Aren’t I a man? Why am I still playing idiotic games like this? I can’t do it—I should reveal the secret of the charm, give it away and disappear into the woods, melt into their emptiness. I’ll never write anything—what could I possibly say when I haven’t understood anything? What one word could I possibly write about war, as though I could pick it up and handle it like it were a sane thing? It’s more than I can handle—I can feel the war close like black water over me—it has me—I’m in its stomach. All my strength is pouring out of me.

*

Sticky air, trees, that irritating noise.

That noise is making us all angry and hasty—it’s bad. It bodes badly.

Grey sky. Now there are trees ahead of us as well. Looking up, I catch sight of flying wings, the first birds I’ve seen in the interior. They soar above us, just in the fringes of the fog, fuzzed shapes. Their dull bodies look like iron. Those are their Predicanten, the most ancient ones. They feed in the ruins, I think, maybe they feed on that poisonous light. A few shots split the quiet and we all fling ourselves flat—the loonies are trying to bring them down. Makemin grabs the nearest of them, shakes her violently and slaps her face.

“You shoot at the enemy and only at the enemy! Ignore them!”

How—how—how—?

The white abutment ends and we climb laboriously down to the curdled white ground. The trees here are less crowded together. It looks like there’s open country not far ahead. The trees, air, rocks, soil, the movement of the wind, even the noises we make ourselves, are all hiding places for spies. I have a suffocating sensation of being watched, peered at in silence, and with it I experience oppressive, hot closeness. It’s like I’ve been stuffed into someone’s pants pocket.

Now that we’re out in the open, the space itself stares at us. The trees give way to a wide rocky place in the fog. The ground here is sandy and trackless. The land ahead is curtained in mist. The perennial noise of the trees falls away, but I experience no relief. Feeling a million eyes on me, I put on a dreamy face and point wanly into the distance, the direction the charm pointed last time I checked.

“There ...” I murmur, trying not to overdo it. I step forward as if a mysterious force were pulling at me, and raise my hand—I don’t thrust it out, nothing too emphatic—just point loosely.

Silichieh is watching me.

“What is it, Low?”

Thrushchurl says very loudly “He’s in a trance!”—angling his head so Makemin will hear.

“That’s the way,” I say softly.

Other voices—“He was right about the storm ...”

Silichieh turns to Nikhinoch, but speaks loudly enough for Makemin to hear.

“Well, our scouts haven’t turned up anything—I mean, if there were enough of us to fan out, maybe, but ... but as it is ...”