The Final Voyage of Ramus Rheel
Year 143, Age of Expansion
In the company of Nomi Hyden

He sat back and stared at the page. When he turned it over, the stark white of the next sheet suddenly seemed emptier than ever.

NOMI WENT ABOUT shutting up her home. She gathered her traveling gear together, then started taking down the expensive wall hangings and other items of wealth. But she soon stopped. We'll be back, she thought. Ramus is as doom-laden as ever, but we'll return triumphant. Let him worry about his foolish myths. She left and went to the home of her sometime helper. The old woman and her three young daughters had spent their lives in the service of rich clients, and now Nomi had a big task for them. She told the woman that she was leaving on a journey, and that her home should be maintained in its current state—aired frequently, plants tended, floors cleaned, shields and other metalwork polished. She gave the woman a series of promise tokens which she could exchange for pieces each month, and the old lady smiled and nodded her assent.

Her home and belongings taken care of, Nomi left to tell her friends. Some of them she visited at their homes, and over a glass of root wine she told them that she was leaving on a special voyage about which she could reveal nothing. None of them mentioned the Guild. Several other friends she met in the First Heart Wine Rooms. By mid-afternoon they were already merry from several bottles, yet Nomi found herself growing curiously distant. Almost as if we're already halfway there.

Afterward, she walked down to the river and stood on its shores, staring across at the distant opposite bank and thinking of the Guild buildings huddled there. That made her feel good. Nobody was telling her what to do. This was her and Ramus, and though sometimes he enraged her, confused her and intimidated her with his vast knowledge, she was glad they were doing this together.

She spent that last night in her rooms, and they no longer felt like home.

RAMUS HAD SLEPT well, and no nightmares welcomed in the dawn. He hoped that was a good sign. He'd spent the previous evening packing and preparing his voyaging paraphernalia, so when he woke an hour before sunrise, he only had to dress and leave. He locked the door and pocketed the key.

He had a very real sense that he would not be returning. No nightmares last night, true, but he could still feel the weight of the sickness in his head. Recently, whole days would pass when he forgot that he was ill, and then the brain disease would cut in with a shadow on the sun, a vision behind his eyelids or pure pain, and he would be dragged back to reality with a blink. Chasing myself, he thought. Chasing my own mortality.