I feel as though I’m going toward war, that towers vastly above around and behind its pawns, the enemy soldiers, and us. War fashioned the interior. The war story is waiting to be lived again and to make all of us into its own characters. We will step into our places while the overture plays a medley of themes that will play out in full and in order later on. It’s magic, because I do what I don’t want to do, and there’s no power that I can feel being brought to bear on me. If a hand had me by the collar, and I were being dragged away, I could struggle. If Makemin or Saskia would only point at me, order the others to catch or kill me, or even only threaten me, I could run. But there is no power here to resist. I simply go along. Hating, and rebelling at heart. Something like the sweeping power of the tides sets everything all too smoothly in motion. I feel war’s unreal presence, like blank mindless insanity shining happily from these rocks, watching us bring ourselves to it, for its delectation. We’re going to kill and die at war’s fiat in this beautiful place, nothing more.

My eyes cling to what they see around me. Everything says to me, “you will never see us again.”

I am trying not to clutch at the charm, seeming to want to squeeze it into the flesh of my hand and absorb its powers, if it really has any. In a flash I see Pepedora scheming with Wacagan to get rid of us, set me up with this charm of his. But how does that make sense? Leave his town open to invasion? I shake my head—this is foolish thinking. Makemin is the one dragging us into the interior, against the orders of the Predicanten; Pepedora had nothing to do with that.

Our standard is wobbling in the air. Jil Punkinflake struggles forward, and his dog is there at his heels, tripping him up. It takes the tails of his tunic in its jaws, braces its legs, and pulls him back. He curses and kicks at the dog. We are stealing in between the slopes. The land is still—you can hear the air move through it. Silichieh marching with his head flung back, a look of exaltation on his face. He and Thrushchurl are walking together for the first time, and I can see wild expectancy flicker across Thrushchurl’s features. They both want to see the magic for themselves, no matter what. Thrushchurl in particular seems completely at home, even a little oblivious, as though it were already entirely familiar to him.

White vapor sifts in the air on the trail ahead. The ground is spotted with mirror puddles that reflect the sky. There’s the white passage up there. The wind goes through me as though I’m not there. Thrushchurl gazes at the passage and says “Death.” I hear a shot and the entire column jerks—Jil Punkinflake stands over the body of his dog with the standard in one hand, pennant shaft end braced against his hip, then holsters his pistol.