst the majority of us retreated into the trees. I was mystified. Why were a handful, the lowliest no less, eating the food of the Emperor?


    ¡°My answer came a few hours later, as the twilight came down. Far to the other side of the clearing, first one than another of the queen''s men appeared, hanging back far from the table as their numbers increased. You could see if not hear the hissed argument happening as they all gazed intently at the banquet incongruously sitting in the middle of the forest.


    ¡°A large, muscled giant of a man, my former captor perhaps, walked warily towards the table, sword sheathed at his side. I could not hear what was said, but he was met by a dagger to the stomach in reply.


    He fell forward, a look of shock on his face. At this, the rest of the group, at least 20 in number, raised a blood-curdling war cry and charged the few men at the feast. They cut their throats in an instant, even as they tried to stand, and fell upon the feast.


    We stepped out from our scattered hiding places and fell upon them as hungrily as they had upon the food, at least three times their number. Several of the group were dead in seconds, and the handful who were not were made to sit on the ground. They glowered at us through hate-filled eyes.


    ¡°I found out in the next few hours what had happened, as the tongues of my fellows loosened in the flush of victory.


    It was apparently well-known that the people of this region were suffering heavily through lack of food. I had seen no evidence of this in my short time in the camp, though admittedly I was not looking for any, but winter was fast approaching and times would only become tougher. A guard captain informed me that during the raid on our camp a great amount of food had been stolen before the fire was set, further confirming the hunger of the enemy.


    ¡°Knowing they were hungry they set up the banquet to entice the enemy party out, and took full advantage of the distraction caused by the plentiful food to slaughter them.


    I asked the guards captain what would have happened had the enemy numbers been far greater, and I shall always remember his reply;


    ''The queen promised she would send only her guard, and these fools pride words over victory. We knew she would keep her promises.''


    I felt a strange knot in my gut at these words, some strange feeling that made me feel sick inside. I did not analyse them then, but I know now it was shame.


    ¡°Only one thing remained, I was told. Within this party would be the queen''s envoy, someone entrusted by her to speak in her voice. He would not be among the dead, for his fellows would undoubtedly seek to die before him, and it was not long before he was discovered.


    ¡°The tall, raven-haired envoy wore a studded brown leather jacket with an empty sheath at his side. He did not show any fear as he was dragged in front of the generals. He stared defiantly up into the eyes of the mounted men with nary a blink, refusing to be intimidated. They made several demands of him, but his only reply was to bark back in their harsh language, a gabble of sound whose words were unknown but meaning clear. He was not going to cooperate easily.


    ¡°He was placed in chains I had not even known had been brought on this journey, bound at the hands and by the ankles with just enough give to allow him a hobbled walk besides us. I was not needed to guide the way back to the main camp, so I walked somewhere to the back of the crowd of my fellows, trying to remain as unnoticed as possible. Perhaps now my involvement in these proceedings could end, I hoped. The affairs of the mighty were not for one such as me.


    ¡°It took me a while to become aware of the clinking of chains as I lost myself in dreams of obscurity. Locked in thought, my wanderings had taken me to the side of the captive, and I found my pace being matched by his - or perhaps his by mine? Either way, I walked beside him for some time, clambering over fallen trunks and watching for knots of roots underfoot. These roots were causing the man much trouble, bound as he was, and at one point he fell sprawling to the floor. I helped him up without much thought, where others simply laughed. He eyed me strangely as we continued on.


    ''You are the one brought before the Queen,'' he said suddenly.


    I was unsure what to say to this, and unsure if I should even respond. I didn''t want to be involved in any of this, especially the affairs of some enemy captive.


    ''She should have had you strung, and burned you all alive,'' he said, voice filled with a cold resentment.


    ''She tried,'' I replied curtly. ¡®She nearly burned down our camp.¡¯


    I was surprised to hear him laugh, a guffaw bursting from his chest then gone as quickly as it appeared.


    ''You think she tried?'' he asked incredulously, ''If she had wanted you dead, you would already be dead! You were given a warning. And we did not set any fire. Your fool sentries knocked over a lamp in panic, and you are so arrogant you set no firebreaks in your camp!''


    I made a point of laughing loudly, disbelievingly, in case others were listening in, but I admit a part of me believed him. We walked on in silence again.


    ''What do they plan to do with me?'' he asked me some time later.


    I shrugged. I had as little idea as he did.


    Apparently, someone had been listening in, because a man walking close behind spoke up suddenly.


    ''You''re a game piece,'' this newcomer said.


    ''They will trade you. They''ll use you to break the queen.''


    The captive smiled grimly.


    ''My death will mean nothing to her,'' he said, looking down as he shuffled along.


    The newcomer laughed.


    ''You know that''s a lie. We don''t take well to liars...'' and he punched the captive square in the face.


    ''We know who you are,'' said the newcomer angrily, clenching and unclenching his fist as he stood over the fallen man.


    Once again I had no idea what was occurring here. Who was he?


    Whoever he was, his eyes narrowed and his mouth formed a pencil line. He was clearly infuriated by this turn of events.


    The newcomer turned to me.


    ''Do you know who this is?'' he asked me conspiratorially.


    I must have looked blank, because he told me unprompted.


    "This is Jer. Salot. The brother of the queen.''"


    "We lost him for a time after that. Jer. Salot refused to speak for a while, and his harasser took great pleasure in telling me about him.


    I learnt that ''Jer.'' was an honorific similar to Duke in our lands, and that he was the youngest of seven brothers of the queen. Their society was not patrilineal, as ours, and successors were chosen by order of birth. Hence his sister, being the oldest, taking the throne.


    ¡°Though apparently throne was a curious word to use for their system. It seemed the queen, or king in different times, was more like a war leader than a monarch. Only in times of war did her writ run strong.


    Another custom of theirs was to use only their closest companions, most usually family, as envoys. They believed only those who understood them implicitly could represent them in negotiations with other forces.


    ¡°Above all, they believed a bond of blood could never be broken. Not a one of them would ever abandon a member of their kin.


    The Emperor, in his great wisdom I was told, had heard of their customs and seen there an opportunity. On hearing the queen would be sending an envoy to treat with him, he ordered his generals to make plans for this envoy''s capture. Such an unthinkable move by their standards would give him a powerful bargaining chip, particularly if the captive turned out to be a member of the queen''s direct bloodline. In this, he had been very fortunate.


    ¡°As I was told all this, Jer. Salot''s eyes grew narrower and narrower, his face flushing with rage and fists whitening. At the final comment he spat and began to curse.


    ''Your emperor is an honourless dog,'' he hissed. ''A coward who cannot face the enemy in true combat lest he water his feet.''


    Another punch from his captor knocked him on his back, blood streaming down his face.


    A general from further ahead called back to us, summoning the man who had assaulted the Jer. I saw them have a brief heated conversation, and then the general slapped the man hard across the face. Of course, they wanted the prisoner in good condition for whatever bargain they could reach. The man did not return.


    ''To assault a man in chains is like violence against a child,'' said Jer. Salot, spitting out a bloody glob.


    I found myself apologising for my fellow, then feeling foolish for doing so. Was this man not my enemy? What did I care of his opinions? Again he eyed me curiously.


    ''You are... different... from the others. You see what is happening, and your heart rebels against it.''


    I shook my head, looking down at the ground - to search for obstacles below, I told myself.


    ''You feel the shame of it.''


    I did not reply.


    ''We have lived here for centuries,'' he spoke as if to the air. ''We have carried no aggression to your lands, caused no harm to your people, yet you come here and demand a promise of fealty to a man from far away. You burn our fields and cut down our forests, and take those you capture and send them to unknown places. And you couch it in terms of civilisation!''


    He spoke at length as we walked, telling me of his experiences though I gave no response, feigning disinterest.


    ¡°He had spent many years within the Empire, sent while just a boy to learn of this rapidly expanding power that ate up nation after nation as if insatiable. He had been to our greatest universities and met our greatest thinkers, had witnessed the marches of our armies and seen the towers of our cities.


    ¡°And yet, he told me, he could never understand how a people of such intelligence, such ingenuity and talent, could throw itself behind just one man. The fervour for the Emperor mystified him.


    ''It is better to follow than to be led,'' he told me.


    ¡°This at least stimulated me to passion. How could he not understand, I asked, that it was from the Emperor that all stemmed? The Emperor stood at the centre of all things, and it was from him that all legitimate power was derived. From the highest lord to the lowliest peasant, the structure of civilisation depended upon him.


    ¡°Where, I challenged him, could authority be derived from if not from the Emperor? Only through loyalty to him could we know true purpose, and only through obedience could we know true unity.


    Prior to the Emperor ours had been a nation at war with itself, wracked by internal divisions, I protested. Now it bestrode the world.


    ''And why is that a good thing?'' he asked after the increasingly heated tirade.


    I stopped, unable to grasp his meaning.


    ''The empire. Controlling great swathes of land. Why is that a good thing?''


    I think I must have stopped walking for a moment, mouth hanging open. The question seemed ridiculous. Of course the Empire was a great thing! It was a question that did not need to be asked. And yet...


    ¡°I couldn''t think of a way to articulate my answer. I had always known, as everyone I knew had known, that the Empire was great. But the answers that came to my lips died there without being said. Culture? The Emperor? Enlightenment?


    Any reason I could think of seemed laughable when said to a man in chains.


    ¡°I think he noticed my rising anger, as he became silent and watched me struggle with my thoughts. Eventually, he spoke;


    ''Do not worry. These questions were not meant for you. Those caught in the games of gods can only invent answers that comfort them. They can never know if these answers are true.''


    ¡°We reached the camp a while after, the returning men cheering and whistling loudly, shouting of a great victory. I was subdued, pondering what had happened and feeling that this was in some way not the victory they claimed it to be.


    Somehow Jer. Salot had become my charge. My conversations with him must have been noted, for I was directed by one of the generals to bring him directly to the Emperor''s tent. Of course I was escorted by several armed guards, but it was I that led him there.


