The other lands

CHAPTER FIFTY

They had to work fast. They had a day or two to accomplish their objective, Dariel figured. No longer. That was why he pushed the Lothan Aklun vessel to such amazing speeds. It smacked, smacked, smacked against the green swells, sparkling beneath the light of a midmorning sun. The prow cut the waves around the rocky southern tip of Lithram Len and then turned back to race up its ragged eastern shoreline. They might be spotted, yes, but delay was not something they could afford.

It was true that the league had been struck a blow when Calrach rebuffed them. Sire Neen-Dariel could not help but chuckle thinking about him. The memory seemed more manageable now that he was free in the world. Tunnel and several others clinging to the rocking deck nearby looked quizzically at the prince as he laughed. That just made him guffaw all the more. "Rather changed your view of the world didn't it?" he shouted. "Getting your head lopped off, I mean." The others just stared.

The fresh air and the motion of waves beneath him and a ship's wheel in his hands did a great deal for his humor. He felt a vibrant energy at his center that he had not really felt since his days as a brigand captain.

He let the energy feed him from the inside, and he let the urgency pressed on him by the outside world drive him forward. Knowing the league as he did, Dariel knew they would not spend much time mourning Sire Neen. Nor would they be deterred from whatever it was they intended in Ushen Brae. The activity on the west side of Lithram Len proved as much. It could only be a matter of days before they began exploring the other side of the island, where Skylene told him the soul catcher was. She was the only one of the party to have information about it, and that came only from the things Mor had told her. Even this information came largely from a child's memories, but Dariel knew such things could have surprising accuracy.

A little way into their northern turn, Skylene called for him to slow the boat. They would have to study the coastline carefully not to miss entrance to the soul catcher. It was hidden in plain sight, Skylene said.

Trees of a type that Dariel had never seen crowded the shore. Slender trunked, they were as tall as any pine in the high forest of Calfa Ven. The trees exploded near the crown with branches that shot out in every direction. They looked top-heavy, but the branches entwined with their neighbors and those joined the many into a single, linked partnership.

Rocky outcroppings interrupted the trees now and then. It was for a particular one of these that they searched, riding the waves now, nosing along more slowly. Dariel made sure to scan the sea horizon often for any other vessel, but he also watched for submerged rocks and could not help but stare for long moments at the shore.

"On the mainland there are vast forests filled with creatures." Skylene had come up beside him. The breeze off the water stirred the tufts of feathers at her hairline. "They say there are creatures on Ushen Brae-squirrels and flying rats and howling monkeys-that live their entire lives in the tree canopy. Imagine that: having no need of the ground beneath you. The world is odd, isn't it?"

"That's what keeps it interesting," Dariel said.

"Well, yes. And this island is interesting, too. As lush as those trees are, as thick, no animals live here. Listen, you'll hear no calls. Not even birds. They say it has always been that way on Lithram Len."

Indeed, now that she mentioned it, the place did have an eerie stillness. It was hard to imagine the island not crawling with animal life, but he saw no motion save the leaves stirred by the wind. Staring at the trees they did seem almost as if they glared back, like their entwined embrace was not so much an act of mutual support as it was preparation for aggression.

Just after midday, Birke, with his Wrathic hunter's eyes, was the first to see something. His arm shot out, pointing. At first Dariel saw nothing but another bulge of rock that pushed through the trees and overhung the water. He moved the vessel closer, willing it to ride calm on the swells, angling so that he could see into the water more clearly. There were rocks there, rippling and near, under the glassy green tint of the water. It was not until he swung the boat all the way around and backed into the shelter of a natural quay that he realized he had navigated a route that brought him to rest at a pier, a carefully hidden structure just beneath the rock outcropping.

The others had the boat secured in a few moments, and Dariel leaped onto the dock even as Birke started to ascend a stone staircase cut into the buttress. The steps were invisible from the sea but obvious from this angle, a curving ascent that kept to the natural contours of the wall. Dariel followed.

It was a quick climb, and soon he stepped through a darkened opening, as if into the mouth of a cave, breathing heavily from the exertion. The others crowded the room and he had to slide between them. As his eyes adjusted, he realized the chamber was not truly cavelike. It was sculpted, oblong and sleek. The stone had a light within it, a faint illumination that seemed to grow the longer they stood there. No one talked, but they walked slowly around the chamber.

