Dreadaeleon nodded weakly. A pained grimace flashed across Bralston’s face.

‘It’s … it’s not so bad, really,’ Bralston said. ‘At the academy in Cier’Djaal, you’ll still be useful to the Venarium. You’ll be able to provide services in research, even after you’re gone. And until then, you’ll be cared for by people who understand you for however long you last.’

Dreadaeleon nodded again.

‘Until then …’ Bralston sought for words and, finding nothing, sighed. ‘Try to rest. It will be a difficult journey back.’

He left, disappearing into the village, and Dreadaeleon allowed himself to fall to his knees. Funny, he thought, how the very indication of a disease, the knowledge that life must end, made one suddenly feel as though it were already over.

Ridiculous, he told himself. As though you didn’t already know you’ll have to die sometime. Hell, you’ve been with adventurers. You knew death was inevitable, right? Right. At least this way, you’ll do your duty. You’ll serve the cause. You’ll enforce the Laws. You’ll further knowledge. Harvesting … well, that’s just what happens. You can’t begrudge them that. You usemerroskrit. Someday, your bones and skin will be used by another wizard. Everything is balanced. Everything is a circle.

He stared down at his hands: hands that had hurled, hands that had held, hands that had touched. He estimated each one would yield about half a page, one full length of merroskritwhen stitched together. He studied his hands, confirmed this guess.

And then he wept.

Lenk’s first memory of this forest had been one of silver.

That night, long ago, even as his body had been racked with pain and his mind seared with fever, the forest had been something living, something full of light and life alike. The leaves were ablaze with moonlight, as though each one had been dipped in silver. The song of birds and the chatter of beasts had rung off the trees, each branch a chime that amplified the noise and sent it echoing in his ears.

That night, a week ago, he himself had barely had a drop of life left in him, the rest of his body filled with pain and desperation. That night, every time he fell, he could barely pull himself up again. That night, he had struggled to hold on: to life, to light, to anything.

This day, he stood tall. Despite the fresh stitches in his shoulder, he felt scarcely any pain. Despite the night before, he found his body light, easily carried by legs that should have been weaker. Despite everything, he found himself with nothing to hold on to.

And in the unrelenting brightness of midmorning, the forest was a tomb.

Mournful trees gathered together to drop a funeral shroud over the forest floor, each branch and leaf trying its hardest to block any trace of light from desecrating the perfect darkness. Life was gone, the forest so silent as to suggest it had never even been there, and the only sound that Lenk could hear was the wind singing wordless dirges through the leaves.

Had life been a hallucination?

It was not a hostile darkness that consumed the forest, but a hallowed one. It did not threaten him with its shadows, but invited him in. It whispered through the branches, commented on how tired he looked, how awful it was that his friends had abandoned him and let him wander out here all alone, mused aloud just how nice it would be to sit down and rest for a while, rest forever.

And he found himself inclined to agree with the procession of trees. A week ago, when it had been brimming with life, he had fought so hard to draw into himself, to survive for a bit longer. Now, as he stood, relatively healthy and free of disease, he felt like collapsing and letting the dark shroud fall upon him.

What had changed? he wondered.

‘ Reasons, mostly.’

He nodded. The voice rang clearer here. Perhaps because of the silence, perhaps because he wasn’t fighting it anymore. Perhaps because he recognised the worthiness of its freezing words.

‘Go on.’

‘ Consider your motives between then and now. You clung to belief, then; a strong force, admittedly, but ultimately insubstantial. You desperately wished to believe that your companions were alive.’

‘They were, though. That kept me alive.’

‘We kept you alive,’ the voice corrected, without reproach. ‘Our determination, our will, our knowledge that duty must be upheld. That did not come from anyone else.’

‘It was the thought of them, though …’

‘ It was the thought of her.’

‘And she …’

‘ Lied to us, as did the forest.’

Perhaps it had, Lenk thought. Perhaps there had never been any life here. Perhaps it was always dead and dusky. The other voice, Ulbecetonth’s voice, had been with him, even back then, he realised. She was the fever in his mind, the hallucination in his eye, the will to surrender that pervaded him.

And she had bid him to seek the truth, to follow the ice.

The brook that coursed through the forest floor remained largely unchanged, its babble reduced to a quiet murmur, respectful of the darkness. He knelt and stared into it, saw empty eyes staring back at him.

‘She might have been lying.’

‘ Possibly.’

‘She didinfect my thoughts.’

‘ She did.’

‘But then, she also said she was trying to protect me. It’s probably safe to say that I’m no longer considered worthy of protection by her anymore.’

‘ Wedid kill a few of her children.’

‘Right. So … do I believe her?’

The voice said nothing. He merely sighed. It was a response customary enough not to warrant any greater reaction.

He stared into the water, uncertain as to what he would find. It flowed, clear and straight, as if to tell him that were answer enough. He frowned in disagreement. The last time he had stared into this river, it had frozen over, spoken in words that he heard in harsh, jagged cracks inside his head, a voice altogether different than the one that usually dwelt there.

Or had he even heard it, then? Ulbecetonth’s feverish talons were inside his skull at that point, telling him terrible things, making him see wicked things. Perhaps the voice in the ice was just one more hallucination, one more reason to give up.

But it had spoken so clearly, telling him things in a language he knew by heart and had never heard before. It had whispered to him, told him of fate, of betrayal, of duty, of … of what? He bit his teeth, furrowed his brow, forcing the memory up through his mind like a spike. And when it rose, it drained the haze from his mind, left his sight clear.

Hope.

It had bidden him to survive.

And, at that thought, the forest’s funeral ended and became death. The wind stopped. The last remnants of light vanished from above. The air became freezing cold. And with a cracking sound, the brook froze.

He looked down in it. Eyes that were not his own, nor had ever been in his head, looked back at him. They shifted, glancing farther down the river, and he followed their gaze. The ice crept up on spindly legs, gliding down the water, vanishing into the depths of the dead forest.

‘It wants me to follow,’ he said.

‘ It does,’ the voice said. ‘ You won’t like what you find.’

‘I know.’

But he rose and he followed, regardless, going deeper into the forest where nothing lived.

Because in the forest where nothing lived, something called to him.

Thirty-Seven

The bottle was without label, without an identity: an amber-coloured stranger standing in an alley made of murky glass, plying stale, sickly poison that bore no guarantee of quality or survival.

And Denaos threw it back along with his head, quaffing down the nameless liquor as though it were water. His stomach no longer protested, long since having grown used to the sudden assaults. His mind barely registered the introduction of a new intoxication, having grown too used to them.