    ¡°All I wanted was to be done with this, with the whole of it, but instead I was once more within the open entrance of the Imperial tent surrounded by the highest leaders of the army. The Emperor soon appeared in full golden regalia, and this time he came close enough that I could see that his breast plate was gold leaf over hard iron. It flaked in places, and carried innumerable nicks in the metal.


    Whatever Jer. Salot had said, he was at least wrong in one regard: the Emperor was not a man afraid to fight.


    ¡°He came close to Salot and inspected him intently. The two locked eyes and I was filled with fresh fear when the Jer. refused to look away, meeting the Emperor''s gaze unblinkingly. There was what felt like an eternity before the Emperor suddenly smiled and turned to me, speaking as if I was a valued servant of the place.


    He instructed me to take the captive to the holding cells, and then the generals swarmed around him and I and the Jer. were swept away. A wizened old man in the black-and-red livery of the Imperial staff appeared at my side, smiling. Apparently I was not the first member of the rank-and-file to have been suddenly conscripted into the Emperor''s more direct service.


    ¡°The old man guided me and the still-chained Jer. out of the tent and to a cluster of dark black ones that every soldier knew but tried not to think of. Each tent was small and squat, little more than a cube hardly taller than a man. Outside each one stood a stone-faced guard, standing to attention with a large spear at his side. These guards were chosen from the most serious of the army, men who could tolerate long periods of inaction without tiring.


    ¡°And they needed such tolerance, for within each tent was a cage. The cages were boxes built of iron bars, welded together and fixed into thick wooden planks. Within these cramped conditions were kept those who had provoked the Emperor''s wrath, be they enemies, deserters, or myriad other criminals.


    The cages had nothing within save a bucket, and prisoners would sit for long hours on the splintered floorboards, unable to properly stretch their cramped muscles. Standing straight was impossible for any but the shortest man, and Jer. Salot was taller than most. I knew he would be most uncomfortable.


    ¡°The servant who had shown me the way here spoke briefly to a cluster of dour men stood nearby, and a scar-faced man took a ring of heavy keys and opened a nearby cage. I gestured the Jer. towards it, unsure what I would do if he resisted, but he calmly stepped into the cage and sat cross-legged on the floor, backs to us all. He was still sitting unmoving as the thick entrance curtains were allowed to fall back, enveloping him in darkness.


    It was done! Now I could return to my tent, and the duties of an ordinary foot soldier. I thought I would be more relieved...


    ¡°¡­ Instead, I returned to my tent filled with unfamiliar feelings of doubt and shame. I had seen little of the people we had come to conquer, but I had seen much of the attitudes of my own. They had trusted us to meet them with honour, and we had not. I found it hard to think about, for I could still not reconcile such thoughts with my love of the Emperor.


    ¡°It was because of these confused emotions that I returned to Jer. Salot''s tent the next morning. I approached the black tents apprehensively, but the guards of the tents must have recognised me for they allowed me to enter without question.


    The old servant from yesterday was there, stood beside a table on which many trays of dry food and water were placed. He greeted me as I approached, and seemed unsurprised at my presence. Instead, he told me he was glad of the help, and passed me a tray to take to the Jer.


    ¡°I stood there for a moment holding the tray, surprised at how easy it had been and wondering what I was even thinking, then gathered my wits and walked into the black tent that held the Jer.


    He was still sitting cross-legged as he had when I last saw him. The tent was musty and chill, but he seemed unmoved. He did not react when I entered, propping open one of the curtained entrances to allow in some light.


    ¡°I took the plate and water and placed them individually on the floor of the cage beside him, and he glanced in my direction as I did so. His eyes focused when he saw who it was, and he turned to face me. He said nothing, however.


    I froze, unsure what I wanted to say, and panicked. I left the tent quickly, a cold sweat running down my spine.


    This time I was definitely done with it all, I told myself. I would not return to that tent again. I would await whatever battles were coming, and lose myself in them.


    ¡°It was whilst I was resolving to myself to do this that I became aware of a buzz around the camp. People were chatting intensely to each other, a susurration of excitement running through the air. Grabbing the attention of the nearest group, I asked what was happening.


    ''We may not have to fight!'' said a beaming soldier.


    I couldn''t begin to imagine what he was talking about, and demanded he elaborate.


    ''The Emperor has sent a demand to the queen of these barbarians. The queen is to bow before the Emperor or her brother will be executed!''


    I felt cold at what I was hearing. Blackmail. Was this how we now did battle?


    ¡°There was more to the terms of the demand, I found out. A further enticement for the queen was that, should she submit to the Emperor, she would be allowed to keep her throne. This was an offer the Empire made very seldom, to allow a client monarch to speak for the Emperor.


    ¡°I knew I should feel glad, as the rest of the camp did. We were still not fully recovered from the previous attack, and any battle is a mess of blood and pain, but I instead felt a great unease.


    I returned to Jer. Salot''s tent that evening.


    He turned to me once again when I entered, and this time he spoke.


    ''I did not think you had the strength of will to return,'' he said. ''It is a hard thing, to see those whose freedom you have taken.''


    I must have shifted uneasily, because his eyes narrowed with suspicion and he demanded to know what was wrong.


    ¡°I did not tell him at first. Instead, I asked him things about his people, about his life. He was reticent, but the few things he told me did not sound alien to my ears. They sounded familiar.


    Eventually, he demanded to know why I had come. He could see, he said, that I had something I wanted to say.


    ¡°So I told him of the Emperor''s ultimatum to his queen. Even in the dark, I could see his face flush with rage. His voice became cold, kept in restraint by strength of will, but he could not contain the anger completely and his right hand punched rhythmically into the floorboards, his eyes always on me as he asked for more details. He seemed oblivious to his actions even as his knuckles began to bleed.


    ''You know,'' he said at length, ''You know this is wrong. I see it in your face.''


    ''The Emperor...'' I began.


    ''If you love your Emperor you would not allow him to debase himself this way!''


    The Jer. was suddenly shouting, standing up as much as he could in the cage and grabbing the bars, forcing his face as close as he could to mine, eyes burning.


    ''This is not a path of honour! He is disgracing himself!''


    ¡°Some part of me knew this was true, but confusion and the terror that his shouting would be heard by someone meant I fled from the tent, running from the area.


    ¡°I did not return until the next day. Rumours had been flying around the camp since the evening before, when a messenger from the queen had been seen being taken into the Emperor''s tent, departing soon after.


    She would bow, some said.


    She would fight, others said.


    She had fled, still others said.


    I knew at least the latter was not true. I had seen her eyes, and there is no way she would flee.


    I returned to Jer. Salot as the moon rose. He turned to me and spoke as if no time had passed since we last met.


    ''I need a sword.''


    I looked at him in disbelief.


    ''This cage cannot hold me, but I need a weapon,'' he said.


    He couldn''t be serious, I thought.


    He must have known what I was thinking.


    ''A weapon,'' he said, and turned away.


    ¡°For two days I did not return to the Jer. The camp had grown lax since the Jer.''s capture, and raids on distant farms had finally brought fresh food back. Word had spread that the queen had accepted the Emperor''s ultimatum, and that it would not be long before we could return home. Soldiers joked and laughed, and watches were fulfilled half-heartedly, often by drunk men who would be useless in raising the alarm.


    ¡°And yet, for all this we may have been fine were it not for my actions.


    I have long since accepted the responsibility for them.


    For I went to the Jer''s cage the morning I heard the queen was on her way, and was expected in just a few hours. I don''t know what I planned to do, or even if I planned anything, but I knew my business with the Jer. was unresolved.


    ¡°He was clearly more dirty and haggard from his days in the cage, but still retained the strength he carried himself with. He knew what was occurring the instant he saw me.


    ''I will not allow this,'' he said. ''Give me a weapon and I shall escape. I will not be the reason my people are enslaved.''


    I remember I was sweating and panting like I was fleeing the tempest, and I found it hard to speak. I was barely conscious of my actions when I passed the short sword to him, and once more fled the tent.


    ¡°The queen came flanked by row after row of well-armed warriors, weapons glinting in the winter sun. Their feet crunched through the light winter snow that had fallen that morning, lending a strange peacefulness to the scene.


    Ahead of her stood the Emperor on a raised, roofless palanquin, shining gold. He was flanked by ornately-armoured guards, and behind him our army stood, myself included, set up in rows and at attention, most smiling triumphantly as the queen''s retinue advanced.


    ¡°She stopped before the Emperor, forced to crane her neck upwards towards him, while her guards stared into our army with hatred in their eyes. Nevertheless, we outnumbered them greatly.


    The Emperor was magnanimous in victory. He greeted the queen as the ruler of this land, and spoke of her strength and beauty. The last was met with a venomous stare, but she nodded and returned the compliments with compliments of her own. Then the Emperor surprised us all, the queen''s men and our own equally dumbfounded.


    For the Emperor proposed marriage!


    ¡°Now, this was scandalous for us. To marry such a barbarian as this would have been a disgrace for even an ordinary layman, yet the very soul of the empire was proposing it. A murmur rose and fell quickly as order was restored.


    ''A bold gesture,'' replied the queen, ''and one that would join our two streams into a great river. I will think on it.''


    Anger rose amongst our army at this. To think she would speak as if she were an equal of him. Even I felt the indignation, though it was a damp thing compared to how I would have felt even a few days before.


    And then she asked to see her brother.


    ¡°I was bewildered when the cage was hoisted out of the trees and placed besides the Emperor''s palanquin. Within was Jer. Salot, kneeling towards the queen.


    Before anyone could react, the Jer. bowed at the queen, drew the short sword from beneath his jacket, and slit his wrists. His eyes met mine for a brief moment as he fell.


    ¡°All fell into chaos. Most of the queen''s men charged at us, while one group surrounded her and moved her to safety. She was not running, however, for when she was a short way away she let out a thunderous cry.


