I am Ferras Vansen, he told the void. I have a name. I am a living man.

Something came nearer to him then—he could feel its approach, slow and ominous as a thundercloud. It seemed bigger than the darkness itself, and it stank. It also seemed…amused?

Living man.

They were not words, not even thoughts, really, but something larger, like shifts in the weather, but somehow he could understand them. He was in the grip of something so much larger than himself that he could scarcely think. He was beyond fear—he was not significant enough to be fearful.

At last it spoke, or the weather changed, or the stars revolved in their black firmanent around Ferras Vansen.

Pass. I will speak for you and He will decide. You will die, or you will live…at least for a little longer.

And then he was in the midst of the strangest place yet—a festive hall that was also a monstrous pit, a solemnly beautiful throne room whose ceiling was the vault of black and endless night. It was the crumbling root-raddled ground, a silver fantasy of towers, the slow-beating heart of all sad music, it was all those things and none of those things. He was alone, his father’s phantom gone, but a million shadows swirled around the great throne at the center, on which sat the greatest shadow of all.

The voice he had heard before spoke to him.

The master of this place says you do not belong in his dream.

I am Ferras Vansen, he said humbly. Of course he did not belong, here at the end of all things. I am a living man. I only wanted to help my father.

The voice of the Gatekeeper spoke again, slow as the slide of glaciers and just as deadeningly chill.

You cannot. It is impertinence to try. His fate is between him and the gods—which is to say, between him and his own heart. And that is why you must go. You are a hindrance, however small, to What Should Be.

Vansen quailed at the anger in that titan voice. I meant no harm! But he felt ashamed of himself for his fear. Even if it meant he must live here forever, eating clay and drinking dust with these sad shadows, he still did not need to crawl. I tried to help. Surely even the gods themselves cannot condemn that?

There was a pause before the Gatekeeper spoke again. He did not seem to have heard what Vansen had said.

Be grateful you did not hear the Earthfather’s voice. Even the murmur of his sleeping thought would send you mad. Instead, he permits you to leave—if you can cross the rivers and come safe out of this land once more. If not, then you will become one of his subjects earlier than you might have otherwise—but it is only a short time to lose, after all, the butterfly-life of your kind.

But why can you speak to me? Why aren’t you asleep, like the Earthfather?