He sees the long knives flashing; he hears the water-kings roaring and snorting; he sees the flesh peeled away. He wants to cry out to the people, No, no, this is monstrous, we will be punished terribly, but what good, what good? All this has happened thousands of years ago. And so he floats, and so he watches.

Like ants they stream across the city, the sinful ones, each with his fragment of the water-king held on high, and they carry the sacrifice meat to the Seventh Temple, they hurl it on the pyre, they sing the Song of the Burning. What are you doing? Faraataa cries, unheard. You burn our brothers! And the smoke rises, black and greasy, stinging Faraataa's eyes, and he can remain aloft no more, and falls, and falls, and falls, and the Defilement is performed, and the doom of the city is assured, and all the world is lose with it.

Now the first light of day gleams in the east. It crosses the city and strikes the moon-crescent mounted on its high pole atop the stump of the Seventh Temple. The Prince To Come lifts his arm and gives the signal. The procession advances. As they march, Those Who Return shift form from moment to moment, in accordance with the teachings of the Book of the Water-Kings. They take on in turn the guises known as the Flame, the Flow, the Falling Leaf, the Blade, the Sands, the Wind. And as they pass the Place of Unchangingness they return themselves to the true Piurivar form, and maintain it thenceforth.

The Prince To Come embraces each of the four prisoners. Then they are led to the altars atop the Tables of the Gods. The Red Woman and the Flayed Man take the younger king and his mother to the east Table, where long ago the water-king Niznorn perished on the night of blasphemy. The Blind Giant and the Final King conduct the older king and the one who comes by night in dreams to the west Table, where the water-king Domsitor was given into death by the Defilers.

The Prince To Come stands alone atop the Seventh Temple. His aura now is scarlet. Faraataa descends and joins him and becomes him: they are one.

"In the beginning was the Defilement, when a madness came over us and we sinned against our brothers of the sea," he cries. "And when we awakened and beheld what we had done, for that sin did we destroy our great city and go forth across the land. But even that was not sufficient, and enemies from afar were sent down upon us, and took from us all that we had, and drove us into the wilderness, which was our penance, for we had sinned against our brothers of the sea. And our ways were lost and our suffering was great and the face of the Most High was averted from us, until the time of the end of the penance came, and we found the strength to drive our oppressors from us and reclaim that which we had lost through our ancient sin. And so it was prophesied, that a prince would come among us and lead us out of exile at the time of the end of penance."