    From all around us the cry was answered. This time, they had learnt from our traitorous actions. The queen''s warriors poured in from all directions, slaughtering as they went. The clash of steel on steel resounded through the forest, drowning out the very thoughts in my head. I saw armed men and women cutting their way through my fellows, the screams of desperation growing louder as more and more fell to the sword.


    ¡°The Emperor''s palanquin fell to the ground as its bearers drew their own weapons, and I moved in to the circle of steel that surrounded him, protected him. I saw him draw his own great sword and let loose a powerful cry, charging in amongst his men and felling the enemy all around him.


    I can honestly say that he was the greatest fighter I have ever seen, of all the many battles I have been a part of. This statement is only tempered by the fact that I now feel it is not the ability to fight that makes a man.


    ¡°It was a bolt that got him. One second he was carving a bloody swathe through the attackers, the next he was standing frozen, slowly reaching up to his neck where a bolt stuck clean through. He turned at the same time as I, to see the queen slowly dropping her crossbow and watching as he fell, first to his knees, and then face down into the mud.


    ¡°With the death of the Emperor our army was done. We broke all at once, dashing in all directions into the forest, chased by the enemy in our rout. I don''t know how I survived the initial rush, but I was fortunate to have the woodsmanship to make it across the land in the next few days. Many of my fellows did not, and died even though they escaped the enemies blades."


    The monk paused in his task as he looked to the old man.


    "The disintegration of the empire led to many more battles, and I took part in a good number of them, far larger and bloodier than that one, but it will always be my time in those forests that I remember."


    He watched as the old man continued his methodical polishing of a gravestone.


    "I never told anyone it was I who gave the short sword to the Jer. Indeed, I have never heard it commented on, so great was the chaos of that day. But I remember the responsibility, and so I came to this town, and began to set these graves.


    ¡°They are not for the people of this town. They are the graves of those lost in the wars of the empire. Any name we can find is interred here. Perhaps the person whose grave you clean now was the enemy of the man placed next to him, but no-one can remember. So great and so many were the wars that followed that those who were your enemy one day may be a friend the next, and the reverse.


    ¡°It began with just me, only a decade or so ago, placing small cairns of stones, but so many had lost so much that I was soon joined by others. We became an order, dedicated to the creation and maintenance of these stones, in which the memories of both friend and enemy are preserved. For though we may be divided in life, we are all united in death."


    The moon was now far into its descent, the light of another day barely visible on the horizon. The monk stood and stretched cramped joints.


    "Thank you, sir," he said to the old man, "but our labour is done for the night. You are welcome to stay in the rooms of the order and rest, should you wish."


    The old man stood, folding and pocketing his cloth, and shook his head. He bowed to the monk, who bowed back, then turned and walked away.


    The crimson-robed monk turned his back to the dawn light, and walked towards rest.

 Chapter 6 - The City

    The old man came to the city outskirts along oily, cobbled streets. A jumble of clanking, smoking metal wheeled machines and horse-drawn wooden carts scrabbled for space as they moved chaotically up and down the street, progress made only by constantly pushing for and aggressively taking gaps as they opened up. Ramshackle stalls clustered down both sides, stall-keepers yelling their wares adding to the cacophony, and beyond them grimy brick buildings loomed, dilapidated floor upon dilapidated floor.


    Under the wheels and feet that thronged the street ran strays, both animal and human. Street kids, faces oily and pockmarked, dodged and darted amongst the traffic with the same agility as the dogs, cats, and rodents that ran with them, easily avoiding the absentminded kicks of those riding the carts above. A hazy pall hung over it all, the stench of oil, burning fuels, effluent and livestock intermingled.


    And towering over everything from the centre of the city, overshadowing the buildings even at this great distance, was a giant cannon. The cannon''s bronzed, tarnished metal spoke of the many decades it had stood, colossal barrel tilted up at the sky, forever raised above the city in warning - or threat.


    The base of the cannon disappeared within a colossal metallic fortress, two enormous cogwheels half-visible where they emerged from titanic trenches carved just for them. The cogwheels held the cannon between them, and a gargantuan effort from within the fortress could rotate the barrel. Though the fortress was massive and foreboding, it was dwarfed by the weapon it was built to support, protect and operate.


    Barely a person paused to even glance at it. The cannon had always been, and always would be.


    The old man made his way, unfaltering, towards the cannon and its attached fortress. Despite the chaos, he moved almost directly down the road, his passage somehow clear for the few seconds he occupied each space. By some means he also stayed unremarkable, and unremarked.


    It was some time later that he reached the base of the fortress, coming to a stop in front of two immense iron gates, rust crusting the edges even as a myriad of ragged workers lathered the sides and base with oiled rags. The old man stood watching as they toiled and sweated at their task, some climbing high on ill-maintained wooden ladders, toughened skin crushing the splinters that would have penetrated less-worn limbs.


    He stood like this for several hours, as the never-ending efforts of the preservers of the fortress continued and the baleful orange sun, distorted by the pollution of daily life within the city, made its way below the horizon.


    At night, heavily armoured men appeared from somewhere further around the iron walls. They each had a sword sheathed to their side, and some long, tapered instrument holstered over their backs. Most held blazing torches that hissed and released an acrid smoke. These were placed within clasps placed uniformly around the base of the fortress, where they fizzed as they covered the world with ochre light. The workers coating oil on the gate were gradually replaced, slumped shoulders passing their rags to the newcomers and heading slowly into the night. Several of the armoured men had taken up station near the gate, standing to attention and watching the passers by with suspicious eyes, muttering to each other and sometimes, more unsettlingly, laughing maliciously.


    Late into the night one of the workers, perched precariously upon his wooden ladder, lost  balance and was sent crashing to the ground as his support slid from beneath him, scrabbling futilely at the bare metal surface of the gate as he fell before landing heavily on the concrete below, head snapping upward as it bounced off the hard floor. He slumped flat on the ground, a thin trickle of blood leaking from the gash in his head. Some of the armoured figures strolled nonchalantly over to him, and stood there, looking down. They chuckled as they made jokes, one removing his the sword and sheath and poking the sprawled man.


    The man groaned and moved a little, then a great deal more after a swift jab in the ribs from a metal-booted foot. Lifting himself heavily off the ground, swaying a little in disorientation, he stumbled towards his fallen ladder and attempted to lift it. He failed, barely raising the ladder passed his waist before it fell back to the ground. The guards around him laughed as they watched, then one grabbed the ladder off the floor and thrust it into the back of another worker. Another guard gestured towards the disorientated man, steel-gloved thumb jerking over his shoulder, indicating the man should leave. In his state, he would be of no use for the rest of the night.


    As the injured worker staggered away from the gate and the spitting torches, he passed close to the old man. His vision was hazy, his head splitting, and he stopped in his tracks to croak;


    "Sir, could you help me?"


    The worker''s voice was raspy from a day without use, exacerbated by the fall, and without waiting for an answer he fell heavily towards the old man, reaching out an arm to catch himself. His hand fell upon the old man''s shoulder, which moved not an inch, and the worker found his collapse arrested.


    The old man slowly reached a hand up and placed it over the wounded man''s, holding it down with surprising firmness as he guided him. The worker shakily followed, knees weak, and it was sometime before he remembered to tell the old man directions to his home. When he did he found, fortunately to his mind, that they were already well on the way there.


    To call the residence of the worker a home was to stretch the meaning of the word almost to breaking point. It was a small room sandwiched in between two others, on the third floor of a four floor building that tilted alarmingly and the stone walls of which flowed with some unidentifiable, foul-smelling liquid. The walls separating his room from the others were clearly makeshift, some thin plasterboard that offered more the idea of privacy rather than the reality.


    There was a thin mattress on the floor, a light, dirty blanket crumpled atop. There were no pillows. Random detritus lay around it, which on closer inspection turned out to be old shoes, scattered clothing, and the other objects of a life spent on the edge of abject poverty. A worn wooden stool was wedged in one corner, and here the old man sat while the other fell onto the mattress and into a fitful sleep.


    The worker awoke in the morning to rays of sunlight that entered through the small, grimy window. Someone had wiped a small portion of the smeared surface to allow more in. The smell of hot tea turned his head, to see a cracked porcelain cup steaming beside him. Beyond that, the old man who had helped him home last night sat, hands folded across his lap, staring towards the small circle of light through which the sun entered.


    "I don''t normally see the daylight," said the worker, clearing his throat and sitting up unsteadily, blanket sliding off him. He was still in his work clothes of the night before.


    "I have been working the night shift for... years, I think. Thank you for your help." He stared at the old man, who had not moved his gaze.


    "It''s not many as would care for folk such as me. You do not have to ''elp me no more, sir, but if there is something I could do to repay your kindness, I will do so, should it be within my power."


    The old man abruptly looked down from the window, affixing the man with the bright eyes that belied his years.


    "I wish to hear your story."


    The worker shifted uncomfortably under the gaze of the old man, switching the steaming cup from one hand to the other. He wandered who this man was, and how he had produced hot tea in these confines. As if reading his thoughts, the old man produced a small cloth bag from his pocket, the smell of tea leaves suffusing the room. The worker took this as answer, though it was not until much later he would wonder how the water had been boiled.


    "My story?" he asked quizzically.


    The old man nodded, smiling.


    "I don''t really know what you mean by that, sir. Do you mean the story of my job, or this city, or..?"


    "I wish to hear your story."


    Something in the old man''s tone told the worker that it was not the story of any object or place that he sought, but truly his own story. Indeed, it was the only story he had - he had not had time nor opportunity in his life for the education those of the higher strata had. All he had were his experiences.


    "Well, sir, I do not know where to start. Surely you do not have time for me whole life? It is a long one, sir, and though you may not see it looking at me ''ere, it has taken me to many places, and to see many things."


    The old man nodded, smiling still, and leaned back. Now the worker noticed that he, too, held a cup, from which he sipped.


    Failing to see what else he could say, still muzzy from the blow to the head last night and at being awake at such an unusual hour, the worker began the only story he knew.


