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This shoulder’s really starting to sting.’
    ‘Then we’ll bring Denser down to fix it. I’ll send one of the boys. How could you possibly find me? How did you know I was here? How will the others get here?’
    Sol felt giddy, light-headed like after his first sword fight. A mixture of excitement and fear but this time overlaid with an odd sense of detachment.
    ‘This can’t be real,’ he muttered.
    ‘I wish it wasn’t,’ said Hirad. ‘Look, I can’t answer everything. Ilkar understands it so much better. And Erienne too. It’s to do with the familiarity of our souls. Almost like they are linked in some way. It meant we could all find each other when the attack started.’
    Sol’s elation dissipated. He sat back down and looked at Hirad in the merchant’s body. He was quite still and in his eyes was an aching sadness.
    ‘What happened?’ asked Sol.
    ‘How do I explain to the living how it feels to be thrust from rest?’
    ‘Is that what it feels like when you’re dead? Rest? What does it look like?’
    ‘There aren’t the words, Unknown. Or I certainly don’t have them. There is no time; there are none of the things you associate with life. I don’t know if there is colour but I do know there aren’t trees, cities, any of that stuff. People assume that a glorious death will be like the sunniest day they can remember. It’s nothing like that. Maybe Ilkar can describe it to you. I can’t. But I do know it is peaceful and it is comfort and it is happiness. Or it was.
    ‘We cannot fight and we cannot defend ourselves.’ Hirad allowed himself a small smile. Sol was struck by how characteristic it was of him despite the merchant’s face. Hirad continued. ‘And that hurts almost as much as being here now. All those dead around you, you can sense them, you see? And you can taste their fear and feel their despair. They had nowhere to run. Most of them. Nowhere to go.’
    Hirad’s expression had become vacant and the body of the merchant wobbled before steadying. A hand gripped the table. The other put the wine goblet to his mouth.
    ‘Fear makes you call out for those you love, Unknown. To be saved and be saviour. That’s how we found each other again. And when the skin of the dimension was finally torn, we could sense you too. And Denser. You represent the end of a path and we found we could travel it, though it is like clinging to a rope in a hurricane. We dare not let go. Souls cast into the void will never be found and will roam without rest.
    ‘None should suffer that. Not even the most evil of men.’
    ‘But they are suffering it, aren’t they, Hirad?’
    A tear fell from Hirad’s eye and ran down his pale cheek to drip onto the table top.
    ‘Thousands of years and countless souls. No wonder the demons tried so hard to open the door to the dead. So many are already lost to the void and immeasurably more will follow. Any who cannot find a path back to the land where they once lived will become victims.’ Hirad looked up and he was pressing his jaws together to hold back a sob or worse. ‘You can hear them scream when they are torn away. Each one like a piece of skin ripped from your living body.’
    Sol heard someone coming through the back gate and it reminded him he needed Jonas or young Hirad to go and ask for Denser up at the Mount of Xetesk. Just a short and familiar walk.
    ‘What can be done?’ asked Sol. ‘Who is this enemy? Why do they attack you?’
    ‘I have no answers,’ said Hirad. ‘We cannot see or feel them. All we know is that they are tearing our resting places apart and that they are following the fleeing dead too. We have to find a way to stop them. Should they wish to plunder Balaia too, we could all be lost.’
    ‘But you have no reason to think that they will.’
    ‘And also none to think they will not.’
    ‘What do they want?’ Sol’s delight at Hirad’s return had given way to a chill anxiety.
    ‘I don’t know, Unknown; I’m dead. We don’t spend