Ahead, the roadway gleamed white in the moonlight. But it was not paved with marble as it might be in some temple. It was a continuous mass of bones; human bones. They were more numerous than the pebbles on a storm beach, and they sloped up on either side of him, forming a shallow valley. At the centre, where he walked, the bones were crushed and broken, and with each footfall, white dust rose to powder his booted feet.
Grygyr exulted. Thus ended all those who opposed the one and only true god; crushed utterly beneath the feet of his invincible army. The army that would one day open its ranks and greet him, Grygyr Ast-Darvad, as one of their own when finally he fell in battle. He stood tall and proud at the prospect of such glory.
In the far distance was a light like a low, brilliant, star. This was his destination: the great Golden Hall of Ar-Hyrdyn, where his army would be singing and carousing after their day's fighting. This time he would come to it.
His stomach tightened with desire and determination and he started to stride out. Apart from his lust to come to the Golden Hall, Grygyr knew that the god had no welcome for the slow and tardy.
Despite his best efforts, however, the journey became as it always had before: the distant light seemed to come no nearer. Yet the road under his feet bore increasing evidence of the passage of Ar-Hyrdyn's army. So vast must it be and so fierce its tread, that the bones which formed the road here had been crushed to a dust so fine and deep that his feet began to sink in it, making each step an ordeal.
Onward, relentlessly, he moved; his legs first protesting and then screaming with pain as he dragged each foot from the yielding yet clinging dust. His face, however, remained set and emotionless. The journey was ever thus, and to show distress would be to find himself rejected at the very threshold of the Golden Hall itself.
Thus, though his pace slowed, he held his posture tall and proud.
A breeze sprang up out of the night and began to blow the stinging dust into his face. Purposefully, mockingly, it stuck to his sweating face, caking his dried lips, clogging his nostrils, and sealing his eyelids.
He wiped his eyes. Still the golden beacon was ahead of him; blurred and streaked, but a little nearer, perhaps?
At the thought, his legs sank suddenly to their calves in the dust.
He looked up. The moon had grown larger, more oppressive, adding its mighty weight to his burden.
The sound of his gasping breath and pounding heart filled the universe. Then came the despair. Would there be no end to this?
'Did you think that the journey to the Golden Hall of Ar-Hyrdyn would be so light a journey?’ came a voice within him. It was his true self taunting his weakness. He accepted its rebuke.
Yet his legs slowed in their rhythm. Slower … and … slower.
They must not stop. To seek rest here would be to die.
And to die here, a mortal, chosen as Ar-Hyrdyn's messenger and allowed to this most sacred of places, would not only be to die away from the battlefield, it would be the foulest sacrilege. His days for all eternity would be filled with the terrible sound of Ar-Hyrdyn's hunting horn and the howling of his beasts as they pursued and tore at him forever.
He sank now almost up to his knees, but still he moved, wrenching his legs free from the clinging dust. And still the golden light drew him on.
Faintly, on the stinging breeze, he thought he heard the sound of Ar-Hyrdyn's warriors. Were they encouraging him or were they just singing and laughing, unaware of his fate, his presence even? It made no difference. This time he would be among them; one of them. He would not yield. No pain, no fatigue could keep him from such fulfilment; could keep him from his destiny.
Abruptly, and not knowing how he came there, he was on all fours, his hands sinking into the dust. Anger welled up inside him at his body's silent treachery. He must not crawl, like some craven slave! He must stand, and walk.
Somewhere in the dark forest beyond the columns, something howled in anticipation.
Antyr felt Tarrian's and Grayle's wolf spirits responding to the call, but his will helped them to keep silent and still.
Somehow, Grygyr came to his feet, goading himself forward with the memories of ordeals he had survived before. He opened his mouth to cry out, ‘I will come there, Lord, I will come there, though it take a myriad lifetimes for each step.’ But the dust blew into his mouth, acrid, gritty, choking.
Then the whole world shook.
He closed his eyes in a mixture of fear and expectation.
When he opened them, it was to see the terrible figure of Ar-Hyrdyn himself before him. The great god of the Bethlarii towered high into the night sky, black against the huge glaring moon which, drawn by the god's presence, had swollen even further and swung silently behind him to form a ghastly backdrop.
As it always did, a fascinated terror filled Grygyr at the sight of this apparition.
'Did you think that the journey to the Golden Hall of Ar-Hyrdyn would be so light a journey?’ the figure said, echoing Grygyr's own thoughts, in a voice that sounded like rolling thunder and that shook Grygyr to his very soul.
The god extended his hand and the distant light rose into the air until it passed in front of the moon and Grygyr could no longer look at it, so bright was the moonlight.
'Lord, I will do whatever is your wish, to gain your favour,’ he said, trembling and lowering his eyes.
'You will do whatever is my wish,’ the figure announced definitively.
Face still set and resolute, Grygyr came to attention. The ground was now hard under his feet.
There was a long, timeless pause, then the voice rumbled, ‘Still you live.'
Grygyr's eye widened. ‘The Duke is a cunning and devious foe, Lord,’ he said hastily. ‘He fights like a poisoning woman, not a man. He has ignored my insults and issued loud public promises for my safety, so that only by attempting his life can I make the Serens end my own. And to act thus now would be to broadcast my treachery across the land and turn the wavering cities against us…'
'This I know!’ the voice thundered savagely. ‘This I ordained so that in living when you strove to die, you would learn the subtle ways of your enemy.'
The black form became alive with a billowing thundercloud movement, shot through with flickering lightning.
'Forgive me, Lord,’ Grygyr said hoarsely, looking down again.
The thunder subsided. ‘Your loyalty is known and will be rewarded, my priest,’ the figure said, almost conciliatory. ‘And you have done in Serenstad all that was required of you. Whendrak now will be the lure. Return home now and note what you would note as a soldier as you pass through their land for when you pass through it again with a victorious army at your back.'
'I shall, Lord,’ Grygyr replied fervently. ‘I have already learned much. I…'
'Go now,’ the voice said.
Grygyr hesitated. Was he to be denied tonight? He ventured, ‘Lord, may I not look again upon your domain so that I may better describe its wonders to your followers?’ There was a strange silence, an unexpected hesitation. Then the huge figure seemed to grow in size until it filled the entire sky. Grygyr quailed before it.
'You presume,’ came the terrible reply. ‘Go now before you anger us further with your mortal folly. You are put in the balance again. We shall return at some other time and consider your worth then. Be faithful and true, priest.'
'Your justice is boundless, Lord, I…'
Before he could finish, a great horn call rang out and the air was suddenly filled with the cries of countless hunting animals. Grygyr looked in terror from side to side. All around, dark shapes were running out of the dark shadow of the forests. He looked up at the figure, but it was gone. Only the monstrous moon remained, and it was slowly turning red.
'Go now,’ said an echoing voice out of the emptiness.
Grygyr screamed.
'No! Lord!'
He raised his hands to protect his head as the shadows closed in on him. He felt their hot, fetid breath. He screamed again.
Then the ground under his feet became dust again, sucking him down, down, down. He thrashed his arms in flailing panic, but still he sank. And still the black creatures neared. The dust rose up past his chest, his throat. It
