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He led Vaelin to a track that curved around the Laretha settle aranite blocks and part-tu a faance of their line and the wind-blasted motifs carved into the stone “The Fallen City,” he said “This place was built by the sah they shared the sa from the ruins to join with the flank of theouttrack all the way to the top “And the saods”

“So,” Erlin said as they clirowing chill around theer hold to the Faith”

“A man can’t hold to a lie”

“The Faith was never a lie Confused in so seen what the rest of the world has to offer in regards to the divine, I find it suits h”

“When we first met you said you had no choice but to follow the Faith When I caend was true, the Departed had cursed you for denying the Faith”

“Cursed? I thought so for a long tie of ly a rown up with beca rown bitter with envy at rey in her hair and the absence of lust in aze I had never been particularly observant of the Faith, ht as to theircaustic words at the brothers and their tediouswife called me, desperate to find reason in this mystery ‘The Departed have cursed you’ I suppose that’s where it all began, a bitter old woend”

“So you never heard their voice? You were not denied the Beyond?”

Erlin paused, breathas his face became sombre “Oh I heard them, but not until many years later Despite appearances, brother, I ae and I do not sicken But without food I starve, and if cut, I bleed the sao, I did Or at least came so close it ers drove th and breadth of the four fiefs, for there was no Real, an answer to the enig life, but had little notion of how to find it Mystics and charlatans were not hard to find, all pro themselves mad or dishonest in time One day I paused in a Nilsaelin tavern and heard a e ways of the Seordah, how they preserved their forest hoood place to seek answers, I was just one man after all, and certainly no warrior What threat would they see in me? I think I walked for half a day beneath the trees before a Seordah put an arrow in my belly

“He came to watch me bleed, a tall felloith a hawk face that betrayed little reaction as I begged for aid In time his face faded and the chill blackness of death ca, shouting, pleadingThere were sowith the voices of the dead?’ No endless serenity and wisdom No eternity of calm I must say, it was quite the disappoint a collective breath as if suddenly muted in fearful expectation Then one spoke, it was not like the others They were thin, like the last echoes of a whispered song This was the full, strong voice of a complete soul, but old, so very old”

“The Ally,” Vaelin said, recalling the ancient chill in the voice he had heard as Dahrena dragged him from the Beyond

“A name I didn’t hear until much later But yes, it was he And he had an offer to make ‘I will return you,’ he said, ‘if you will be my vessel’ I ash in terror, not only of him but also of the prospect of eternity in this terrible void The fear was such II heard in his voice: a boundless, desperate hunger, a need for what he sensed in , and I knew then there orse fates than death

“He felt my refusal, my repulsion, and I felt his will The Beyond is a place that is not a place, a place of souls, but a place also of pain, if you kno to inflict it, and he did I could feel hi as his will lashed atflares ‘Serve ain, ‘Whilst you still have a soul capable of service’ There was no hate in that voice, for I think he was beyond hate by then, for of purest purpose

“I thrashed, I screaed But still, I refused It was then I felt another surge of will, but not his This was so not so old, but in its oay just as powerful, powerful enough to rend h still much had been stripped away, memories of childhood and friendship lost forever Even today I cannot recall rew to hate me

“My rescuer spoke towhere he hurt, banishing the terror he sought to instill ‘You are not done,’ she told me ‘I have seen your end, man of many lives, and this is not it Seek out those like you, preserve all you can, for when you return, it is their strength that will sustain you, and bring the end you will come to crave’ Then she said just threeme from the void and back intoin surprise as ers I judged I had been gone for only a few seconds The Seordah said so faintly annoyed, and drew a knife from his beltthen dropped it when I spoke the three words I had last heard in the Beyond, ‘Nersus Sil Nin’”