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Autumn.
Horseshoe of the Downs and Darkfort were both also many days away:
Horseshoe countless leagues southways and situated in the midst of
Luasha Riverlands requiring a pole-boat to reach; and Darkfort,
eastways, lay nestled amidst the barren pyramid hills where the
Gates of Forever loomed ready to swallow all who stepped beyond
them.
    It had been two turns of the clock
since he had traipsed through Vruinthia’s sacred halls and as
Gargaron sat there in Hovel’s quiet village garden (without the
customary sounds of ornithen or bug), upon a bench that looked out
across the village square, he realised he had mostly given up on
seeing his Skyworms again. Thus he had turned to ideas of leaving,
of striking out and seeking the answers he craved.
    Mayhaps I ought
to make for Autumn , he thought to
himself. The Skyworms perchance have been
brought down by some easily explained occurrence, and in all
likelihood Autumn goes on and about its merry business happily
oblivious to all that has befallen Hovel. Perhaps Autumn’s
Watchguard will have news of what has struck Hovel. And if not,
then there be Skysight.

    5
    Carrying the hilt of Drenvel’s
Bane, Gargaron returned to his cottage on a now desperately quiet
Saden’s orange grove. Tears welled in his eyes as he mounted empty
stairs and pushed through unlatched doors. At once its silence, its
emptiness, proved unbearable. The life pulse had gone out of the
place; there were a palpable feeling of emptiness in its stale,
lifeless air. Like sticky humidity. He felt as if ghosts watched
him from vacant corners.
    Without thought, he found himself
moving to Veleyal’s bedroom door. He put his ear against it.
Listening…
    Perhaps it had all been naught but
a dream, him finding her and Yarniya dead inside Summer Woods,
setting them afire, summoning up Vurah’s Wraithbirds, watching
their twin fire-trails descend down into Endworld. Perhaps his dear
daughter simply played within, or slept, perhaps all he had found
in Summer Woods were mere doppelgangers.
    ‘ Veleyal?’ he asked
softly.
    Gently he pushed the door open,
hoping… praying to see her there, lying abed reading, or drawing,
singing sweetly to herself. But her bed were empty. Her jummy-bear
and forest-fairy doll lying there forgotten, abandoned, side by
side, vacant eyes staring at the ceiling. The sight of these eyes
caused him to grimace, as it brought on the raw memory of his
daughter in his arms, lifeless, lolling… her dead eyes staring,
staring, staring.
    He wiped tears from his cheeks.
Stepped across to his daughter’s bed. He knelt as he had done a
thousand times kissing his dear daughter to sleep at night. Only
now there were no Veleyal to kiss, to hug, to tickle, to read to,
to sing to. He hugged her bear and doll, lay his head upon her
pillow. He breathed in. Closed his eyes. Smelling her. That mix of
child sweat and a faint hint of juniper soap. His tears soaked into
its soft fabric, swimming away in the forms of tiny water
horses.
    He grasped her pillow to his face
and suddenly wept uncontrollably. The sobs shook his chest. ‘Why?’
he whimpered. ‘Why am I still here and you have perished?
Why?’
    You have work here
first.
    ‘ No! ’ he yelled at the room, his eyes
bleary with tears. ‘ What work?! Tell me,
damn you! ’
    But it gave him no
answer.
    He wiped his face. Took the
pillow. In its place he lay down jummy-bear and forest-fairy doll.
Again side by side.

    6
    Briefly he checked his own
bedroom, ever hopeful, casting his gaze over the large empty bed,
the sheets still ruffled from the lovemaking he and his wife had
made the night before the shockwaves.
    Yarniya were not there.
    From the store
room he took a large bull-hide satchel and from the pantry he
filled it with some basic provisions: cured meat, salted wrasse,
dried figs, apples, pears, a loaf of rye bread. And some medicinal
herbs and poultices and other remedies for any unwanted injury or
illness. Lyfen Essence. And skin grafts that