Further, deeper the faun led them. The forest road levelled. The great pines bent their branches over the path like twisted arches of a fallen nave, until the heavens were but shafts of light that broke through the lattice of bough and needle. For hours, none spoke a word, and even the horses tread softly. Finally Veorn bid them to halt.

  “I may lead thee no further.”

  Before them, the found the light of day, as if their path lead unto the opening of a dark cavern tunnel. Gedain turned to look once more for the faun, but Veorn had vanished as if mist before Sol. With no word exchanged, Gedain set his heels and rode forward, and Elden followed.

  The road emerged onto a broad field of wildflowers and poppies, climbing a swell ahead. Upon the hill’s crown, stood the silhouette of a warrior.

  “Raise thy hands,” Gedain called to Elden.

  Elden complied.

  They approached with trepidation, their pace measured and slow. As they neared, the silhouette resolved before their eyes: a sentry, armed with a curved blade such as Gedain recalled only from the old Aeonite frescoes and tales of Vallis whispered by his grandmother when he was a boy. Beyond the sentry, a mystery lurked still. The air carried the scent of the poppies and also a deeply foul rot. Sol shown bright above, yet the air was cool, the breeze faint.

  The sentry drew his blade as they neared. Beyond him, the hill rose further, and there, flanking the road hung the figures of men dead for days, stripped and suspended, grey, bloated forms, bound to wooden frames on either side of the road.

  Gedain and Elden reined before the guard. His mail and breastplate bore a dull golden sheen. His cape as black moonless night. His helm was wrought in the likeness of a dragon, melded to the form of its wearer’s skull. He spoke no word, but bid them onward. They rode into the gauntlet of the dead, brushing close, their eyes and oozing wounds pecked away by the black corvids that croaked and flapped as they passed.

  They climbed the road through the gauntlet towards the crest. Closing upon it, what lay beyond yet obscured, reining their nervous steeds to a slow, careful tread. Past the hanging dead, their odorous reek clinging to their every breath. Farther. Further. The wildflowers bursting with colors: pearl and rose. Gold and crimson. Azure and flame, Sol shining bright above, scalding their eyes.

  Then the beyond revealed itself: the tops of broken columns of towering stone, the remains of flying buttress and grand arch, too elegant, too lofty, too noble to be crafted by the minds and chisels and hammers of any Norland men. They halted at the crest. Below them spread a wide vale, and within it the ruin was laid bare in full: once a mighty temple, now overgrown with softwoods and brambles, encircled by ordered ranks of tents— near on a thousand.

  “The Neandilim host, my lord!” Elden whispered.

  “A millenary, perhaps,” Gedain answered.

  Gedain spurred down the slope, right hand raised, Elden following. At the base they were encircled by a score of warriors in brass and black capes, speaking in strange southern tongue. They closed upon them and unhorsed them and removed their weapons. Elden was set apart and held. Gedain was taken onward, the pathway leading through the ruin’s foundations, past grand faces carved in stone, overgrown with crawler vines and roots, past inscriptions etched in archaic and exotic sigils. He gazed up. The columns soared into the heavens, joined by delicate arches near a hundred cubits above him.

  Through a living trellis of thorn and leaf, he was led at last into a small court enclosed by walls of flowering bramble. A stone fountain murmured at its heart, Sol’s rays shimmering off the pool. Beside it sat a slight figure clad in plain black robes, facing away. He held a type of lute with a long, fretted neck. The fingers struck the strings. Dizzying tones filled Gedain’s ear. He could not discern if the figure was a man or a woman. The playing ceased and the figure turned, the face concealed by a plain, golden mask. Their eyes met. The sentries forced Gedain down onto his knees. The figure remained still, examining Gedain as he lowered his gaze.

  “Thou hath come to be made?” asked the figure, its smooth, almost gentle voice disarming him.

  “Made, my lord?” Gedain asked, raising his eyes, his right one yet swollen shut.

  The figure turned a peg on the long neck of the lute.

  “Thou art wounded.”

  “Aye,” Gedain answered.

  “That was not my intent to see you harmed,” the masked figure answered. “The one who erred hath been punished.”

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  Gedain felt his wounded face and eye.

  “There were two paths set before thee,” it continued, softly, “yet thou hath choseth the one that leadeth unto me.”

  “Would any man choose the other?” Gedain asked.

  “The choice was not given to any man.”

