‘Nonsense. Civilization is ephemeral. Domestication of beasts removes their ability to survive without constant attention. Enslavement and breeding of plants weakens them against pest and blight. Imprisoning water invites disease, and, at the last, the breaking of the soil exhausts its capacity to renew itself. Gothos might well be the Lord of Hate, but nothing of what he said was wrong.’

‘And so your argument is that, eventually, the wild will return.’

‘Yes.’

‘Yet, in unleashing sorcery upon all the realms, K’rul, you offer a weapon to defy the wild, in ways not yet imagined.’

K’rul glanced to the right, squinting at the dust-laden encampment and its swarming figures. ‘It may seem that way, yes, at first. But in the absence of magic, what else might civilization beat into weapons against the wild?’

Skillen Droe was silent for a long moment, and then he said, ‘The K’Chain Che’Malle enslaved natural laws. They transformed their world with the tools of technology.’

‘Indeed, and how have they fared?’

‘Their war against nature is complete. Now they twist the very blood in their children, to make forms new and deadly.’

‘And sent you packing.’

‘A crude and displeasing description of my leaving them to their own devices. In creating birds, they bent to the task of constructing cages for them. I chose to not linger, and if my departure proved somewhat tumultuous and discombobulating, it was no fault of mine. Indeed, had I not lost my sky-keep, I would have retired within its inviting confines, there to contemplate the peace of solitude.’

‘For most,’ said K’rul, ‘solitude invites angst.’

The pack still paced them to the east. The day’s modest warmth was fast fading and here and there, in hollows, patches of wind-sculpted, dirty snow were visible. The season’s turn this far north was still months away.

‘Angst. I have never understood that,’ Skillen Droe said.

‘For many, contemplation is like small, sharp teeth chewing from the inside out. We’re in the habit of swallowing down our demons, and then deceiving ourselves by believing they die in dissolution. Instead, they delight in their hidden refuge, and feed day and night.’

‘I know nothing of such demons.’

‘Give us distractions to craze the eye, deafen the ear, and dull the mind, and we can survive a lifetime of despair. For all your efforts, among one people after another, Skillen Droe, I fear that you have failed in listening to any of them. In future, focus on the artists, to best discern the honest cry of the lost.’

‘It is well known that a civilization intent on self-destruction will disempower its artists,’ said Skillen Droe. ‘I witness this again and again. You misunderstand my purpose, K’rul. I am not a saviour.’

‘Then why do you find yourself hiding in civilizations of the mortals?’

‘I get bored, K’rul.’

‘Bored with yourself?’