In the second, Nostol himself seduced Weyukat, whom the Nonman King prized above all his other concubines, since she had twice carried his seed to pregnancy, if not to term—among few human women ever to do so. In this version, the Nonmen of Cil-Aujas had rejoiced, thinking that the resulting child, if female, could herald the resurrection of their dying race—only to discover that the infant boy was wholly human. The child, named Swanostol in the legends, was subsequently put to the sword, providing the outrage Nostol required to incite his Meöri kin.

In the third, Nostol commanded his chieftains and thanes to seduce not the Emwama, but the highest among the Nonmen nobility, the Ishroi, knowing that the resulting passions would be certain to create the friction he required. This, Achamian had always thought, was far and away the most likely tale, since most contemporary chroniclers placed the Fall of Cil-Aujas within a year of the Battle of Kathol Pass—scarcely enough time for plots involving seduction, pregnancy, and birth to unfold. And it seemed to accord with the scraps he could remember from Seswatha’s Dreams.

Nevertheless, each of the versions had its own poetic virtues, and they all came to the same: war between Men and Nonmen.

He described the glare of riot lighting the deeps. He told them about fury hunting grief, about bared blades raised to low ceilings and naked skin falling to chiselled floors. He spoke of corridors blocked by spears, of underworld houses soaked in flame. He described wild and desperate Men, Chorae bound against their throats, howling through the trackless deeps. He explained the blind stands of the Ishroi, their sorceries cracking through labyrinthine halls. He told them how Nostol, his beard all filth, his hair blood-matted, struck down the Nonman King as he wept and laughed upon his throne. How he murdered Gin’yursis, ancient and renowned.

“With courage and fell cunning,” Achamian said, his face hot in the firelight, “Men made themselves masters of Cil-Aujas. Some Nonmen hid, only to be found in the course of time, by hunger or iron, it mattered not. Others escaped through chutes no mortal man has ever known. Perhaps even now they wander like Cleric, derelict, cursed with the only memories that will not fade, doomed to relive the Fall of Cil-Aujas until the end of days.”

The mountain shadows had ascended to the arch of heaven, revealing a sky so deep with stars it tugged at the heart simply to glance at them. A chill crept through the old Wizard.

“I’ve heard this story,” Galian ventured as the windy silence grew leaden, his palms held out to the flames. “This is why the Galeoth are cursed with fractiousness, is it not? The fugitives you describe were their forefathers.”

Several of the Galeoth scalpers howled in complaint.