Tunnel said, "This is truly it?"

Skylene nodded, her sky-blue face grave and beautiful in the soft light. "It's as Mor described. Exactly." She pointed to the bedlike stone platforms. "Ravi-I mean, the child to be sacrificed lies on one of those. Whoever is to receive his soul takes the other. Covers come down from above." She looked upward. Indeed, rectangular structures hung there. "And whatever happens is hidden from view. The Lothan Aklun do things. That's all she could say."

"Who were these people?" Dariel asked.

"Some believe that the Lothan Aklun came from your land. Sorcerers who fled persecution"-she ran her hand gently over one of the panels, not actually touching it but as close as she could come to doing so-"and became persecutors in this one."

From my lands, Dariel thought. How could they have come from Acacia? "I've heard no tales of that."

"Not all tales get told," someone said.

"These sorcerers, they put their magic into things," Skylene continued. "Like they put souls in the boat. Like this chamber. This is the place. It's all as Mor described. It may be incomprehensible to us, but the league might not find it so. They are so near, they may find it any day. They may have texts to show them its use. I don't know-"

"If the league has any idea what this can do, they'll search for it," Dariel said. "They'll find it. They'll use it. I know that much about them."

"Destroy it," Birke said. "Let's not wait a minute more."

Another man, Tam, answered this with motion. He unclipped the mace that hung at his belt, gripped it, and tested its weight as he decided where to strike. Dariel understood him to have escaped from the Fru Nithexek, though the only marks of the sky bear on him were dark, circular tattoos around his eyes. He picked his target, a slanting compartment in the wall with hand-shaped, raised impressions on it. Those near him stepped back.

Dariel began, "Somehow I don't think-"

Tam swung the mace. The iron head of it bounced back from the panel so forcefully the young man's arm was flung over his head. He lost his grip on the mace and several had to duck out of the way to avoid being hit. Tam cried out, and for a cold second Dariel thought he might drop dead, cursed or something. But, no, it was just the pain in his shoulder and hand that caused him to cry. He stood, rubbing his shoulder, looking hurt and embarrassed at the same time.

Dariel took a moment, and then finished the sentence he had begun. "That we can just bash the place to pieces."

"Tam," Skylene said in a voice that made the statement the commendation she intended, "thank you for demonstrating what won't work. We have to find another way."

Dariel listened as the group talked, but he had his own idea and it held most of his attention. He circled it, unsure he wanted to offer it. It might fail for so many different reasons. There were risks. Perhaps as much as anything, it meant pushing through a wall of memories he did not relish facing. Or should he? Didn't he have to? Those memories were tied up with the same children who were brought here. They included the same people he was now working against. He had unfinished business with the league. This could be a part of that.

"I think I know a way," Dariel finally said. The others stopped talking and turned toward him. "I did something like this before. We blow it to bits-explosions, flame, and smoke."

Tunnel nodded gravely. "Good idea." A moment later, he added, "How will we do this thing?"

"We'll need an explosive, of course," Dariel said. "I think I know where to find one."

They used the cover of darkness to hide them, sailing back around to the west side of Lithram Len. The moon was just a sliver, but the stars were bright and Dariel seemed to have no trouble feeling the contours of the shore and sensing the dangers beneath the black and silvered water. The others were quiet. Dariel could sense their fear rise to a trembling pitch when the glow of the league vessel-crowded harbor illumed the night sky. They were close enough to the shoreline that they saw it first as a hazy smoldering above the dark silhouette of the trees.

As they got nearer, the sky took on a reddish aspect, seeming lower and choked with smoke. Dariel inched the boat around the last headland. The bustling harbor, with its maze of dock works, and the city behind it came into view. It hummed with life just as when they had first seen it.

The moment they were in view, Dariel knew how much they stood out, bright white vessel that they were. Fortunately, the league had already commandeered many Lothan Aklun ships. He saw several moving in the harbor now, even more at dock. Coming around into the light, they were now on display for any eyes that chose to see them. Instead of retreating, the prince willed the boat forward, toward the burning torches and hundreds of workers, each of them an enemy.

"Best to hide in plain sight, right?" Dariel offered. "We still agree on that, don't we?"

