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But he found nothing

He felt them, each one of them, in his nostrils

And in each expulsion of breath, he felt them, each one of them, die

‘Five hundred’

At the sound of the voice, he turned without a start His body was drained, a shell of red flesh and brittle bones in which there dwelt no will to start, to snarl, to curse All he could do was turn and face the grandfather with eyes that sank back into his skull

‘Exactly,’ the grandfather said

‘What?’

‘There were five hundred Rhega that fell here,’ the ancestor said as he walked wearily to the water’s edge ‘I spent over a year taking in their scents to find their na’

‘I don’t have anywhere to be’

‘You do … You just don’t knohere yet’

They stood, side by side, and stared The waters of the pond lapped soundlessly against the shore The wind in the trees had nothing to contribute The Elder was the grave into which all sound was buried and lost, so inundated with death that even the great sigh of the earth was nothing

‘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 knohat 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 sayin its sleep It knehere the Elder was’

‘All dead things knohere the Elder is’ Grandfather sighed and esture to the pond ‘It speaks because it can’t reht, 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 sa re

Or s

It did not simply vanish into the water Instead, it reainst the blue as it fell, still vivid in his eyes no ht 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 the time it rained – and this pond fora should lie in water’

The sunlight was chased away by clouds The water ain Gariath continued to stare

‘How?’ he asked

‘Sa died on this island,’ Grandfather replied ‘In the great war’

‘Between Aeons and ht that’

‘They did Would it surprise you, Wisest, that we fought alongside the many creatures that you would call weak’

‘It does not surprise a should have been there to lead, to inspire, to show thee, Wisest?’

‘I knohat the Rhega are’

‘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 Rhega were s than crude flesh and bone No matter what the humans tried to tell us, ere 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 reht 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 becaa died and did not co If we did not kill, we died If we did not die, we killed Over and over until ere 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 ainst the huside everyone I clis I sha their thoughts open’ His eyes narrowed, jaw clenched ‘I leapt into their hts on reat 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 see fainter with every breath

Suddenly, he sprang into full, bitter vieith 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 screa, I looked and saas the only one left,’ he said ‘The dead were everywhere: the demons, the hua, the only one concerned for the dead The ate 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 ‘Ala caain, as they should have been, but as I aht, they wondered where their families were, they had so many reasons and they were all so tired …

‘And so, one by one, I bade the 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, ill 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’