She stared at him in growing horror. ‘The gate has opened.’

‘Yes. How long shall this night be? None knows, perhaps not even Hood.’

‘This is monstrous…’

Haut rubbed at his lined face, looking old and worn out. ‘He has stopped time. Stolen life’s necessary rush, the rolling needs that burn with defiance. In all realms, life wills itself into being, plunging ever forward in the name of order, outracing the chaos of dissolution.’

She shook her head, half in disbelief, half in terror. ‘But… how vast is this… this end of time?’

‘For now, the encampment,’ Haut replied. ‘But there are ripples, unseen by us mortals, and they spread far and wide. Stirring, agitating, awakening. I would imagine,’ he mused, ‘the dead themselves now hearken to this challenge.’ He settled a hand on the old sword at his belt. ‘It seems we shall have our war after all.’

‘All this, Haut? For the grief of one slain woman?’ She stepped back from him, and then faced the plains once more. Stared at the motionless, lifeless night sky. He speaks true. No breath to draw barring those needed for words. My heart… I hear nothing, not even the swish of blood in the veins. ‘Hood used the magic,’ she suddenly announced. ‘All that the one you name K’rul has given to the world. He’s taken it all inside.’

‘Stilled every fire,’ Haut said. ‘Nothing burns. The exhalation of heat, the very vigour of life, all stopped. As within, so without. But then, is this not what death is? Stepping out from time’s incessant flow? Slipping from sight?’ He sighed, and then shrugged. ‘We are in the Long Night, we who choose to follow him. But you, Korya, here you do not belong.’

‘And I’m to knock Arathan unconscious and drag him away from here?’

‘Gothos holds at bay Hood’s… imposition. He creates a refuge, signified by his Folly, his unending tome, his eternal narrative. To defy the death of time, he would tell a story.’

‘His story.’

‘It may be his,’ Haut agreed. ‘Indeed, it may be precisely what he says it is. A suicide note, a confessional to failure. And yet, do you see this subtle defiance? While the tale continues, there can be no surrender to despair.’

‘No,’ she snapped, ‘of course not. The lord has his hate, after all.’

‘Burning hot as the sun, yes.’

‘Does his hate include Hood?’

‘Hood? Abyss take me, no. He loves the man as only a brother can.’

‘Yet, a brother not.’

Haut shrugged. ‘And now Gethol, returned from something worse than death. A prison we all thought was eternal. Sometimes the deeds of the past, Korya, lead to a place where no words are possible. And yet, does not the love remain? Thus, the three of them, one the spark of hate, one the sigh of grief, and one – well, one stands between the two.’

‘Will Gethol join Hood, then?’