    "Well, the earliest I remember of my life was begun in darkness. I worked the mines below this city, you see, when I were little. There were many of us in those days, children barely out of swaddling. Not so many now, of course, since the mine ran dry, but back then there were more than I can remember.


    They need kids you see, the mines. Small frames and nimble hands. Some of those tunnels is no wider than a couple of hands across, and no fully grown man can make the run through them more than once or twice a day. We, on the other hand, could stay within ''em for hours, for days it seemed."


    "I dunno if you''ve ever been down a mine, have you sir?" He waited for some reply, but none was forthcoming.


    "Well, they''re often lined with iron or steel gates, you see, shutters that hold the air in or stop the dangerous gases we get down there from getting out. A back draft without those shutters could flame out the entire place in a moment. So they get placed every few ''undred meters, more as you go down lower.


    But of course the carts carrying the coal and slurry and stuff have got to come back out, and there ain''t no time to be wasting with grown miners moving them up and around. So the kids stay down in the tunnels, between the gates, and when we get the signal lift them up until the cart comes by, gradually if they''re being winched up but damn fast if they''re going down - they sent ''em back free, you see, gravity doing the work.


    You have to be damn fast too, if you don''t want to get your feet taken off or worse. I saw a lot of kids lost that way; they didn''t get far enough away from the track as they held the shutters open, or they just fell asleep in the dark and were crushed when a cart smashed the gate down on top of them. And then they''d send us to clean up...


    I spent a long time down in the tunnels, I did. Can''t say how long, but I was doing it until I grew a couple more feet and couldn''t fit in there properly no more.


    You can hear the heart of the world down there, you know? Go a couple of miles below the earth, sit in a dusty narrow tunnel for hours on end, no one else to distract you, and some days you can hear the heartbeat. I don''t know rightly what it is - no-one does, least not anyone I''ve ever spoken too - but on those days, when the carts have stopped for some accident or change of seam or something, when no-one has passed by your tunnel for what seems like an eternity you can hear it, a deep, dull thumping that pulses up from the depths. I''m sure that right now, out there somewhere, more tiny kiddies are curled up below the earth hearing the same thing I heard all that time ago.


    But what they don''t hear is the other heartbeat, the heartbeat of this city that beat for so long we forgot when it hadn''t. Because even down there you could hear the cannon."


    The worker paused for a while, staring out through the dirt of the window to the dark shape that loomed even through the grime.


    "It truly was the heart of this city, that cannon. It''s the reason the God-King sits on the Steel Throne, it''s the reason we control so much of this continent. They say that''s a good thing.


    I grew up to it''s pounding. Every shell, they told us, was another enemy crushed, another city of defilers destroyed. They told us the giant shells carried society, carried the true way of living with them, and that they could only burn the unrighteous.


    All I knew was that every shell was another day down the mines. The sheer amount of fuel needed to fire one of those things is unbelievable. Though hundreds of us worked every minute we had to feed the thing, it was never full.


    There were days when the priests would come to us, standing on a metal dais as they lectured us on our duty to the people of this city, shouting at us for not matching the output of some other industry, some other factory. Sometimes, we would be made to watch an Endurance, the trial by water of someone they declared had been failing the city. If they survived, they were judged to have been forgiven by the heavens. Most didn''t...


    So I would sit down there, deep within the earth, and listen to the land and city beat in unison, and I felt jealous! Jealous of the shells that flew far across the land, escaping this prison we had built for ourselves.


    I decided to join the army, and go abroad."


    The tale ended there for a while, as the teller stood and changed his top for a seemingly equally filthy one from the floor. He crossed the small room in a few short strides and reached into a small cabinet that stood at the head of the mattress, little more than a few short planks nailed together. From within it, he produced a blue shirt of a cotton far finer than anything else in the room. On top of this carefully folded shirt lay a golden star, a ribbon and lanyard attached.


    "My medal." The worker almost spat this rather than spoke it, contempt in his voice.


    The tale resumed a little later that day. Now, the old man and the worker were seated across from each other at an old wooden table, the room warmed by a small charcoal stove in the corner. This was the main food preparation area for the house, in the basement. They sat eating a sparse meal of fish and rice, the rice taken from a large communal pot left heating above the stove, the fish from the worker''s meagre supplies.


    The worker had grown much more accustomed to the old man''s presence, and his voice and attitude carried much less deference and humility as he continued.


    "I think I was around 15 when I joined. I''ve never been sure of my age - my parents didn''t live much longer than my infant years. The army seemed like a way out of this life, a way to escape this industrial hell we''ve made.


    Besides, I think at that time I was genuine about our cause. I''d spent all me life hearing of our brave citizens bringing light to the dark places, and the drinking halls were full of talk about the triumphs and adventures they experienced. This was years before the wounded began filtering back, before the maimed, the blind, and the walking dead were allowed to return ''ere.


    So I signed up. I didn''t even need to fake my age; they didn''t care and weren''t asking.


    I was sent out almost immediately. Though the cannon still blasted overhead constantly, no less than once every few hours, there were little left for us infantry. I was given a banged-up old rifle, shown how to point it so I didn''t shoot meself, and sent on my way with a group of about 12 of us.


    It was my first time outside the city, and boy was it a shock for me! I didn''t know the land outside the city were so blasted. It was just crater after crater, pools of some nasty looking stuff scattered all over the place. I thought the twisted metal things were trees!


    My new mates joled me for that for a long time after, but how was I to know this was what we had done to the country? This ...moonscape... was the first time I came to see what we had done to the land in our constant wars, and I thought it were normal!


    It took us a few weeks to get to the action, and I got lucky in my companions. They showed me the ropes, taught me how to use the rifle properly and how to add to our rations by scavenging. We even caught a horse one time, out there alone, and cooked it up before anyone else was the wiser. Could''ve been shot for that if the wrong person found out, but hell we were hungry! I think that shared crime brought us together a little more.


    Anyway, our first fight was a small town far to the north of here. The cannon shells were still screaming overhead far into the distance, crashing down over the horizon deep behind the enemy lines. They weren''t any help to us, save to show the general direction we should march and shoot.


    The fight was short and brutal, and I won''t say much about it except my pants were wet at the end of it, and that weren''t because of the pools on the ground, and my knife were wet too. My mates got lively about that - it''s not many get their first blood in hand-to-hand rather than with gunshot.


    I don''t know how long it took us to get through the first resistance, but one day, after a fight that had gone on well into the night, I woke up to a sound I hadn''t heard before. Some high-pitched whistle. I panicked and jumped out of the tent with me rifle, yelling at the others to get up. I thought it must be some new weapon.


    It was birdsong. I''d never heard it before.


    The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    The further we marched up north, the greener it became. The land was still battered and cratered for miles around, but every step we took led to more and more of this ''nature.'' The resistance got less too, and we saw more women and children huddled behind hedges or walls, trying to hide from us.


    A lot of our soldiers had already been through this area, and we saw the results of their passing too. It took me a while to realise those bodies in the gutters were because of our lot, not theirs.


    Anyway, we reached the enemy city a few days after I heard the birds for the first time. It lay in valley between two hills, spreading out for miles. When we rounded the ridge, we saw where the shells of the great cannon had been falling.


    There were great sections of the city that were just... gone. Massive, smoking craters where houses and shops used to be. In the middle a giant fortress stood, covered in gunmetal. It looked like they''d tried to copy the fortress of our own fine city, but after we looked at it for a while we realised that it was actually some kind of palace, the white brick showing through where great chunks had been torn out. They''d actually tried to cover it in metal! We had a laugh at that.


    We''d only arrived to the top of the ridge at twilight. We could see our camp down below, torches burning as drills went on, but it were still a fair distance and we were wiped out, so we bedded down for the night there. As we fell asleep, we could hear the screams coming from the city.


    But I never made it to the city. I was taken during the night."


    They had finished eating while the story went on, and now, by unspoken agreement, were walking the streets of the city, heading outwards and away from the fortress and its great cannon. Though the streets were noisy, the old man heard the worker''s voice clearly.


    "I don''t know where they came from, but I woke to find a cloth bag stuck over my head and a whispered warning not to make a sound, or else. They picked me up and carried me off quietly, managing not to disturb the others. I was tempted to put up a fight, but they said they had my rifle and would use it first on my friends, before me, so I went quietly. Besides, there was a very sharp knife to my throat the whole time.


    At some point they threw me onto a cart, bound, gagged, the bag around my head and tight around my neck. It sounded like whoever they were, they split up soon after, and I was buried under boxes of something as the cart moved on, through the checkpoints my own people had set up, and out into the countryside.


    It seemed an age before I was able to move again. For many hours I was kept, crushed, unable to call out, at the bottom of the cart. My bindings cut into me and I was parched with thirst. It lasted until I was sure I would die, or go mad.


    When they untied me and took the bag off my head, I was in the mountains. The war didn''t seem to have made it this far. It was a wooded area crammed in between the mountains, high and chill but far more peaceful than anywhere I had seen in months, if ever. There were basic wooden shelters amongst the trees, and there must have been hundreds of people, men, women, and children. They milled around, dusty and wide-eyed, many staring at me.


    I was kept there for weeks. They wanted information, wanted to know why we were attacking them. I didn''t know what to say. How could they not understand?


    We were bringing a better way of life, I said. They were content, they replied.


    We were bringing machines that would change their lives, I said. They were fulfilled, they answered.


    We were bringing leadership and government, I said. They chose their own leaders, they insisted.


    They wouldn''t understand, they chose not to, so I was forced to live amongst them. They held me in a crude barn where the children gathered with the sick and injured, and I watched person after person slowly weaken and fade until one day, a few weeks later, I was rescued."


    The worker had led them out from the city limits and up a rutted track too steep and potholed for major traffic. It rose quickly, tapering into a thin dirt path after a long walk. The worker flagged, though the old man did not, and they walked in silence for a while.