No one answered. No one objected either. This was as they had planned, debated, and argued about all afternoon. From what they had observed the first time, there was no way they could get near the harbor without being seen. The night they had passed it during what should have been the dead hours, it was lit too well, was thronging with laborers and Ishtat guards and leaguemen busy making the island theirs, so clearly the time of the day or night would not aid them. In the end they all agreed. They would do just what they were doing now: sail in as if they belonged, as if they knew what they were about and were as intent on their work as any of the others.

It was no perfect plan. It might work. It might not. They could easily be discovered. If they were, they would likely die. But they could not sail away from it without trying. Dariel half wondered why he himself felt such resolution, but only half. He knew how much this was an opportunity to relieve some small portion of the guilt owned by his family. How could he do anything but try to make that happen? Beyond that, it just felt good. Captain of a ship again. With a crew who jumped at his orders, even if he had to explain his needs each time. And they trusted him. They would not let him pilot them into the enemy's mouth otherwise. Skylene had even given him a dagger, a small, straight blade that he had shoved through his belt. Yes, he was one of them for the time being.

Working the ship closer to the docks, he darted his eyes about, searching at the same time he checked for danger. He knew the barrels would be here somewhere. The league never went far without their flaming weapon. It would be stored off the ships if possible, somewhere removed from the center of activity.

There! Yes, there on the far side of the harbor, at the end of a long arm of pier, sat stacks of drums. He knew them by their color: bright red. Hundreds of them. There was activity at the pier next to it, but the area around the barrels was deserted. Calmly, trying to think slower than the pulse beating in his throat, Dariel steered across the harbor, turned and angled in, coming to the docks on the far side, so that they would be sheltered somewhat from view.

Once docked and tied secure, Dariel turned to the waiting crew. "This is it. The pitch in these barrels makes an unholy fire. It'll blast that soul catcher to pieces and leave a fire that'll burn for days there. The more barrels we can get, the better. Let's go, quickly but calmly."

They could not be sure that the league used the people as laborers yet. Since slaves kept by the Lothan Aklun weren't necessarily adorned in the same ways, those with the most noticeable signs of "belonging" stayed hidden. Skylene, Tunnel, the two others of the Kern clan, and Birke crouched on the far side of the deck. Under Dariel's direction, the others began the work of shifting the barrels from the pier to the boat.

The next pier over seemed to be closer each time Dariel glanced at it. Fortunately, the boat moored there was on the far side, and the attention was thus directed away from them. A group of Ishtat Inspectorate guards stepped off the vessel and stood for a time talking beside it. Dariel kept up the motions of loading and securing, but he watched them every chance he got. He just caught the scent of the mist pipe one of them was smoking. Enjoy it, he thought. Just relax and enjoy the pipe and don't turn around.

The barrels were heavy enough that they had to be tilted and rolled along on their rims, and then carefully leaned from the dock into the hands on board the ship waiting for them. This last move in particular needed to be done slowly, as demonstrated when Tam let a drum loose too soon. It crashed down on the edge of the deck and teetered a moment. Then it fell back against the pier and splashed into the harbor's gray waters.

"Forget it," Dariel said. "Keep going."

"I'm sorry," Tam said. "I thought-"

"It's floating," another observed.

Dariel cursed. There was no retrieving it, as it bobbed under the pier, just out of reach. "Leave it," he said, hoping it would stay trapped among the pier's many pylons. Tam continued to apologize, but Dariel cut him off, not as kindly as Skylene had been with him earlier. "Just keep working. Try to look like you know what you're doing."

A few minutes more, and Tunnel had had enough of waiting. He crammed himself into Birke's shirt, though he could not button it and his bulk threatened to burst the seams of the shoulders. He went to work, and Dariel was glad he did. Where the rest struggled to carry one barrel between them, Tunnel somehow got his arms around two at a time, carrying one under each arm. With this help, the stacked rows on the boat's main deck grew quickly. Dariel kept busy making sure they were properly secured. A few more minutes and they could-

"Dariel?" It was Skylene. Just one word, but the tone in which she spoke it told him everything. Instead of looking at her, he scanned the docks. He spotted the problem quickly.

An Ishtat guard stood at the end of their pier, watching them. Dariel turned to Skylene and, with a motion of his eyes, reminded her to stay hidden. By the time he had turned around again, the guard had started toward them.

"We're going to have company," Dariel said, just loud enough for those hefting the barrels to hear him. "Keep working. Except you, Tunnel-get out of sight."