  The figure plucked the drone strings and the tone seemed to give voice to the sunlight rippling on the pool.

  “What didst thou expect to find?” it asked.

  Gedain pondered, finding no answer.

  “Let my ask thee: dost thou believe in the evil, Gedain?”

  Beyond the fountain, he noticed something dark, scaled, slithering in the shadow… or perhaps it was just a trick of the light and air.

  “I do not,” Gedain answered.

  “Then thou must knowest this: that all men are savages by their very nature.”

  Gedain’s gaze lowered.

  “Do you agree that a man’s tribe is righteous unto him alone, and his survival demandeth he name all other tribes unrighteous?”

  Gedain gave no reply.

  The figure tilted his mask upwards. “Dost thou know who built this temple?”

  Gedain thought, eyes still lowered. “The Gargan, I presume.”

  “Why dost thou presume that?”

  “Because men lack such craft.”

  “Thou art wrong. There were no such beings known as Gargan. They are but a myth, fashioned by modern men to soothe the shame of their crudeness.” It’s mask turned as it viewed the high arches. “No, it was the Thalan who built these grand monuments. Wast thou taught of the Thalan?”

  “Little.”

  “They wert a noble caste of Ed?’s men. Yet none of their seed survived the Great Purgation.”

  Gedain’s eye was drawn to the shadows.

  “Thy ancestors, the Hedam, were the only ones to survive the age of ice in any numbers.”

  He recalled the legends.

  “The Hedam were simple herdsmen. Nomads. The Thalan were great craftsmen. Yet all their knowledge is now lost. Ruins like those thou seest above are all the remains.”

  The figure strummed the lute and the fountain shimmered in response.

  “Dost thou know why I come for the Norlands?”

  Gedain’s gaze rose, returning to the golden mask. “Art thou Bafomet?” he asked.

  But his question went unanswered.

  “We are foreigners in this world. My tribe is unwelcome in Ed?. Yet we have nowhere else to go. Our home, Vallis, was destroyed.”

  “I doubt ye shall ever be welcomed by the Ed?m,” Gedain said.

  “I agree. Therefore, we must always contend for survival, lest we permit ourselves to be exterminated… like the Thalan. Yet, is this struggle not the very nature of mankind?”

  “What dost though want with the Norlands,” Gedain demanded. “There is nothing there but forest and flocks. The men there are dumb-witted. What is there for you, there? Why canst thou not leave us be?”

  Bafomet’s voice lowered. “We cannot leave you be. There is no stasis among tribes of men. Thy tribe art either flourishing or decaying. The North comes for us, today, or tomorrow, yet they will always come… if we leave them be. My tribe is an ancient one, far, far older than the Thalan or Hedam. On Vallis, conquest was a matter of survival. To yield… to halt meant to surrender unto death.”

  “This is not Vallis.”

  “But it is, my prince.” Bafomet replied. “It is Vallis for us. But do not despair, for we seek not to unmake man but to elevate him.”

  Bafomet gestured up again, towards the towering columns and arches.

  “You see these magnificent structures? These are the expression of elevated man. Such as these shall rise again… through me.”

  “Why am I here?” Gedain asked. “To be your messenger? To return and convince the Norland reiks and thegns to surrender to your vision?”

  “No,” Bafomet answered. “They will never follow any Neandilim governor. Their savagery would be unleashed, and your brethren would devour one another.”

  “Then what am I?”

  “Thou wert chosen by our spies. We watched and weighed you many moons, years even. Thou art ruthless, yet vain; pragmatic, yet hungry. Thou art charisma wedded to ambition. Thou art fit to be made.”

  “To be made what?”

  The lute sounded once more. The pool burned with reflected Sol. The shadows slithered.

  “To be made the Norland King.”

  “We have a rex,” Gedain replied, reluctance in his voice.

  “Yet only thou canst deliver your tribe from ruin. Only thou canst can spare them devastation and set them onto the higher path.”

  Gedain tried to remain expressionless, but his unruined eye nevertheless widened.

  “If thou chooseth, thou canst deliver Cerenid unto us so that your sovereign path will be cleared. We will show you how. Consider this offer upon thy return unto Gruen.”

  Bafomet turned away, towards the fountain, and plucked fresh notes on the lute while the sentries raised Gedain onto his feet.

  “What of the boy who rode with me?” Gedain asked. “May he return with me?”

  Bafomet answered without turning. “It is not needful that I decide his fate.”