    Eventually, they found themselves high above the city, a curve in the track looping round and coming to a ledge. The ledge offered a stirring view of the buildings below, only the top of the cannon yet higher. The sound of the city was muted, and the area deserted, with only brown, dusty boulders for company.


    The worker spoke again, looking out over the city;


    "Of course, that isn''t what happened. No-one questions my tale, but how could it be possible? They took me without waking the others? Impossible!


    No, I left the night we reached the blasted city, after my companions bunked down. I was sick of all I had seen. That place, that land, was what my city could have been, but instead we chose to foul and pollute the very air! And we forced it on others!


    No, I went willingly, and it was me who searched them out. The clearing in the mountain was true, yes, and the barn where I stayed. But I was free. What I just told you is the story I have been telling everyone since I returned, and is based on reality, though the reality was worse. I do not talk about the orphans, stumbling around in a fugue, nor the maimed whose screams kept the camp awake at night, nor the women who sat around the camp, unseeing, shaking at whatever nightmares they had experienced before coming there.


    They took me in almost unquestioningly, certainly with far less suspicion than they should have. Where we would have seen a possible threat, a spy, an adversary, they saw a child. We had met many children on our journey - and I thought of them as children, though some must have been two or three years older than me - and not once had we taken them in. We left them beside the roads, beside their burnt out homes and ruined fields. After all this, they took me in.


    I''ve never told anyone this, but those few weeks were the happiest I''ve ever been. Even amidst all the shell-shocked, weeping men and women, I had never felt so at home. Suddenly I had people concerned for my safety, concerned for my happiness!


    I met a girl, too. She was beautiful. Her name was Lanna."


    The worker paused in his story for a moment, choking back a sob, then continued;


    "Lanna... She was a couple of years older than me, but you couldn''t have told. Where I was lean and muscled from the months of marching and fighting, she was wan and wasted. Everyone was. There wasn''t nearly enough food, and what still grew was taken by my people anyway.


    I began helping them on the hunts, searching further and further within the mountain range for scarcer and scarcer prey. Within a couple of weeks the snow had fallen so hard that some days we spent as long cutting our way out of the pass as we did hunting, and within a month we spent longer.


    The children went first, then the ones who were too injured or to hopeless to move. We kept the fires going as much as we could, but there was never enough wood. At night, wolves would burst out of the darkness and drag people off - they told me this was unusual, but it was a harder winter than any had seen, and we were weak enough to be easy pickings.


    I''d say it was about two months in that I was woken up with the moon still full in the sky, and told to prepare for a long trip. I had no idea what was happening, but I trusted the men and women I hunted with and readied myself unquestioningly. We left before the sunrise.


    We walked for days. I asked where we were going, but no-one would tell me. Leola, the band leader, told me one night I was lucky to be going with them at all, that many within the group thought it unacceptable, unwise to take me with them. I couldn''t understand this - I was close to everyone in the hunting party, I couldn''t imagine anyone saying such things.


    We crossed narrow, crumbling ledges and forded freezing streams, heading upwards through blizzards and ice. I thought I was done for many times. Frostbite ate at my fingers and toes, and I could barely draw enough breath to keep going. But when I fell, the others picked me up. Leola even carried me for a stretch, when I couldn''t get my legs to move.


    On the afternoon of the fourth or fifth day, we came to a crack between two peaks that ran far above. I followed them through without speaking - I couldn''t speak, to tell the truth, my lips wouldn''t unseal. It was so narrow I was sure we were going to get stuck within it, held there until the cold froze us into unchanging corpses. I expected we would unfreeze at the end of time, when the fires of Sala rise and the God King''s armies come to meet them.


    Instead, we popped out the other side within... I don''t know how to describe it. A sanctuary, I guess. 5 peaks towered above us, blocking any wind and forming a wall that would stop even a giant from entering. Within was an open area, a wide circle filled with water. We were standing on the bank of a lake. The bank ran in a thin line all the way around, and somehow no snow lay atop it. The others ignored my questions, staring in silence at the lake.


    I couldn''t understand why the lake wasn''t frozen at first, not until I spotted the wisps of steam rising from it. The silence of the others was making me really uncomfortable. It was scary, to be honest. I''d never seen them like this, even at the worst of times. They were staring at the lake like they were seeing the end of all hope.


    They came out of it eventually, and finally Leola told me what was going on.


    It turned out this lake was the source of their religion, some hokey story about a Goddess in the water or something. I didn''t really listen, to be honest. I had never really thought about what I believed, you see. There was always only one belief where I came from, the same belief we have now, and that is our belief in the God King and his army. So I was a little disappointed. I couldn''t understand why we were here.


    Leola explained that the priests back in the pass had decided that only the water of the lake could save them. The water''s heat, they said, would remain with it if we collected it and brought it back, and they could use it to get everyone through the winter. We were here to collect that water.


    I could have laughed! We''d come all this way (and still somehow had to get back, too) for a drink! The only reason I didn''t was because I had too much respect for Leola. That, and my lips were too cracked.


    Leola must have seen how I felt, because he turned to the others and said something I didn''t catch. Suddenly, I was in the centre of a circle of my friends and I didn''t like the way they looked one bit. They didn''t look angry, but they did have an expression I hadn''t seen before, and didn''t know what to think of it.


    Leola told me the reason I had been brought with them was because I had proven myself over the past few weeks. It was true, I was stronger and fitter than most of them, and my accuracy with the rifle had scored us some bigger game than they could have caught otherwise, but I was still surprised to hear this. My adolescent chest nearly burst with pride and self-importance.


    They''d taken me here because they wanted to offer me a chance most never got. They said I could be baptised, whatever that meant, in their most sacred place. I didn''t have to, they said, but to do so was a great honour that even most of them had never had. Most had been baptised using water carried down from the lake, in the churches of their homes.


    In the churches that now lay burnt and defiled.


    Well, I wasn''t exactly eager for this, but I understood enough to realise this was an honour, and I was still young enough to think I was special, that I deserved this. Also, the water seemed warm, and it looked like this was at least going to involve some, so I accepted. I basically said yes because I wanted a bath.


    Anyway, we removed our jackets - no easy task even this close to the lake - and then they took off the rest of their clothes! I was fifteen, had rarely undressed near men, and had never even come close to seeing a woman naked! No, that''s not true. But those I had seen during my time with my unit were rarely living, and never in a state that made more than a glance palatable.


    It was difficult, taking my kit off in front of all these people, but they teased and joked about it until eventually I was in my birthday dress. I got in the water pretty darn quick, I tell you!


    The water wasn''t warm, either. It was boiling. I couldn''t believe it. It felt like the first bath I''d ever had. Though truth be told I hadn''t had many. It fed heat right through to me bones, right down into my core.


    The others began some kind of chant I had never heard before, but they had a few they used before and after a hunt so I''d heard the language before. Never with such intensity, though. Usually they were said out of habit, I thought, or as an afterthought. This as different. They chanted with real passion. At first, I didn''t want to let myself go. I fought against the feeling, trying to watch from afar and study the chanters like the heathens I had been taught to think they were.


    They pushed me under without warning. One minute I was standing shoulder-deep within the circle, the next I was suddenly being forced under and couldn''t find the bottom. To this day I can''t explain how that happened - it was like an abyss opened beneath me.


    I panicked and struggled, punching at the hands that held me down and kicking at the water below. I managed to get my head up once, taking a great gulp of air, but they forced me down again, and this time didn''t let me rise.


    I fought against it as long as I could, ''til my lungs were burning hotter than fire, but I couldn''t hold it forever. I opened my mouth, and took in a lungful of the lake. The heat that had reached my bones now reached my soul. I know that sounds ridiculous, but I don''t know what else to say. I should have drowned, but instead I heard a voice. It whispered in my ear, and I felt calm. It spoke to me for a while, then suddenly I was free, and floated up to the surface.


    The next thing I remember I was lying on the bank of the lake with the others all around me, Leola pounding at my chest. I coughed up water until I vomited, then lay like a dying fish on the ground for a while.


    The others kept asking me what happened. I told them they must have held me down too long, but they said they had only pushed me under for a second, if that. Well, that made no sense to me. I told them I remembered breathing in the water, then... But I couldn''t remember what the voice had said to me. I knew there had been a voice, but what it said, what it meant, I couldn''t remember. I nearly cried at that."


    The worker seemed as distressed as when he had mentioned the girl from long ago.


    "Do you know what it is, to have a memory so dear as that, then to find it is gone? It haunts me as much as what came next.


    They collected the water of the lake in a tall glass tube, one they said had been taken from one of their churches before my former army came and razed it to the ground. It was put into Leola''s pack, and we made our way back to the pass where the rest waited.


    The way back was just as hard as the way there. The weather came down on us as if we had offended the sky itself, as if it wanted to throw us over the cliffs and onto the crags below. Some of us didn''t make it back, when a rockslide smashed down where we slept and swept two of our tents away, burying them somewhere we could not find. But all the way Leola carried the water more preciously than he carried his own life, and we guarded him.


    We arrived at the pass on the evening of the fourth day, the sun barely visible behind the peaks. The snow had grown unexpectedly high at the entrance we used, so we were forced to dig our way through.


    We had been digging for a few hours when Andra found the hand. It poked out of the snow mockingly, blue and stiff and horrendous. We couldn''t understand why it was there, who it could be, and none of us would face what it meant. We kept digging, trying to force a path through to where our people waited. But with every meter, we began to find more and more limbs protruding from the ice, more and more bodies buried under the snow.


    We dug in a panic, beginning to claw our way through desperately rather than the methodical routine we knew would get us there. Blue and purple faces stared at us from below, from the sides, from all around. They taunted us, screamed at us, accused us, and they grew in number with every step.


    The army - my army - had found the pass a day or two before we returned. They had followed the path the refugees had made as they came in increasing numbers to this place of safety, and when they found it they stationed sappers at either end. They blew the passage below first, trapping those below and forcing them in a terrified mass towards the other end, the passage we returned on. As soon as the mass of people was pouring through, they blew the sides of that crevice too.