The Ishtat strode toward them now, eyes fixed. He wore the cloak of his order, bright white and trailing behind him as he walked. A thin sword hung at his side, and one gloved hand rested on its hilt. "Hey!" he called. "What are you doing? You think you can just drop barrels of league pitch to float away? Look!" He pointed toward the water on the other side of the pier. The barrel had floated free. "Get out there and fetch that!"

Dariel bowed his head and motioned his apology with his hands. He called the others and acted as if he would just pull out and pick up the floater. The man carried on toward them, however. As he got closer his steps slowed. And when he was near enough to make out individuals, he squinted, for a moment so perplexed he could manage nothing else. And then he said, "Who are you? You aren't one of ours."

Dariel smiled. "I?" He leaped from the deck to the pier and walked toward the Ishtat, holding an amiable expression. "Who am I?" He laughed and cocked his head in a manner that suggested he had a story to tell, one that would explain all this, one that would make them both laugh, even if the tale did not make the teller seem entirely free of guilt.

He tried to convey all this in the few steps it took him to reach the man, and it must have worked. Instead of drawing his sword or signaling an alarm, the guard had his chin raised and his hands planted on his hips. "Yes. Who are you, and what do you-"

Dariel swept his hand up, bringing with it the dagger. He slammed the blade in the soft center of the guard's neck. The man's face registered shock. His arms hung limp, and this may have fed his terror. His eyes cast about as if demanding that his body do things that it refused.

The prince said, "My name is Dariel Akaran, if you must know." He yanked the blade to the side, and pushed the guard's body over, so that the spray of crimson jetted away from him. Moving with the body's momentum, he kicked the guard from the pier. As the body splashed into the water, Dariel cast his eyes over the harbor, the deck of the nearest ship, portholes in its side, and the street leading away from the water. Nothing. No one seemed to have noticed. Not yet, at least.

He spun and said, "Last of the barrels in, lads, and then let's go!"

The others, Skylene included, stared at him. Birke's jaw dropped, exposing his canine teeth. Tam was so wide-eyed it looked like he feared for his own life. Even Tunnel looked uneasy.

"What?" Dariel asked, leaping back on the boat. "You think this could be bloodless? Gape at me later. Now let's keep moving or there'll be a lot more blood in the water. Quickly now, quickly."

The last barrels went on the deck. The ropes were untied. Dariel steered the boat away from the pier and turned it toward the open water. This was the part he had feared most. To be so close to success but needing moment after moment after moment in clear view of anyone watching. Work on the docks might not draw much attention, but a ship outbound in the middle of the night was a different matter. Dariel felt a hundred eyes drilling into the back of his head. He fought the urge to turn around as much as he held back from surging forward at full speed.

Steady, he told himself. Just steady forward. Off to make a delivery, that's all. Nothing suspicious here.

Right there before him, bobbing for anyone to see, floated the loose barrel. He wanted to ram the thing and fly, but if anybody saw him sail by it without retrieving it… He angled the boat toward it, pulled up until it bumped the side, and then instructed the crew to pull it aboard. Seconds passed as they grasped for it, but it slipped out of reach.

Skylene appeared beside him, looking back where he would not. "The body is in plain sight now," she whispered.

For the first time that night, sweat beaded on his forehead and ran down over his temples. He had to wipe it from the corners of his eyes. Still he did not turn around. He slid the boat toward the barrel, gently. Tam appeared with a boat hook. With it, they got the barrel secured against the side at the stern. Finally, they hauled it up.

Steady forward.

"They've seen it," Skylene said.

Dariel cursed. He tried to find something else to say, but nothing came.

"One guard is motioning to some others. He's pointing at the water."

"Giver!" Dariel ground through his teeth, watching as the headland crept closer. It might have been a plea, but it sounded more like a threat. Skylene glanced at him a moment, and then looked away.

"They converged on it," she reported. "It looks like they're preparing to launch a boat."

Steady forward.

As they neared the spit of land that would take them out of the harbor's sight line, he asked, "Well?"

Her elbow brushed his as the hull crossed into the deeper current coming around the headland, changing the boat's rocking. She did not answer until they fell into shadow. "I don't think they picked us out, but perhaps we should make haste."

And so they did. Dariel pushed the vessel even faster than before. They sped under the light of the stars, and then turned and ran around the bottom of the island as the eastern horizon warmed their faces with the coming sun. They were back at the soul catcher in no time.

