‘How did you find this place, Wisest?’

Grandfather’s voice brought Gariath back to his senses, his attentions to the heavy object dangling from his belt. He reached down, plucked it from the leather straps that held it there, and held it up.

Grandfather looked up into empty eye sockets beneath a bone brow.

‘I asked the skull,’ Gariath replied.

‘You went back to find it.’

‘I needed to know what you wouldn’t tell me. The skull knew.’

‘The dead know.’ Grandfather stared out over the pond. ‘I had hoped you wouldn’t have ears for their voices.’

‘It didn’t say much,’ Gariath said. ‘I could only hear fragments of words, like it was talking in its sleep. It knew where the Elder was.’

‘All dead things know where the Elder is.’ Grandfather sighed and made a gesture to the pond. ‘It speaks because it can’t remember that it should be asleep. Do what is right, Wisest.’

Gariath nodded, kneeling beside the pond to let the skull fall from his hands into the water. In its empty eyes, he saw a kind of relief, the same kind that followed an important thing remembered after having been forgotten for so long.

Or maybe I’m just seeing things.

It did not simply vanish into the water. Instead, it remained stark white against the blue as it fell, still vivid in his eyes no matter how much it shrank. The sunlight caught the water’s surface, turned the blue into a pristine crystal through which he could see the muddy bottom and the stark white that painted it.

He stared into the water.

Five hundred skulls stared back.

‘This was a pit when I brought them here,’ Grandfather said. ‘When it was all over, when I was the last one alive … I dug the earth open and lay them within. It rained — a long time it rained — and this pond formed.’ He nodded. ‘Rivers and rocks. The Rhegashould lie in water.’

The sunlight was chased away by clouds. The water masked itself with blue again. Gariath continued to stare.

‘How?’ he asked.

‘Same way everything died on this island,’ Grandfather replied. ‘In the great war.’

‘Between Aeons and mortals? I thought the humans fought that.’

‘They did. Would it surprise you, Wisest, that we fought alongside them? In those days, we fought along many creatures that you would call weak.’

‘It does not surprise me. The Rhegashould have been there to lead, to inspire, to show them what courage is.’

‘And you know courage, Wisest?’

‘I know what the Rhegaare.’

‘So did I, back then. So did we all. We thought ourselves full of courage … That was reason enough to fight.’

‘To hear the humans tell it, the Aeons threatened all mortals.’

‘They did,’ Grandfather said. ‘But the Rhegawere made of stronger things than crude flesh and bone. No matter what the humans tried to tell us, we were apart from their little wars. If we died, we returned to the earth and came back. Let the humans be concerned with heaven.’

‘Then why did we fight?’

‘We had our reasons. Perhaps life was too good for too long. Perhaps we needed to remember what pain and death were. I don’t know. I’ve thought of a thousand reasons and none of them matter. In the end, we are still dead.

‘But we fought, all the same, and in that day, we became a people obsessed with death. When the first Rhegadied and did not come back, we turned our thoughts to killing. If we did not kill, we died. If we did not die, we killed. Over and over until we were the red peak upon a mountain of corpses.’

‘And you died in battle with the rest?’

‘No,’ Grandfather said. ‘I should have, though. When the children of Ulbecetonth marched against the humans and the earth rattled under their feet, I marched alongside everyone. I climbed their great legs. I shamed the humans and their stupid metal toys by splitting their thoughts open.’ His eyes narrowed, jaw clenched. ‘I leapt into their minds. I tore them apart until I could taste their thoughts on my tongue.’

Gariath recalled the great ravine, the greater skeleton that lay within it, and the massive hole split open in its skull. He recalled how Grandfather had crawled into that hole and vanished, as he seemed to vanish now, growing fainter with every breath.

Suddenly, he sprang into full, bitter view with a deep, unpleasant laugh.

‘And still, I am obsessed with death.’

‘How did you die, Grandfather?’

The ancestor’s body quivered and grew hazy with the force of his sigh.

‘When I crawled out of that skull, when I stopped hearing the screaming, I looked and saw I was the only one left,’ he said. ‘The dead were everywhere: the demons, the humans, but I was the only one concerned for the Rhega, the only one concerned for the dead. The mortals had moved on, pushing Ulbecetonth back to her gate. I was left alone.

‘So, I cut the earth open around the Elder and I dragged their bodies back, finding every piece.’ He paused, glancing into the water. ‘Almost every piece, at least. But the Rhegacame back … not born again, as they should have been, but as I am now. They still wanted to fight, they wondered where their families were, they had so many reasons and they were all so tired …

‘And so, one by one, I bade them to sleep. Then I watched them sleep. I watched for so long I forgot the need for food, for water … and when I came back, there was no one left to bid me to sleep.’

He turned and stared hard into Gariath’s eyes.

‘When you are gone, who will bid you, Wisest?’

Gariath met his concern with a scowl.

‘You think I’ll die?’

‘We all die.’

‘I haven’t yet.’

‘You haven’t tried hard enough.’

The dragonman offered the ancestor nothing more than a snort in reply, his hot breath causing the spectral form to ripple like the water at their feet. Gariath returned his stare to the water. Through the obscuring azure, he could feel their gazes. In the earth, he could smell their final moments.

But in the air, he couldn’t hear their voices, not even the whispering sleep-talk of the skull. They all rested soundly now; staring, dead, utterly silent.

‘What is it you feel, Wisest?’ Grandfather asked. ‘Hatred for the humans for drawing us into this war? A need for vengeance against the demons?’

‘You can’t read my thoughts, Grandfather?’

‘I have been inside your heart,’ the spirit replied coldly. ‘It’s not a place I want to go back to in the best of times.’

‘Take your best guess, then.’

After a long, careful stare, the ancestor obliged him. His prediction was manifested in his great, heaving sigh. The accuracy of it was reflected in Gariath’s unapologetic grunt of confirmation.

‘What is it you plan to do, then?’

‘The skulls are silent. Their scent is nothing but death,’ Gariath said, folding his arms over his chest. ‘This earth is dead. It has nothing to tell me.’

‘The earth is dead, yes, but those that walk upon it still live.’

‘I agree,’ Gariath replied.

Grandfather’s eye ridges furrowed, a contemplative look rippling upon his face.

‘That is why I am going to find the Shen.’

And when the ripples settled, there was fury plain upon the spirit’s face.

‘The Shen?’ Grandfather snarled. ‘The Shen are a people just as obsessed as we were … as youare.’

‘Good company to keep, then.’

‘No, you moron! The Shen are what dragged us into the war!’

‘But you said-’

‘I said we had a thousand reasons, and noneof them mattered. The Shen were the original one, and they matter least of all.’ Upon Gariath’s confused look, he sighed and raised a hand. ‘Shen, Owauku, Gonwa … all descend from a single ancestor, born to serve Ulbecetonth. In them, we saw people who could not hear the rivers or smell the rocks. We were moved to sympathy. We gave our lives for them.’

‘And they pay it back. I have seen them. They are brave; they are strong.’