    The first thing we did was head to the clearing and houses. As we got closer to the area, usually alive with activity, we heard nothing but the howling wind. There were snowdrifts piled up against the walls of the buildings, in some places so high they had actually caused the walls to collapse. The infirmary where I had spent my first days, always the largest building in the place, seemed to be the only one not half-buried. We pushed ourselves through the snow towards it.


    The reason the infirmary was mostly clear of snow became clear as we approached. Lying like discarded dolls in the snow were tens of bodies of those who had been inside, tossed out onto the ground without thought. They were all long dead. Inside the infirmary the remains of a giant fire lay, and we could tell from the state of the beds that the army had bivouacked here, tossing out the sick and claiming the beds for their own. The embers still smouldering and the last warmth of the room told us the soldiers were not long gone.


    When I stepped out into the frigid cold again, I saw Leola on his knees in the centre of the clearing, staring unblinkingly at the cylinder of water. The cylinder had been pushed down into the snow, and stood there at a slight tilt.


    ''It doesn''t melt,'' Leola said, almost a whisper. I wasn''t sure if he was speaking to me or to the air, and at first I didn''t understand what he meant. But of course, the water was no longer hot. I had never expected it to be. It was only now I realised just how much they truly believed in their strange story; only when I saw the tears turned to ice on their cheeks.


    I tried to comfort Leola, to say something that might reach him, but nothing worked. All of my attempts to somehow dull the pain were wasted breath, and the rest of the group slowly came and gathered around the water too. They sat in a circle around it, staring, unspeaking, as the snow fell heavier and the sun grew weaker. Pretty soon, it was dark, and I could hear the wolves howling in the distance. It was time to move.


    But none of my entreaties worked. It took me a while to realise at first, but they had no intention of getting back up. I think something broke in them - it damn near broke in me. I railed at them, shouting at each in turn, finally screaming at them. How could they be so stubborn? They needed to survive! None of them would listen to me, my increasingly desperate appeals. They just sat there, staring at the damned tube.


    So I smashed it. Before they could react, before they knew what was happening, I stormed over to the cursed thing and scooped it up, not breaking stride, and swung it against the nearest tree trunk. It splintered into a million glass pieces, and the water inside burst into steam.


    It was over in seconds, from taking the water in my hands to it steaming away. It turned to steam almost the instant the glass was cracked, a cloud pouring out and moving amongst the trees. I was knocked to the ground the next second, blows smashing into my sides and the back of my head as I was forced face down into the snow. They let up soon though, fading, and whoever was holding me down collapsed off of me. I turned over to see Leola, hands covering his face as he shook his head to the sky. The others had not moved. Only the gentle sound of snow falling remained.


    I don''t know what happened to Lanna, and I don''t know what happened to them either. I left soon after, at their request. They didn''t ask me to leave out of anger, but because they didn''t want me to throw away my life with theirs. They were not leaving the clearing, I knew without asking, and the snow would swallow them up soon enough. A storm was brewing above us, and it looked to be a heavier one than we had yet seen. They were not going to make the night. I felt guilty as I left, but I was not ready to die."


    The former soldier turned to the old man.


    "I remembered some of what the voice in the lake told me, you see. I remembered the words in the darkness.


    It told me;


    ''Do not choose how to die, but how to live.''


    I don''t know if I truly understand those words, even now, but I could at least choose to live, if not how. I fought my way through the snow and caught up with the army unit the next day, told them the story I first told you, the story of my capture and miraculous survival under the snow.


    Then I went home, with the people who had murdered everyone I had come to know and love."


    They sat, the old man and the former soldier, the worker, watching as the sun fell gradually behind the city and below the horizon. The cannon''s shadow stretched ever closer to them, as if reaching out for its long-neglected servant. Below, smoking torches were lit and their acrid smell joined the rest of the odours that drifted up towards them. Mechanical cries and industrial roars filtered up, the sounds of the lifeblood of the insatiable creature that was the city.


    "I work for the God-King now. The frostbite that took my toes got me out of the army, and as soon as I recovered, they sent me back here to ''serve from home,'' they said. You saw me on the gate last night, but it is not often I do that - can''t keep a good grip without my toes, see? I was only out there because we were shorthanded.


    No, I work in the fortress. There are a hundred elevators in there, and I operate one. It is my honoured duty - they tell me it is an honour - to pull the lever that will, at the God King''s request, carry him up to the Grand Floor or back down to the Residential Chambers. I sit, once again, in the dark, a small, cramped tunnel awaiting the bell that signals me to pull the lever. This tunnel runs vertical, not like the mines, but it reminds me deeply of them."


    Suddenly the worker laughed, a snorted ''ha!''


    "They think I am just a poor cripple, another victim of the war, but they see my medal and think I am a patriot! So they gave me this job. But they don''t understand, they don''t see. Every day, I could bring their world crashing down on them just as they did to me. All I have to do is release the safety lever that sits so conveniently next to the main controls, and I could drop their high-and-mighty lord 10 storeys to his end! It would be so simple!


    I could be the man who killed the God King! I could avenge my friends, who were left to die in the ice and snow like dogs. I could do what they couldn''t and destroy the man in whose name it was all carried out.


    Every day I tell myself how simple it would be, and one day yet I may well do it.


    But I will not choose to do it this day, because I choose to live. We shall see what I choose tomorrow..."


    In the silence that fell over them the old man stood, quietly bowing towards the man who held the God King''s life in his hands. He turned away, beginning the long climb further up the trail and disappearing along the curve around the peak. The man he left behind sat there, legs tucked up to his chest, and stared out across the city as darkness fell.

 Chapter 7 - The War

    <h2>Part One: Headquarters</h2>


    The old man came to a field of sorrow and pain. The ground beneath his feet was a sodden grey-brown, barren from an untold number of explosions, wet from uncounted gallons of blood, churned until no trace of vegetation could be seen from horizon to horizon. Tall dark clouds towered above the battlefield, merging with and inseparable from the black smoke that poured into the air out of the numerous burning wrecks of machinery and bunkers that littered the area. Thunder rolled across the land, though whether this was a thunder of natural or man-made origin it was impossible to say. The metallic smell of burnt ozone and shot hung in a pall over everything, mingling with the caustic odour of burning plastics and some kind of pale yellow gas.


    The old man trod carefully over and around the corpses that littered the ground, their washed-out brown uniforms marking former foes as comrades in death. The whistles and vibrations of artillery shells pounded constantly down, but did not come close to the area where he walked. He made his way steadily over and around craters, threaded his way between the burnt-out half tracks that smouldered gently together in a cluster of destruction, and eventually came to a tall granite structure that rose out of the mud to overlook the field of battle.


    The structure was rectangular, two stories in height and not much more in width, but in breadth it stretched hundreds of meters. Occupants could survey the field through long narrow slits that ran all along the top of the building, though none were visible now. In the centre of the building''s facade stood one solid metal door, the height and width of three men. It slid open as the old man approached, and from within a group ushered out.


    The group consisted of several figures on foot, their gender indeterminate under layers of cloth and padding and faces hidden by masks connected to canisters on their backs, surrounding a bearded, thick-chested man sitting atop a horse. At least, a first glance would assume it was a horse. Closer inspection would see only a matt-black material through the joints of the curved, spiked metal plates that hung over the entire body of the creature, and there was an unnatural stillness to it once it came to a stop that spoke of artificiality. There was no hint of breath from beneath the chanfron.


    The man astride the creature or contrivance, whatever it was, was bedecked in night-black armour framed in blood red at the seams. Hundreds of small, riveted leather scales hung over a battered metal breastplate, from which long faulds fell to cover not only the man''s legs but almost the whole chest of the thing he rode, making it yet harder to see. A great claymore was sheathed on his back, its v-shaped hilt pointing towards the sky. Hanging by a strap under his arm was a long-barrelled rifle, incongruous with the rest of his martial attire. His eyes were exposed to the air, but a corrugated tube extended from the mask over his mouth and over his shoulders to the canister held there. Despite the mask his voice was only slightly distorted, and still carried clear and loud.


    "The gas gone down then, eh?" The fellow bellowed, staring at the old man standing there without any sort of protection. "Thought it would be a good while yet! Masks off, men."


    As the large man said this they reached up and removed their masks as a group. The large man drew in a deep breath, held it, blinked, and then let out a wet, throaty cough. His men did likewise, bending over almost double as they choked. Quickly replacing his mask, the large man stared down at the old with wide, blood-shot eyes.


    "Good gods man, how can you breath in that stuff?" he said, voice winded but loud.


    The old man did not reply, but stood, leaning on his cane with little expression.


    Nonplussed, the large man waved his hands over his shoulder back in the direction of the gate from which they had emerged.


    "Let''s get him and us back inside, shall we men?"


    At some murmured sounds of protest from the group, he spoke louder and with more force.


    "I hardly think one old man is a threat to the headquarters, now! Come, our enemy is not that desperate yet!"


    So saying, he shook the reins of his mount and turned it in a flurry of whirring and hissing steam. Without looking back, he galloped towards and through the open gates into the building. The men he had left behind followed slowly, the old man unacknowledged as he walked with them.


    A few hours later some sterile white doors in a sterile white chamber swung open, and the old man, having been kept there since his entry into the headquarters, stepped out. His expression betrayed no concern and no anxiety; in fact it revealed very little indeed except a curious affability, out of place in the dark atmosphere of this place. Awaiting him a little way from the door stood a uniformed man shifting his weight nervously from foot to foot.


    "Ah, welcome, sir. The commander asked me to escort you through as soon as your quarantine and decontamination was complete. I''m Swift, his orderly."


    The orderly held out a hand with the three centre fingers extended, which the old man stared at for a few seconds before tapping with his own three. Having performed the traditional greeting of the place, the orderly turned and began to walk hurriedly towards a wide flight of steps flush against the back of the massive hall they stood in. Red and blue velvet still hung somewhat raggedly from the landing half way up the stairs, though both landing and the ground floor hall seemed empty of any furnishings. Decorative columns ran from floor to ceiling at either side of the hall, and gold gilt framed the wide window above the landing. This place had an air of faded glamour, of opulence been and gone that stood in stark contrast to the monolithic image projected outside.


