“The Protectorate already hunt there. It is there that you must go.”

“How do you propose we travel?”

“There is a portal there.”

j’ark could feel apprehension rising.

“And the other end of the tunnel?”

“In Arram.”

As Drun explained, j’ark felt his apprehension growing. He did not think it was fear, but he knew more would fall in the halls of the enemy. He would leave the planning to better men — Typraille and Cenphalph, and Quintal.

His would be the sword that would grant them passage. He saw it in his head. He also noticed Drun looking at them all with kindness in his eyes, as he asked them to do the unthinkable. To Arram. His heart pounded once more, and he prepared himself. His finger crept to his sword. He wanted to feel its comfort, its heft, but to touch a weapon during communion would break the circle. Instead, he watched, and listened, as the Sard planned, and prayed, if his was the next death to be shared, that he would be brave.

He wondered if Tirielle would mourn him, should he fall.

He closed his eyes as Drun left the circle, and the last rays of sunlight drifted slowly onto his face.

This time, he was the last to rise, the last to leave the circle, but as always, he took his sword, and felt at peace.

The snow drifted against the side of the tent, laying thick on the canvass. Inside, four men slept deeply. In their sleep Bourninund and Wen snored mountainous, growling snores. Drun’s face was serene, as though his inner peace extended to his dream life. The worries of the last day were behind him. His loss, which had drawn his face long and made his eyes, usually warm and kind, seem harsh as the winter sun, bleached of warmth, bringing light but little life.

Shorn tossed and turned in his sleep, his energy abundant even in the grip of whatever dream plagued him. His face was drawn into a snarl, lips pulled back to bare his gums, his breath coming in short gasps.

But Renir, lost in sleep, looked puzzled. Occasionally, he spoke, as though holding one side of a conversation. More often, he held both sides of the conversation himself. To Shorn, who knew him better, perhaps, than any other, it would seem as though Renir was holding a conversation with himself.

“Who are you?” Renir’s voice, somewhat muffled where his bedroll was bunched against his face.

“You already know. Perhaps, yet, you are not ready to accept.” His voice was pitched slightly higher than usual, the tone, the intonation, all wrong…a woman’s tone, chiding but laced with kindness.

“Who are you!” he shouted this time.

Drun awoke in the middle of the conversation, and pulled himself into a sitting position, legs crossed, elbows resting on his knees.

The warriors slept, the priest watched, and Renir slept on, talking in his sleep, sometimes answering himself, wretched face pulled tight.

Drun would not step into the man’s dreams. Every man’s dreams were a journey, sometimes taken with friends, sometimes alone. But the destination could not be changed.

Drun listened, though. And Renir, obliging his audience, spoke long into the night.

His feet, knees, and hands were frozen to the ice. He leant over the ice, peering into the depths below.

He wanted to hammer on the ice, smash it with his axe, but in these dreams he was but a passenger. A pupil. His teacher lay beneath the ice, frozen but somehow speaking. Her lips moved, and he listened, but he could not understand the lesson.

“When you are ready, you will know me. Are you ready, Renir?”

“You are a witch.”

“I am. I always have been. You have come a long way. Are you ready?”

“I don’t know! How can I know?”

“You can’t spend your life not knowing, Renir. Do you think you chose your path?”

“Are you saying my journey chose me? I made my own decision.”

“Fate is a strange creature. It pulls men — and women — into its wake. Sometimes it has to drag them, sometimes they swim to the surface. Look to where you are, Renir.”

Renir thought hard — in his dreams he was always on the surface, looking down. Was he floating? Was this fate, this dream? Every time, the same dream, the same…was it always so?

A little light dawned on him. He found the ice melting under his feet. His hands were warmer. Water now pooled around him.

“I am on top! I am swimming!”

“You are…now. Are you ready to relinquish a little control? Are you ready to know?”

“I am swimming on top of fate! It is just a sea!” he giggled to himself, not listening to her, his guardian under the sea.

“The sea is a harsh mistress, Renir. Sometimes it pulls you under, no matter how hard you swim. It can change in an instant…listen to me!”

The power of her voice drew Renir back from his fascination with the melting seas.

“I am listening. I understand, now. You were swallowed by fate, you held me above its currents, pushed me from the undertow…” Understanding was dawning on Renir. He strove to push it away, but the witch pushed him harder.

“It pulled me under, Renir. I would not have it do the same to you.”

“Then I will pull you free. Just show me your face.”

“It is for you to see.”

“Very well,” he said. He felt his stomach cramp with fear — strange in a dream, perhaps, but the chill (no longer freezing) he felt from the melting ice was real, his apprehension no less chilling than the snow falling atop the frozen sea…no less frightening than the face beneath the ice.

“Will I still be able to swim when I come below?”

“Do you want to?”

“Very much. I am afraid to come down there.”

“It is just a matter of release. Men are often pulled below. Some men can make it to the surface again. I surrendered long ago, from birth. If you would, see me, know the past…understand your future.”

His stomach gripped him with bands of iron. What was it worth? Freedom from fate, or understanding the grand design, for surely there was a purpose…he had always lacked purpose, but would he be able to surface again, to breathe sweet air, to float?

Fear could pull a man under in the sea, he knew. It could leech strength from muscles, tighten a man’s chest.

Would he be ruled by fear? He never had. Now he knew.

And the sea was suddenly fluid again. He took a deep breath and plunged below.

He took her in his arms, her face swimming in the currents. He felt the tug of the water, pulling him deeper, but he kicked out with all his strength. It tried, he could feel it. It was like hands grasping at his shins, dragging, immensely powerful. But he was waking…waking…

And as his eyes opened, he was smiling. He had brought her smile with him, into the waking world.

“I take it this dream was a good one?” said Drun, watchful eyes boring into Renir’s.

“I think it was,” said Renir. “I have brought a friend back…”

Drun smiled, and then the world shifted with a terrible crack. The ground shook wildly, and Renir plunged through the sudden rend in the ice with a scream. The tent fell away into the crevasse, tumbling down the drop of forty feet, and the other men were taken five feet away on the other side. Renir held on, over the gap. His toes sought for purchase, his fingertips gripping the sharp edge with rapidly failing strength.

“Renir!” Drun cried, throwing himself flat on the ice, grasping Renir’s wrists.

Drun pulled with all his strength, but he was an old man, and Renir had packed on muscle over the last few months. His hands could not hold the younger man. His fingers were slipping, as were Renir’s, their grasp on ice slipping, until he only held on by his fingertips…then Drun began to slide toward the gaping tear in the ice. Renir turned from Drun’s face, looking down at the drop. He could not survive the fall, and even if he could, he would never leave the bottom. He felt all the fear he had never felt then, in one moment. His bladder loosened, and he had a moment’s happiness at the sudden warmth it brought.