Fearghus waited, ginger brows raised in an unspoken question. He’d always called me impatient, and said that his fiery hair belied which of us was the more hotheaded. I had missed him so—even in the long years when I had thought of nothing and no one but Khalim, I carried Fearghus with me. I dared not reach out to touch him for fear that he would vanish into the salt-heavy air.
“What are you doing here?” I said, finding my voice at last. “You should be upon the summer plains, hunting with the gods of our people. Please, tell me that you haven’t been banished to this desolate place.”
The gray sea broke against the shore in a whisper, lifting my boat and pushing it further into the rocks. I’d have to pull it farther ashore if I ever planned to return to it, but for now, I could not tear my eyes from Fearghus’s face.
He smiled in the way that he always did, as if the two of us were sharing a secret. “I came here to meet you. I always thought I would, when one day you crossed over from the land of living, but I didn’t anticipate you would come here still alive.” He studied me, brows furrowing, his head tilted to one side. “And you are alive, aren’t you? I didn’t believe it at first.”
“I sailed here from the end of the world, on a day without a sun,” I told him.
“What drove you to do such a thing?” Fearghus asked.
I did not wish to tell him. I could not bear to look into his eyes and confess that I had crossed the world and back and sailed alone into the winter blackness, all for the love of another. I deserved Fearghus’s anger—it was I who had caused his death, all those years ago, and through some accident of fate escaped it myself. And what of the others, the brave men who had sailed out with us after the lind-worm? I could no longer recall their faces. Wasn’t my responsibility to them and to Fearghus no lesser than mine to Khalim?
My greatest fear had proven itself true: that all I touched turned to ash, that everyone I loved met with a terrible fate that could have been avoided if only I had not interfered in their lives.
“There’s someone here I have to find,” I confessed. As much as I might have believed it would be better if I were not, I was here, and I would do what I came here to do.
I could stay, I thought, even if and when Khalim returned to the other world. I was not worthy of the summer plains, but I had become accustomed to wandering. Though the light was strange and my limbs felt heavy, this world was not so different from the one I had just left. I could easily decide to make a pilgrimage that took the rest of eternity.
“I might have guessed,” Fearghus said. “You’ve changed, Eske. You’re no longer seeking glory for its own sake, or to spite your father. I can see it even in your eyes.”
I had not seen him for more than ten years. Though he remained exactly as I remembered him, I had grown older—I was not yet an old man, but I was no longer a young one. “I suppose you’re right,” I said. “Glory has been far from my mind for some time.”
“Well, you’ll have it anyway, if you manage to return.” Fearghus looked at my boat, and I was pleased to see him smile, impressed. He reached out to touch the prow, but drew his hand back. With some effort, I could move again, and I grasped the boat and pulled it out of the reach of the surf.
“After the lind-worm wrecked our ship, I washed up on a distant shore,” I began. “I crossed the mountains and the tundra to a different sea, and from there I landed upon the vast eastern steppe. I traveled then to Phyreios, and engaged in a contest against the champions of that city’s tyrant gods, and I met a healer, a prophet of another god, long forgotten. He was meant to save the city. His god took him, sending his soul here and keeping his body with which to rule the city in the wake of its destruction.”
“And you loved him, this prophet?” Fearghus asked.
I had hoped to avoid that particular detail. Fearghus had always known me the best of any. “Yes,” I confessed, and then: “I’m sorry.”
Fearghus shook his head, and his face softened. He gave me a sad smile. “I’m not an angry ghost to be placated, Eske. I wanted you to survive. Even as the seawater filled my lungs and the world darkened, I hoped that you would go on to live a full, long life—and I kept that hope when I did not find you upon the summer plains.” He sighed, and his eyes fell on my boat, weighed down by an unnamed sadness. “This is not what I would have wished for you. You’re alive, Eske. You should be among the living.”
“I hope to return,” I said. It was true enough, though I might believe, privately, that I did not deserve it. “I have to find Khalim first. He, too, should be in the world of the living. Once I’ve corrected this injustice, I’ll return to where I belong, wherever that might be.”
“You will do as you’ve always done, with or without my counsel,” Fearghus said. “I would that I could join you on one last expedition, but I must return to my place in this world. I’ll advise you to be careful, and not to trust a stranger, even if he wears a familiar face. The wilds are full of strange creatures, and spirits of the dead who have left their proper places.”
“I will be swift and cautious,” I said. “I swear it.”
“Good luck, then, Eske.”
He held out an arm to the bare gray forest, and a path opened between two gnarled trees—or, perhaps, it had always been there, and I had failed to see it before. It wound between twisted branches and over buckling roots and disappeared into the gloom.
