While no match for the Tervola of Shinsan, Haroun was a trained shaghûn, a military sorcerer, the best of recent times. That was not saying much, though. The Disciple had forbidden the practice amongst his followers. His enemies disdained shaghûnry as unmanly.

Haroun employed his skills sparingly. Feral sorcery, if noticed, was suppressed quickly and lethally inside the Dread Empire.

Haroun’s strengths were will and patience. He had endured trials that would have crushed most men. And the miracle was not that he had come through but that he had come through every time. Even the heroes of the epics managed only once or twice.

He knew nothing else. Settling down with his wife to raise a crop of grandchildren was beyond his capacity to imagine.

He was obsessed. He was driven. He was the King Without a Throne. This was the life that his God had ordained.

There were few viable passes through the Pillars of Heaven and Pillars of Ivory, from Shinsan to the broad plains between that double range and the Mountains of M’Hand, the latter forming the shield wall of the west. He dared not be seen in those high, tight, narrowly watched passages. He crossed the hard way, sometimes even avoiding the game trails favored by smugglers.

There came a day, though, when he relaxed in the shade of a giant cedar and congratulated himself on having crossed all of the Dread Empire without getting caught.

But… This was still territory Shinsan ruled. The epic must continue, with the going a little easier. Hazards would be fewer and less determined.

While resting he indulged in thoughts of his wife, his son, and possible futures.

He shut all that down and resumed moving. He could not relax till he reached Hammad al Nakir, and then never till he found Yasmid.

The instant he relaxed his vigilance would be his final moment of freedom.

He was certain that of all the lonely people in his world he was the loneliest. And the most significant. He was a linchpin of history. He would, if he survived, definitely shape tomorrow.

He did not just have a powerful will. He was not just driven. He had an obsessive sense of destiny.

He did, perhaps, overvalue himself. There were lonely operators out there who made his mortal moment look like a lone spark of a lightning bug in springtime. Of those Old Meddler was the foremost and oldest.

Haroun gave the Star Rider a lot of thought when he did not have survival on his mind.

“Is that Haroun?” Nepanthe asked.

“Yes. He’s finally through the Pillars of Heaven.”

“I thought he was dead.”

Varthlokkur frowned. Was she having memory problems again? “He was a prisoner in Lioantung. Caught trying to rescue Mocker.” Her first husband, his son, now dead, slain in a failed attempt to murder Bragi Ragnarson.

Would this failure be permanent? Or would the memories return one more time? “He escaped in the confusion when the Deliverer came to Lioantung. He would’ve been home long since if we’d known that they had him.”