If Tunnel had been impressive on the docks, he was a wonder now, stripped shirtless, muscles glistening with sweat as he heaved barrels onto his shoulders and ran up the steps. And though Tam had bumbled twice in as many days, he worked all the harder to make amends for it now. Dariel almost told him to slacken his pace, but the young one was working so hard he did not have the heart to dissuade him. Of course, they feared a league ship would arrive at any moment, but the hours passed without anyone showing. Before the noon hour they had the chamber stuffed with all but one of the pitch barrels, and soon after they had soaked a length of rope in pitch to create a wick.

All told, they had searched, debated, planned, sailed, loaded, run, and hauled throughout an entire day, a night, and into the next day. Still, when the work was complete and the others cleared the chamber to wait at the boat and Dariel stood alone with a torch burning in his hand, it seemed the moment had come too quickly. All he had to do was finish it.

Standing with the torch clouding the air of the chamber with black smoke, he pushed himself forward. One step and then another, and then he bent and brought the flame close to the pitch-soaked rope. Even then it was hard. He had to tell himself that this was not the same as on the platforms. He was not Val, going to his death. Nor was he Spratling, a child being orphaned for a second time. He would live through this act, and no souls would be lost by it. Just the opposite. This would save lives. Save souls. Perhaps even his own.

The wick took the flame and bloomed to life. Dariel watched it long enough to verify that it was good, and then he turned and dashed out and down the stone stairs, glad to feel the sea air on his face, unreasoningly gleeful that a vessel full of friends awaited him.

Years before, as he had raced away from the exploding platforms on the black-sailed Ballan, he had not looked back. He had feared whatever demon was rising there, all the rage roaring up into the heavens, the hands reaching out toward him. He could not have defined just what frightened him so, for it was many things overlapping, some submerged in memory but no less powerful. This time, he turned. He held the wheel as the prow cut the sea, but he twisted around and watched. The others around him clapped and cheered each explosion, for there were many. Hands grasped and patted joy to him, and he returned it.

What he saw was a plume of white smoke that rose slowly above the concussions of flaming rage. It tilted like a giant, like an enormous tree of ash unfurling into life. It looked wonderful. Peaceful. Thankful.

Three days later he beached the Lothan Aklun vessel on a sandspit in a shallow marsh area of Sumerled, just up the throat of a river that the People called Sheeven Lek. He watched as Tunnel directed the others to uncap the last barrel of pitch and let it pour out into the hull of the vessel. They lit it, and it went up fast, with a great whoosh that was a monster inhaling and then a burst of warmth that tilted Dariel back on his heels. He did not say a word of protest. No matter how beautiful the lines of the boat and how incredible the power within it, that was stolen power, trapped unwillingly. Enslaved. It could never be his and should be freed. So it was, and he almost felt he could hear the relief of the souls escaping.

And two days after that he met Mor and a small group of the People at the edge of the wilderness. Skylene presented him to her, all of them gathered on a stone slab elevated above the tamed woodlands to the east and the wilds stretching off to the west as far as the eye could see. The wilderness looked like it went on forever. Granite stones ran north to south in great undulating, weather-round ridges, like the crests of waves. At first, Dariel was not sure where to set his eyes: on the abundance of nature or on Mor, beautiful in the full light of the sun. He chose Mor.

Skylene briefed her on all that had happened: the stealing of the boat, the plan to destroy the soul catcher and the success at doing so, and then their destruction of the boat. It was an official report. Dariel knew that Mor would have heard the details already. Still, they all waited through it, Dariel searching for any signs of thoughts behind Mor's eyes. He could not read her at all. Just looking was a pleasure of sorts, though. Was it because of who she was, or because beneath the shivith spots he saw Wren in the shape of her eyelids and the roundness of her face and the way her cheekbones rose to prominence? Was it Mor he loved looking at, or the lover Mor reminded him of? He really wasn't sure.

If Mor received the news of the soul catcher's destruction with any personal emotion she did not show it. She did, however, take Dariel's hand in hers. She pulled him forward a half step and placed his palm against the center of her chest. "The People praise you," she said, "and thank you. You have done for us something we had not managed to do in all our years here. You arrived with knowledge we do not possess and used it to aid us. Likely, you cannot know the good you have done, but still I praise you for it."

