"You are silent. Utterly silent.

  You used to enjoy talking—enjoyed tormenting me, threatening me, filling my nights with dread. But now you have chosen silence. You have chosen to leave me alone with the quiet."

  I could bear it no longer.

  The words erupted against the Wolf, who still followed, still watched, yet said and did nothing. I could no longer endure everything I had seen. I had prepared myself for violence, but not for madness. How far they have fallen from humanity, how little they fear death, how openly they spit in the face of anyone else in this world.

  I could reach only one conclusion: I hated the princes and their deeds—and of course I hated those who followed them without shame and carried out those deeds. No matter how vile we descendants may become as we pass through the trial and reach this side of the coin, it does not mean we would ever descend to that same degree of savagery and cruelty.

  “Speak,” I shouted. “Speak at last! I’m going mad—speak to me the way you used to speak, speak to me, speak to me…”

  I dropped to my knees, squeezed my eyes shut with force, clenched my teeth, pressed both hands to the back of my skull. I rocked my head from side to side, trying to shake the memories loose, to drive those images away. They refused to leave.

  I stood again. My throat and jaw trembled; my eyes burned red, struggling to hold back tears. The only things still tethering me to the path, to life, to the last frayed threads of reason, were my promise to the deer and the sacrifice of the two old men on the island. If only they knew what was happening here…

  They probably did know. The Wolf must have told them. But hearing is one thing; seeing is another. Or perhaps he had hidden it from them—perhaps, to preserve one last spark of purity and hope, so they could survive what they themselves endured on the island.

  The farther I walked, the more my mind spun around yet another thought: perhaps nothing has any value or meaning worth striving for. Depression, it seemed, had begun to claim ground, flooding my heart. Disgusted by what I had witnessed, I wondered whether what I was living was even real—and if it was real, whether I had truly been placed here to make any difference, to bring any change.

  I could reach no conclusion. I could not comprehend how evil a person must be, how malicious their intent, how ready to inflict harm, in order to live inside such torment. And even if I succeeded in dethroning the usurper and restoring the rightful sovereign, who could guarantee that someone else, in some future age, would not attempt the same horrors and try once more to overthrow the order?

  That thought returned us once again to zero.

  And yet death no longer seemed so terrible. I had tasted it already. Death does not mean finality, because finality implies non-existence, conclusion, completion. How can someone who has not been completed in life ever reach a true end in death? From my own experience I can say it was not so dreadful, that new state. Perhaps, then, it would be better if we all chose death together and ceased to exist in a world that suffers from the discord and violence of human against human.

  Yes—perhaps death is the only solution. Even if I would no longer be near the deer, even then it would not be the end. But I cannot do it—not now, not after I have tasted what it means to feel Its presence. And yet the Lion and all the knights had tasted that presence too; they had lived beside It, eaten with It, spoken with It—and in the end they betrayed It.

  Does the presence itself eventually tarnish? Does it not always offer the same taste? Does it fail to endure through time? If so, then is it worth fighting for something so fleeting, something that provides nothing more than temporary consolation?

  Asking the Wolf beside me would have given an immediate answer from an eyewitness; it would have quieted my anguish. Yet he refused to speak. He only followed, breathing heavily. My head hung low; I felt his eyes fixed on the nape of my neck. Whenever his rage mounted I sensed it, and now I almost wished he would stop restraining himself and lunge. His body could endure only so long on this road anyway—so if he truly wanted to finish me, there would be no real obstacle.

  And then I thought again: his own life would have no meaning, he would not carry such hatred inside him, if he had not lost something as precious and singular as the deer’s presence. He has devoted his existence to an endless cycle of defeat and failure—without plan, without means to reverse events, without power to turn back time—supported only by countless guilts and the dead he drags behind the walking husk he calls a body.

  If he—and all the others in the forest—can still find meaning after so much brutality and vileness they have witnessed and committed themselves, then who am I to question the reason I am still permitted to set foot on this earth?

  Keep going, I told myself. Do not stop. Eventually everything will end. Until then, simply walk on. The castle is not so very far—and even if it is far, you can still see it. You know where you are going. Keep going. Do not stop.

  I had not noticed that beneath my feet, half-buried along the entire length of the road, lay swords, armor, shields—some shattered, some still whole. It made no difference that my gaze was fixed downward; I could discern nothing clearly, cared for nothing, paid them no attention.

  For some time now a ringing had begun in my ears—first soft voices that I ignored, then steadily rising in volume until they brought on a pounding headache. I raised my hands and pressed them over my ears. War cries, shouts, screams, weapons clashing against one another—all of it gradually became unbearable. I squeezed harder to block the sound. It made no difference. The farther I walked, the louder the noise grew.

