‘Dying rivers,’ he snorted. ‘Broken rocks. This land is dead.’

‘What?’ The spirit looked at him ponderously. ‘No, no. There is life here. We spoke to it, once. We heard the land and the land … the land …’

His voice drifted into nothingness, his form following soon after, disappearing in the sunlight. Gariath continued on, unworried. Grandfather would not stay gone. Gariath was not thatlucky. His sigh was one of many, added to the snarls and curses that formed his symphony of annoyance.

The river’s bed of sharp rocks was not to blame, of course. His feet had been toughened over six days, searing coastal sand, twisted forest thorns and, more recently, a number of ravines home to sharper rocks than these.

It was the repetition, the endless monotony of it all, that drove him to voice as he did, if only to serve as reprieve from the forest’s endless chorus. The island’s dynamic environs mighthave pleased someone else, someone simpler: a leaf-brained, tree-sniffing, fart-breathing pale piece of filth.

The pointy-eared thing would enjoy this, he thought. She likes dirt and trees and things that smell worse than her. This sort of thing would fill her head with so many happy thoughts. He paused, inhaled deeply and growled. As good a reason as any to spill her brains out on a rock.

‘Really? Thinking about brains again?’

The voice came ahead of him. He looked up and growled at the grandfather crouching upon a large, round boulder. The elder’s penchant for shifting positions wildly did not do anything to impress the dragonman anymore.

‘You’re getting predictable, Wisest,’ the elder chided.

‘It weighs heavily on my mind,’ he grunted. ‘And hers will weigh heavily on the ground.’ He stalked past, trying to ignore the grandfather’s stare. ‘Once I pick up the scent again.’

‘It’s been days since you last had it.’

‘It’s important.’

‘Why?’

‘Because she will lead me to Lenk.’

‘Which is important why?’

‘Because Lenk is the key to finding meaning again.’

‘How?’

‘Because …’ He stopped and whirled about, not surprised to see the rock empty of residence, but growling all the same. ‘That’s what you told me.’ He turned and scowled at the elder leaning against the ravine’s wall. ‘Were you lying to me?’

‘Not entirely, no,’ the grandfather replied with a roll of effulgent shoulders. ‘I had simply thought you might lose interest by now, as all pups do.’

‘Pups aren’t big enough to smash heads, Grandfather.’

‘Size is relative to age.’

‘No matter how old you are, I’m still big enough to crush your head.’

‘All right, then, size is irrelevant to someone with no head to crush, which is a benefit of being very old.’

‘And dead.’

The grandfather held up a single clawed finger. ‘Point being, I had thought you would have found something else to do by now.’

‘Something else …’

‘Something else.’

He spared a single, hard scowl for the grandfather before shouldering past. ‘Something otherthan finding a reason to live? I suppose I could always die.’ He snorted. ‘But someonehad a problem with that.’

‘I meant finding a reason that doesn’t involve killing so many things. You’ve tried thatalready. Has it brought you any closer to happiness?’

‘I’m not lookingfor happiness. I’m lookingfor a reason to keep going.’

‘The sun? The trees? There is much here, Wisest, far away from the sorrows that have made you unhappy. A Rhegacould live well here, wanting for nothing, without humans of any kind.’

‘And do what? Listen to you all day? Have pleasant conversations about the weather?’

‘Would that be so bad?’ The grandfather’s voice drifted to his ear frills softly. ‘It is rather sunny, today, Wisest … Have you noticed?’

The whisper in the elder’s voice quelled the roar rumbling in Gariath’s chest, so he merely snorted. ‘I’ve noticed.’

‘When did you last see this much life?’

Gariath glanced around. The forest was silent. The trees did not blow. ‘There is nothing but death here, Grandfather.’

He didn’t bother to look up to see. He could feel the elder’s frown as sharp as any rock.

‘The stench is hard to miss.’ His nostrils quivered, lips curled back in a cringe at the scent. ‘The trees are trying to cover it up, but there’s the stink of dead bodies everywhere. Bones, mostly, some other smellier things …’

‘There is also life, Wisest. Trees, some beasts, water …’

‘There’s something, yeah. I’ve been smelling it for hours now.’ Gariath took in a deep breath, glancing over his shoulder. ‘Broken rocks, dried-up rivers, dead leaves and dusk.’

‘There was so much before … so much,’ the spirit whispered. ‘I used to hear it everywhere. And now … death?’ He sounded confused, distracted. ‘But why so much?’

‘There would be more,’ Gariath growled. ‘Good deaths, too. But someone distracted me from killing the pointy-eared one.’

‘Would that be me or the roach she shoved up your nose?’ The grandfather chuckled. ‘If it means there’s one less dead body on this island, I won’t object to it.’

‘ Youwere the one to tell me she was going to kill Lenk!’ Gariath snarled in response. ‘If she hasn’t already, she’s still planning to.’

‘And if she has? Then what?’

‘ You’rethe elder. You’re supposed to know!’

‘My point remains,’ the grandfather said. ‘What do you suppose happens when you find the humans again? Given it any thought?’

‘By following him this far, I’ve found Grahta and I’ve found you. That’s a start.’

‘But where is the end? Will you just go chasing ghosts your whole life, Wisest?’

He glanced up, regarding the elder with hard eyes. ‘What are you trying to tell me, Grandfather?’

He blinked and the elder was gone. He turned about and saw him perched on the lip of the ravine, staring down the river.

‘I want you to know, Wisest,’ he whispered, ‘that what you find may not be what you’re looking for.’

Gariath raised an eye ridge as the elder’s figure quivered slightly. The sunlight seemed to shine through his body a little more clearly, as though golden teeth seeped into his spectral flesh and devoured his substance, bit by bit.

‘So much was lost here, Wisest. Sometimes I wonder if anything can really be found. But the scent, since you mentioned it …’

There was reluctance in Gariath’s step as he walked toward the elder. ‘Grandfather?’

‘This place was not dug,’ he said. ‘Not by natural hands, anyway.’

‘What?’

‘Suffering was more plentiful back then,’ the grandfather replied, his voice whispery as his body faded briefly and reappeared in the river. ‘Swift death was the sole mercy, and a rare one, at that. Many more died in agony … manymore.’

‘Back when?’

‘We didn’t want any part of it,’ the grandfather continued, heedless of his company, ‘but maybe that’s just how the Rhegaare destined to die … not by our own hands, our own fights. What is it we were even fighting for? I can’t remember …’

Gariath stopped and watched as the elder trudged farther down the river, growing hazier with each step. Every twitch of the dragonman’s eyelid saw the grandfather fading more and more, leaving a bit of himself in each ray of sunlight he stepped into and out of.

Gariath was tempted to let him go, to keep walking that way until there was nothing left of him, nothing heavy enough that he would have to drop, nothing substantial enough about him that could ache.

He watched the grandfather go, watched him disappear, leaving him in the riverbed …

Alone again.

‘Grandfather!’ he suddenly cried out.

The outline stopped at the edge of a sunbeam, all that remained of him being the single black eye he turned upon Gariath. The younger dragonman approached him warily, head low, scrutinising, ear frills out, wary.