    "The commander is upstairs in the campaign room but insisted you be brought up as soon as you were clean. If you could..."


    The orderly''s words trailed off as he became aware that he was not, in fact, being followed. Stopping and turning around, he gaped at the old man, who was casually looking around the hall whilst leaning on his stick.


    "Sir, you really must come with me. It is completely against regulations for you to be here in any case."


    The orderly''s voice held more than a trace of worry and apprehension, but the old man paid no heed. Slowly, though, and seemingly without purpose, the old man''s wandering gaze met the gaze of the orderly, perched on the first step of the staircase. The instant their gazes met, the orderly''s shoulders sagged and he sat, almost collapsing, on the stairs behind him.


    "Who ARE you?" he said, letting out a sigh. "There''s no way you can be here. Old men don''t just walk across the deadlands - they don''t just drop by for a visit to the central headquarters of the entire military. I think... I think we might finally have all gone mad."


    He stared at the old man, who smiled his inscrutable smile and sauntered over to the orderly and sat down on the step beside him, joints crackling as he did so. The orderly laughed.


    "Ha! Then if you''re not here, it doesn''t matter what I tell you, does it? Can''t be court-martialled for talking to the air!"


    He wasn''t looking at the old man now, as he shouted at the air in despairing tones.


    "This place is insanity. We send man after man after man out to fight and die, to lie in the mud until they rot, and I think we don''t even remember why!"


    He let out an incoherent shout into the air that echoed around the hall. A flurry of sound above showed that someone had heard.


    "Swift? That you, boy? Where''s my guest?"


    The voice of the commander jolted Swift back to reality. Jerking to his feet, he span wildly around to face the old man and grabbed under his shoulders, as if to lift him bodily up.


    The old man did not move. The orderly blinked twice, and his face fell blank. He stepped back and stood still and quiet as the old man gradually got to his feet.


    "This way please, sir," said the orderly, and they both climbed the steps to where the commander waited.


    The commander was bent over a large round wooden table in the centre of the room, hands pressing down on the wood for support as he stared at numerous small carvings that littered the surface. A map covered the table from end to end. Indeed, maps covered almost every available surface in the room - no patch of wall was bare, and the floor also had many rolled up ones scattered around. Smaller figures darted around the room in hurried silence, bringing and taking away maps, carvings or other miscellaneous goods at the commander''s bawled requests. Aside from the commander, every figure was clean shaven and devoid of hair.


    Strange rumblings and hissings came from pipes that crossed the walls and ceiling. The pipes had several glass sections along their lengths, and occasionally a canister could be seen shooting along in a blur of speed. Even less occasionally, one of the containers would be caught by some mechanism at a glass section, and someone would run over to lift up the glass on a hinge and remove the paper contained within. They would read the thin strip of paper and hurry over to the commander, whispering a few words and thrusting the paper towards him. The commander would usually give a bellow of surprise, anger, or elation upon reading these messages, then toss them over his shoulder. As soon as they hit the floor, a different attendant would scutter over and collect the strip, holding it to one of the lamps that burnt around the room until nothing was left but ash.


    It was a few minutes before he noticed his visitor.


    "Old fellow! Welcome to the campaign room! You are very fortunate - not many get to see this place. Come, come, take a look."


    The commander gestured the old man over to the table, to survey the detailed outline of the land in which they stood.


    "You see here?" He said, pointing. "Tomorrow morning, we take back the Grand Heights. A great day it will be - vengeance and justice at last!"


    The commander swung his arm down onto the old man in a hearty backslap, one that might well have sent any man stumbling, but his hand stopped the moment it touched his guest. He stared at his hand in surprise, flexing it as a puzzled expression passed fleetingly across his face.


    "The enemy took it from us a few short months ago. Kept it hush hush you know, because we knew we''d get it back soon enough, and tomorrow is the day!"


    "Sir," interrupted the orderly, "Are you quite sure telling this stranger is..?"


    "Nonsense!" bawled the commander, slapping the orderly on the back and nodding in satisfaction as he went sprawling. "I know a trustworthy soul when I see one, and this gentleman is one of the most trustworthy I''ve ever seen! Besides, he will be coming with us on the march."


    The orderly''s face turned to bewilderment and shock.


    "Coming with us? He''s an old... He can''t... We..."


    His eyes darted around the room in confusion as if seeking help from some other, but none came. He pushed himself up off the floor and turned to the old man.


    "Who are you?" he asked. "The commander trusts no-one, and now..."


    "STAND DOWN!" barked the commander. "Now, Swift, you must be tired if you think it is preferable to leave an unknown agent wandering freely around the HQ while we are out on engagement. He made it across the deadlands by himself - damned if I know how - so I think he''ll find it even easier to do so again with a mighty army accompanying him.


    ¡°Swift, you are clearly in need of some recuperation before the assault tomorrow, so I''m going to give you the rest of the evening off. Don''t ever say I''m too strict with you!"


    The commander''s laugh bellowed around the room, joined by a couple of sycophantic subordinates who hadn''t even heard the joke. Swift, confused and defeated, slunk slowly out of the room.


    Several hours later the old man was in a smaller, cosy room a short distance and a whole world away from the campaign room. Where the campaign room was utilitarian and functional, this was extravagant and sumptuous. Several red and green leather armchairs faced a fireplace of gas burning over faux wooden logs, and a variety of bottled spirits covered the walls around the room. The old man and the commander sat in two of the armchairs, and a third was occupied by a corpulent man who had joined them a short while ago.


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    This third man was introduced as the Minister of Requisitions, apparently a very influential post within the military structure, and also apparently a very good friend of the commander. The two joked with the familiarity of old comrades, and shared private memories that would mystify any outsider. Occasionally they would press the old man for information about himself, but were peculiarly unable to extract any information of import.


    "Perhaps we should have our confessors look at him, eh?" said the Minister, chuckling.


    "Oh, not yet. I don''t think the poor fellow deserves that fate!"


    The commander winked towards the old man over whisky-reddened cheeks.


    "Though we''d definitely learn a lot more about you after a visit from them, wouldn''t we!"


    The commander laughed as if he found his own joke almost unbearably amusing, and the Minister joined him. Meanwhile, the old man smiled his gentle smile.


    "A man of few words, aren''t you?" continued the commander. "I don''t meet many non-conscripted folk these days, definitely not around the battlefield. Intriguing..."


    Both commander and minister stared at the old man in silence as if something was niggling at the back of their minds, but whatever it was broke when the Minister took a long drink of his port and spoke.


    "You heard they''ve started conscripting in the Nor''east section? That''s all the territories involved now."


    "Really? Well, I look forward to the fresh recruits that''ll bring."


    "Pity though. I''d rather not have that kind representing the throne. They''re barely civilised themselves - most need a few good lashings, if you ask me."


    "Indeed, indeed."


    The commander twiddled his beard as he drank, and the two spoke to the fire, old man forgotten.


    "What is this world coming to, I ask you. The greatest empire the world has ever seen, reduced to using northern wildsman in its defence!"


    "Shocking, shocking. And all because the blasted Jun took advantage of our trusting nature with such a cowardly sneak attack! Well, never again I say!"


    "Hear hear! Wait, no... I thought we ambushed them, didn''t we?"


    "Did we?"


    "Yes, yes, I''m sure that was it. A pre-emptive strike into the heart of the Jun!"


    "Pre-emptive? Sheer genius! Truly it does credit to her Majesty!"


    "Hear hear! To her Majesty! A toast!"


    The two men clinked their tumblers together, inebriated and happy.


    "So, marching out again tomorrow. You don''t think you''re pushing yourself a little too hard, commander?"


    "Nonsense! I would have it no other way. There is nothing like the thrill of battle to remind you how to live. Honestly, without this war I fear I would have died long ago!"


    "Heaven forbid!"


    "Heaven!?"


    The two men burst into ribald laughter, amidst much thigh slapping and holding of bellies. Eventually their guffaws subsided.


    "What will this be? The eighth, ninth time the Heights have changed hands?"


    "I think somewhere closer to the twelfth actually, Minister. The people will rejoice when they are reunited with their traditional rulers."


    "Are we? Their traditional rulers? I thought the heights were originally Jun territory."


    "Are you sure? The inhabitants of the area spoke damn well when I was last there - I was sure they had at least some civil blood in their veins. Jun, eh? Well then, it will be a great triumph to take it for the throne!"


    Clinking their glasses together one last time, the two men polished off their drinks and stood up unsteadily, pushing off the arms of their chairs to stand. The commander blinked when he saw the old man.


    "Oh yes, of course. Well, sir, it has been a pleasure, but it is surely time for our rooms and a good night''s rest. Tomorrow we ride!"


    With a shaky bow, the two left the old man and went their separate ways.


    Soon after they left, Swift the orderly arrived, eyes darting nervously around as he entered the room. His eyes locked on the old man, and he strode over hurriedly.


    "I will show you to your room now, but I would ask some answers of you."


    The old man stood up and allowed himself to be led out of the room and down the corridors, maintaining the same ambling pace he always did. This seemed to agitate the orderly all the more.


    "I''ve never seen the commander like this before! He doesn''t question you a jot, doesn''t treat you as a spy or potential enemy. It''s practically unique in my experience. Is it some kind of trick, or...?"


    The orderly''s puzzled expression remained as he matched pace with the old man. As he continued it was more as if he was speaking to himself than his companion.


    "Could it be he simply refuses to acknowledge anything he cannot explain? He is that sort of man - I''ve seen him send hundreds, thousands, to their deaths because he refused to listen to intelligence he disagreed with. Certainly, compared to that this is a small self-deception, but..."