“Thank you, Fearghus,” I said, but he was already gone, vanished into sea spray and wind.
“I wish you luck on your hunt,” I added, and with my harpoon on my shoulder and my boat stowed safely upon the rocks, I walked into the forest.
***
I walked for hours, perhaps days—time became irrelevant, and what little I could see of the storm-tinged sky neither darkened nor grew light. I could smell the oncoming rain in the air, but it never arrived, and my crooked path remained dry as I climbed over roots and ducked under branches that plucked at my hair and clothing, almost curious.
When I looked over my shoulder to check my progress, the way behind me was straight as an arrow, leading all the way back to the shore.
In my mind, I was walking to the citadel I had seen in the vision of the goddess of the deep, so many years ago. Khalim was no longer there, but it was my hope that I could follow his trail across this strange world, or that he would know of my arrival like Fearghus had.
But I had known Fearghus since we were both children, long before we ever became lovers. I had known Khalim only a handful of months. After all the years I spent in pursuit of this goal, it felt as though I had known him longer, but the truth was impossible to ignore here in this alien landscape.
He left the citadel, I reminded myself. He wants to be free, and he wants to help if he can.
I would need to find more people. I had expected to find all the souls of the dead crowding around me, but this place, at least, was empty. No birds sang songs of the rain that never came, and the only sound was the wind and my heavy footfalls. I felt as though I was wading through chest-deep water, though without its concurrent buoyancy. Each step was a struggle, each breath an effort. I was not meant to be here, and the world reminded me at every moment.
The knots in the trees stared at me like pairs of eyes. Most had faces formed of rough bark and the scars left behind by axes. Perhaps I was not as alone here as I thought.
Eventually, a few hours or several days later, I reached the end of the forest, and found myself on a vast, sunlit plain without a visible sun. The light came from the earth itself, glowing soft gold and warming the heavy air. Tall grass rippled like a sea, blue and green and dotted with tiny white flowers, and humming with the sound of thousands upon thousands of insects. They hung in the air, shining like jewels lit from below, ruby wings stretched open.
I was exhausted, but I could not bring myself to stop to rest. I would find no sleep here, nor anything to eat. I had a few rations and a waterskin on my person, but I felt neither hunger nor thirst. Had I only been walking a few hours? It must have been longer than that. I had come so far—I could no longer see the shoreline behind me.
I could not expect this reprieve from my body’s mortal weaknesses to last, but I would press forward while it did. I waded into the grass. The insects gathered around me, their song buzzing in my ears and across my skin, and the vegetation parted to show bare, black earth as I walked.
If anyone were following me, they’d have an easy time of it. My path was like a scar carved into the world.
In the distance, a tendril of smoke broke the flat monotony of the sunless sky. I followed it until it became a brushstroke, and then a column, rising from a fire of timber and bones piled higher than I was tall. Around it, a dozen hunched figures gathered in a small clearing, feeding more bones and the husks of insects, larger than two hands, to the flames.
“I mean you no harm,” I called out, spreading my hands to show they were empty. “I’m looking for the citadel of the god Torr. Can you help me?”
The figure nearest to me lifted his head. His face was that of a deer, long and narrow and bedecked with antlers. He stared at me with wide, fearful eyes.
To his left, another figure rose. He was dressed in a black robe that covered him from his neck to the ground, stretched over the huge, rounded shape of his back. His eyes were small and black, and his teeth were needle-sharp. “Flesh,” he said, the syllable hissing through the points of his teeth.
“Behave yourself, Kelast,” the deer-headed one said.
A third figure, this one a woman with a narrow, human face and white hair that reached her knees, waved both of them away. They shuffled around the fire, their eyes still watching me.
“Come,” she said. “Eat with us. The bread will ease your pain.”
I bowed my head. “Your hospitality is generous, but I cannot stay,” I said. “I need to find the citadel. Do you know how I may travel there?”
“There’s no citadel here,” the sharp-toothed one, Kelast, hissed.
“We are a long way from the realm of any god,” the woman said, and her eyes filled with sorrow, but her words were cold. No god was coming to my rescue if these strange people decided to throw me onto their bonfire.
I had long since abandoned the hope of any god granting me divine help. I was here, after all, against the wishes of even those who might have looked upon me with sympathy.
A fourth figure stood up from the fire, and this one looked like Khalim.
Back to Interlude Six: The White City
Forward to Chapter LXVI: The Crumbling World
I think I want to make room for there to be more dangers here in the spirit wilds, but for now, we’re heading toward the end. Three more chapters remain. Thanks for reading!
Space Whales Press 
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