In the aethereal, he knew them all. They lay in the real attitudes of the dead; crushed together like baitfish, pale and unlovely. There was Ghause Muriens, his mother; and there was Wart; and there, Ta-se-ho; and there was Ricar Fitzalan and there, de la Motte and there, Anthony the stable boy, his first love; the first death he’d ever caused. And there was Gabriel’s tutor, Prudentia; there was a pair of men he’d killed to protect a secret; there was a woman who had loved him, and whom his mother had turned to ash.

Perhaps seeing her made him understand that this was a dream—a construct in his own head—just as Gas-a-ho said.

He took some deep breaths.

Gas-a-ho appeared behind him. “What do you think you should do?” he asked calmly.

Aneas made himself look at the pile of corpses. “Clear the spring, obviously.”

Gas-a-ho nodded. “We’ll smoke together when you are done,” he said. “Irene is with us now, in the real. We cannot help you, but we are here.”

“The mind is not so very complicated, is it?” Aneas said bitterly.

Gas-a-ho shrugged. “Clean the spring,” he said.

Aneas went along the last of the swampy meadow, feet squelching in the blood. It seemed unfair that there was so much blood, or that it was so fresh, but the symbolism was obvious.

He reached down. Wart, the old Jack, was atop the pile. He got his hands under the man’s shoulders. Wart’s dead weight was horribly real; his head lolled bonelessly, his teeth clacked as his jaw snapped closed.

Get it done, Aneas thought.

He carried Wart all the way to the darkness. The darkness proved to be a cool dark of overhanging spruce trees; not nearly so terrifying, close up. Aneas laid Wart gently on the pine needles and turned and trudged all the way back to the pile of corpses. The second was Ta-se-ho; the old hunter weighed nothing, although the wound that killed him was a terrible ragged tear and a loop of his intestines came out and caught on the brambles. Aneas put the old man down and pushed the slippery stuff back into the wound, and because this was his mind, he put out his hand and closed the wound. Then he lifted the old hunter and carried him to the woods.

A little golden light fell on a patch of green grass, and there was no sign of Wart. His corpse was gone.

“Two can play at this symbolism game,” Aneas said bravely, although tears were rolling down his face, and a strange hope burned in his throat. He laid the Outwaller in the sun, and turned away, afraid even to watch.