Arathan stood at the window of the highest tower next to the one named the Tower of Hate. The morning sun’s light swept in around him, filled him with heat.

Behind him, he heard Korya sit up on the bed. ‘What is it?’ she asked.

‘I am sorry,’ he said, ‘to have so disturbed your sleep.’

She grunted. ‘This is a first, Arathan. A young man rushing into my chambers without even a scratch at the door, but does he take note of my naked self? He does not. Instead, he rushes to the window and there he stands.’

He glanced back at her.

‘What lies beyond?’ she asked. ‘The view is nothing but a vast plain and the hovels of fallen towers. Look at us,’ she added, rising from the bed with the blankets wrapped about her slim form, ‘we dwell in a wasteland with miserable Jaghut for company, and on all sides the view is bleak. Do you not even find me attractive?’

He studied her. ‘I find you very attractive,’ he said. ‘But I do not trust you. Please, that was not meant to offend.’

‘Really? You have a lot to learn.’

He turned back to the window.

‘What so fascinates you with that view?’ she asked.

‘When Gothos woke me this morning, it was with mysterious words.’

‘Nothing new there, surely?’

Arathan shrugged. ‘The mystery is answered.’

He heard her move across the room, and then she came up alongside him. Looking out upon the plain, she gasped.

After a long moment, she said, ‘What did the Lord of Hate say to you, Arathan?’

‘“He is such a fool I fear my heart will burst.”’

‘Just that?’

Arathan nodded.

‘Haut tells me … there is a gate now.’

‘A way into the realm of the dead, yes. Hood means to take it.’

‘To wage his impossible war.’ Then she sighed. ‘Oh, Arathan, how can the heart not break at seeing this?’

They stood side by side, looking down upon a plain where thousands had gathered, in answer to Hood’s call. No, not thousands. Tens of thousands. Jaghut, Thel Akai, Dog-Runners … lost souls, grieving souls, one and all. And still more come.

Oh, Hood, did you know? Could you have even imagined such an answer?

‘And Gothos said nothing more?’

Arathan shook his head. But when I found him again, seated in his chair, I saw that he wept. Children come easy to tears. But the tears of an old man are different. They can break a child’s world like no other thing can. And this morning, I am a child again. ‘No,’ he replied. ‘Nothing.’

* * *

I did not walk among them, Fisher kel Tath. Would that I had. He raised a banner of grief, and this detail waves my intent, but Lord Anomander, at this juncture, was not ready to see it. They were too far away. They were caught in their own lives. Too much and too fierce the necessities hounding them.