    They came to a door among many along a long grey corridor and the orderly slid it left, revealing a cramped room with a single bed and not much else. He gestured for the old man to enter. Once his guest was in, he began to slide the door shut again, and as he did so he spoke, rapidly.


    "Thousands, tens of thousands of us have marched out of these doors. Tens of thousands or more, and none have returned. They fertilise the deadlands outside, and tomorrow we join them. I wish you pleasant dreams, sir, though I do not remember what such things are myself."


    The door clicked shut.


    Swift the orderly came to the old man''s room at dawn the next day, rapping on the door then entering without waiting for a reply, to find the old man leaning on his stick in patient expectation and apparently ready to depart.


    They walked through the building and gradually downwards, eventually arriving at the wide-open basement level where an ever-increasing group of grey-uniformed men and women were gathering, in a wide array of ages and physical conditions. Strong, hulking men stepped over sickly, weak ones struggling to hold their packs off the ground, and those who must barely shave mixed with those whose hair was silver. The commander towered over this bustling crowd, standing on a wide platform in the centre of the room. The Minister was nowhere to be seen.


    The orderly brought the old man up onto the stage via a small set of steps set in the side, then left quickly, disappearing into the crowd.


    Everyone except the commander received a set of provisions and ammunition when they entered, and most were hard at work trying to force them into their already-full backpacks. The commander''s bag was nowhere to be seen, but it was an easy assumption to make that some attendant somewhere would be taking care of it. He was once more clad in the leather-and-lacquer armour of day before, sword slung over his back and rifle at his side.


    "Aha! My fellow traveller arrives at last! I shall muster the men."


    The commander held up one hand and the room quieted down rapidly, conversations dying one by one as the conscripts noticed.


    "Men! You all know what we now depart to do. Though the enemy may throw all the fires of hell at us, though he may try to tear us limb from limb, the Heights will once more be ours!"


    The commander dropped his hand in a flourish and swept his gaze over the gathered men, awaiting a response. After a slight delay the men began to cheer, though with little passion. This was a speech they had heard before, it seemed. The commander did not seem to notice.


    "Today, we strike a blow at the heart of our enemies! Today, we strike a blow for Her Majesty! Revenge, boys!"


    Another desultory cheer, this time a little louder. It wouldn''t do to be accused of lacking dedication to the monarchy.


    They headed out with little fanfare, the commander astride the horse-like contrivance from the day before. He hardly seemed concerned for the actions of his men, not looking back as he spurred his mount and rode out at a pace that was challenging for those on foot to keep up with.


    "Revenge? D¡¯you know what he''s talking about?" asked one foot soldier to another, as packs rattled and dust kicked up into the air.


    His companion merely shrugged.


    Time passed, and the old man found himself amongst the long lines of marching people as they clambered and waded their way over the cratered landscape. The yellow gas had dissipated, though the air was still thick with the pollution of battlefields everywhere - cordite, blood, and sweat. The line was mostly silent, just the crunch of boots and the panting of the exhausted. The commander was far ahead of the advance, often peeling off from the path they were taking to ascend nearby slopes and survey the land around, which was uniformly grey and desolate. This did not seem to dampen his enthusiasm, however, and he gave constant shouts of encouragement to his subordinates.


    "Come on, men, push yourselves!"


    "Pain reveals value!"


    "Find your strength, for the Empire!"


    These cries were met with near indifference by the weary marchers, only those near enough to the commander to be seen raising any sort of rallying cry in response. The sky was grey and dull, yet the air somehow managed to be heavy and stifling.


    A soldier came up beside the old man, faded blue cap pulled over the ears and concealing all of their head save the face. The figure walked with a greater energy than most others, speaking of great reserves of stamina, and the baggy uniform hinted at a muscled physique beneath. It was only when the figure spoke that it became apparent that this figure was a woman.


    "Are they so desperate they''re conscripting old men now? Where is your pack, grandfather?" she asked brusquely.


    The old man reached into his pocket and drew out the very corner of the pack in which, though she could not know it, he carried his tea leaves.


    "They gave you no provisions? I swear, we must be losing the war badly."


    A soldier shuffling along nearby hushed the woman with a hissed warning.


    "Oh what?" she spat back. "There haven''t been any truthmen here for weeks. And besides, it must be true, if they''re sending out old men without weapons."


    Another nearby figure told her that the old man had arrived with the commander.


    "You''re with the commander?" she said suspiciously, eyes narrowing as she turned to eye him.


    The old man did not reply. She snorted derisively through her nostrils.


    "No, you''re not with the commander, you''re another toy he''s picked up to entertain himself with. What are you? An itinerant farmer? Lost your land to this madness, did you?"


    Still no reply.


    "Well, no matter," she finished, and they all laboured on in silence.


    Something seemed to be bothering her though, and after a period of tense silence she spoke up abruptly, not quite at the old man but rather towards his general area.


    "This is my third march on the Heights, you know. I''ve marched with the commander a few other times as well. Always comes out of it alright, that bastard does. We won''t be so lucky."


    "You''ve come out of it before. You just said," a man nearby said.


    "Twice, but that doesn''t mean I will a third time. Not many get through even the first time."


    "What is it like, up there?"


    "The same as down here, but you can see more of the area. It all looks like this anyway."


    "And the Heights?"


    "Windy. Bare. Hardly worth dying over."


    "But we''ve been fighting for the Heights for years!"


    "I know. They''ve claimed more than there fair share of blood."


    "So what are you doing here? Why don''t you... run, or something?"


    "And go where? Besides, I have my reasons."


    The conversation trailed off as the two speakers stared ahead into the unchanging distance, the old man forgotten between them.


    "What reasons?" the other soldier asked suddenly.


    "Huh? Reasons for what?"


    "For being here. You said..."


    "I know what I said!" She snapped.


    The other man said nothing for a while.


    "My first campaign, it was," the woman said quietly, eyes unfocused - or focusing on something the others could not see.


    "I joined up with the other kids in my town. This was before the conscriptions, you see. Me and 3 of my friends, embarking on a great adventure." She spat.


    "You volunteered? Before the call-up? You must have been fighting for years¡­"


    She cut him off.


    "We''d seen the parades passing through the town, clean-uniformed soldiers marching down the main street in step, people coming from all around to cheer and throw bunting over them. It was like a royal visit, and we wanted that kind of adulation.


    We signed up the instant the recruiter came to town, and they practically threw us onto the back of the caravan cart. We were foolish; we''d hurried to the recruiters as if this was just another game we could quit at anytime. We hadn''t even told our parents we were going to sign up, and suddenly we found ourselves taken without even the chance to say goodbye. I dread the thought of how my mother must have felt when she found out her daughter was missing.


    We weren''t a hard-up family either - at that time the belief was that only the poor would have to go and fight. We were just four kids unfortunately choosing to play soldiers right at the time the empire decided it needed to take recruits wherever it could find them."


    "How long was it before you managed to contact your parents again?"


    "I never did. You know how strictly communications are regulated here. They refused us for two years, then abruptly informed us that our home town had been destroyed in the latest round of battles. I went back, once. It''s all gone."


    More silence, which seemed to draw more words out of the woman.


    "They let us stay together, at least. That was the first time I ever saw the commander. We were screaming at the logistics officer who had just read off the battle regiment list, splitting us up. This was early on, before complaining was a capital offense. The commander appeared from nowhere to see what the fuss was about, and laughed that ridiculous belly laugh. A minute later, we were all in the same regiment. I actually felt gratitude to the fat old beardsplitter."


    The group that had gathered as she spoke searched around nervously for the subject or any possible intelligencer, shuffling further away from her until they were sure they were safe. She didn''t seem to notice.


    "He knew! He knew exactly what regiment we were joining, exactly what we were going to face. No wonder he laughed so hard.


    We left the HQ one morning at the crack of dawn. That HQ was ten or so Ks further back than the one we just left - Ha! You can see what the years of fighting have won us. A few Ks of torn-up dirt - Anyway, we set out and headed up this way, almost the same path we''re on now. The land was a little flatter then, a little drier, and there was even some vegetation hanging on.


    Just like now, our way was quiet, and clear. We didn''t notice the sounds of the shells at first, I guess we thought it was thunder or something. We''ll hear them soon enough, I think."


    More nervous looks.


    "The frontline was another world. Deep trenches ran further than the horizon, and hidden within were rooms, entire barracks, whole collections of storehouses. You had no way of knowing what lies below from looking at the barren surface, and I assume it''s the same now. There''s no worries about sappers in that area, because the Heights block the way. That''s what they are, the Heights; a group of huge basalt monoliths sticking out of the ground. No-one knows what made them.


    The shells, though, they can fly over the Heights with ease, so everything has to be built into the ground. We spent the night there, feeling the ground shake at every one to smash into the ground above us. The next morning we stormed the Heights.¡±


    Several others surreptitiously came closer as she spoke, drawn despite themselves.


    ¡°They made us run at them, as they''ll make us run at them again. Bullets rained down on us from high above, so high as to be almost out of sight, but clearly we were well within theirs because the fire never let up. We shot upwards wildly, but I don''t think we caused many problems for those above us.


    It took almost an hour for us to climb to the top. An hour under a constant hail of fire, watching one after the other of my companions fall. By the time we were close to the top, there was less than half of us left, and we were too exhausted to do anything more than walk, despite the lead flying into us. It was just a question of numbers - there were simply more of us than they could kill in the time it took us to scale the Heights. There was no strategy. The Heights were paid for with blood.


    When we got to the top, there must have been no more than forty or so men waiting for us. Forty men had rained death upon us for an hour!


    It was at that point the commander came racing up and crashed into them, riding that steam-steed and accompanied by a small contingent of his own. We joined in happily, and soon no enemy remained."


    "So we just have to stay alive for the ascent?" asked the man walking with them. "We can do that!"


    He looked around, a tentative smile on his face, trying to encourage the others. Some nodded grimly. The woman stared straight ahead, unspeaking.


    The sound of shells rumbled in the distance.