Her expression while she said this was as firm as a nanny's measuring out a disobedient child's punishment, but after a short pause the corners of her lips-first the right and then the left-and then her cheeks as well tilted into a grin. "It's a start, at least. We won't kill you… yet. Come look at this with me."

The two moved away from the others, climbing the sloping stone, which was coarse underfoot, with granules that crackled and popped free beneath their weight. A flock of long, slim birds flew toward them over the hillocks to the northwest. They were black silhouettes against the reddening sky, until they dropped into shadow and stood out white against the deep green of the trees.

"Beyond here, the land is wild," Mor said. "The Westlands. It is not unpeopled. Just wild. Beautiful beyond measure. Before the Lothan Aklun arrived, the Auldek tribes had settled portions of it, but their inland cities are ruins now, their cultivated fields reclaimed by forest and jungle." Her voice had grown conversational in a way it had never been with him before. "The Auldek like to hunt us on their kwedeirs, but there are regions of Ushen Brae that even the hunting parties have never reached. The Auldek are powerful in their way, but they live only on a thin sliver of coastline, afraid of the sea on one side, with a wall against the continent on the other. They were satisfied with that."

"But you are not?"

"No. Never could be. I want what is here. To make use of this land in ways the Auldek have long forgotten. If this land were ours to do with what we wanted, we would build a paradise like nothing the world has yet seen. Of course we would. Who better than slaves to know the value of free life?"

A nation of orphans, Dariel thought. None of whom can have children. What kind of future is that?

Mor turned her face toward him. "Think of it. We would know how to build a just society. That's a thing the world has never seen."

The sun shone warm on her features. Her skin looked so soft. Dariel wanted to run his fingertips across her cheek and down toward her lips, wondering if he would feel the shivith spots if he closed his eyes.

When Mor spoke, it seemed she had taken some portion of his own thoughts and woven them into something different and pressed it back toward him. "Though I set the marks on you myself, I don't fully recognize the face I made. I'll have to get used to you slowly, Dariel Akaran. I should tell you that it's certain the Auldek are marching to attack your nation. I don't know all the details, but they take an army like none they have mustered in years. They take war beasts and many of the sublime motion. I can't say how this will change Ushen Brae or how it will change your land. You have helped us, though. Yoen wants to meet you, but I told him that first I would offer you release. If you want to go now and somehow aid your people, I will not stop you."

He would have jumped at such an offer a fortnight ago. Now, though, he heard it coolly. It wasn't that he cared any less about the Known World, about his family, or about Wren. But the truth was twofold. On his own, he would never get back home. On his own, he was but one man who would have to shout for anyone to notice him, and the only ones who would notice would be his enemies. On his own, he would be running a fool's errand-one of the heart, yes, but not informed by the mind. And, too, he felt a different purpose. It had gripped him on the Lothan Aklun vessel and had not left him yet. Perhaps spirits had entered him when his hands held the steering wheel. Something had happened, for he was different, and in being different he felt a step closer to being more completely himself.

He said, "I would like to meet Yoen."

"You really want to know us?" Mor asked. "Us and these lands?"

Dariel said, "Yes."

"You know that I have not forgiven you anything. It may be that you are truly to have a role in the People's future, but that will only be decided over many, many more tests."

"I know."

"And you know that there is no easy road back to your land from here."

"I know."

Mor stared directly into his eyes for a long time, long enough that it grew hard for him to return her gaze. Dariel felt his eyes moisten, but he did not blink or break the exchange. "It may be that you and I are both realists. Dreamers, too, I think. But realists as well. You cannot go to your land right now. I cannot accomplish the single greatest thing I hope to right now either. I'll tell you this, though. If the day comes that our work here is done, I will go with you to your lands. I will hunt until each and every Auldek is dead. And if I have my way, I'll be able to look into my brother's eyes before he fades from life. That's a dream of mine."

She broke the stare as if it were nothing. "Come then," the woman said matter-of-factly. She showed him her back, and began to descend the granite slope.

Dariel watched her go for a moment, and then lifted his gaze and looked toward the setting sun, across the crowns of trees, verdant green, gilded beneath a flaming sky. He had the impulse to turn and look back over the route they had traveled, or make eye contact with Tunnel or Skylene, but for some reason he felt the need to look only forward. He began walking, feeling the slope of the stone under his feet. He followed Mor in search of her beautiful land, populated by wild things and free people.