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  I stopped and tried to make sense of it. Useless—the pain would not let me think. Yet when I turned I saw the weapons on the ground and also stone figures—human in shape—kneeling with hands clamped over their ears, mouths open, eyes wide. They reminded me of a Van Gogh painting, as though they had stared upon something unbearable.

  And indeed the unbearable soon appeared before my own eyes.

  The weapons began to rise of their own accord, only to be lifted higher by hands that materialized from nowhere. Forms took shape. They assumed battle stances and charged one another—but the scene was bizarre. Not all fought with blades; many wielded strange powers, forces without logic. I understood soon enough: this was not a battle unfolding in the present moment, but an event frozen in time. The figures were passing through my body and could not touch me.

  The battle I was witnessing was the one I had heard of on the island—the war between the elementals and the descendants. Among the elementals I saw many strange and paradoxical things: powers that defied reason, laws of physics that dissolved or grew violently intense, the sheer scale of their might. Yet already they had shared portions of that power with the descendants, and so they met resistance and counter-force. Both sides suffered losses.

  The pain was unbearable. My head could no longer hold itself upright. I dropped to one knee.

  I lifted my gaze again and saw, beyond the battle, five thrones set upon the road. Five men lounged in them, watching the slaughter. All five laughed and drank wine from golden royal goblets; each had a servant behind his throne refilling the cup. They appeared thoroughly entertained, utterly unconcerned for their own safety. On their breasts I faintly discerned the princes’ pin—making plain both their identity and the reason for their amusement.

  The pain was unbearable. My skull felt ready to split. I felt blood running from my ears and nostrils—or at least it seemed so.

  I looked once more at the field of battle and noticed something I had missed before. The faces of those who fought were painted with desperation. None battled with joy, with fury, with appetite. Attackers and defenders alike wore deep lines of anguish across their features; they gave the impression they did not wish to fight, that they longed for the battle to cease, that someone else was controlling them.

  I looked again at the stone figures and saw myself mirroring their posture. One more knee to the ground and I would resemble them perfectly. I could think no further. The pain grew fiercer still.

  The road swayed left and right as though I were drunk. I lost the sense of up and down, lost the sense of where my limbs were, lost control of them. I wanted to collapse. I begged this whole theater to end.

  Yet one thought alone kept me exactly as I was: the thought that I would become like all the other figures. I held myself with one leg bent at right angles and the other planted on the ground.

  Why? Why were the princes so close and yet so unafraid?

  Why had no one dared walk toward them?

  They were not afraid because they knew there was no reason to be. They knew because they themselves had provoked this conflict.

  How?

  How?

  The sound ceased. Everything went black.

  The road and the forest returned.

  I lowered my hands, stood upright.

  Then a single figure appeared, giving orders to all the descendants. Those eyes I would recognize anywhere.

  Eftis.

  Eftis was pulling the strings behind the ruin of the movement. He—not the greed of the descendants—was responsible for the dissolution of the alliance. He, their brother, my supposed ally.

  The figure’s mouth moved in the air, though I could hear no words. Yet I saw clearly to which side he gave commands, in which direction he ordered them to move. His hair was long and gray, a small beard framing his face; few would recognize him now. He no longer resembled the Eftis I knew—except for the eyes.

  I cannot know how many others have passed this point. I cannot know whether every traveler triggered the same traps along the road. I cannot even know whether I am walking straight, or whether what I encounter is preordained.

  No matter how much distance I cover, the castle appears exactly as distant as when I first set foot here. I seem to have gained no ground at all—as though the road exists outside the realm of logic, outside the space of experiment, outside the field of observation.

  I am not surprised. On this side of the coin, almost nothing belongs to the domain of reason and observation. But some things do.

  And the human mind is one of them.

  Eftis possesses a human mind—a mind whose workings and ultimate aim I cannot comprehend.

  Unless I abandon supposition and simply look at his face and understand what he desires.

  Perhaps his brothers never realized he was here, never realized he was helping them. The same spark burns, the same vitality animates his features every time I have met him. Perhaps even this battle is part of his plan—a plan he has revealed to no one, a plan no one could deduce through reason alone.

  What could be so irrational, yet require so much time to come to pass, while Eftis never loses his composure?

  Only one answer seemed logical and at the same time utterly absurd: self-destruction. There is no spark in his eyes for anything good—only for destruction, and for watching others destroy. He wants to witness the end of the world and to be the one who caused it—to sit on a throne higher than all others and laugh with us.

  Yes. That feels plausible.

  Eftis is a liar and a thief. He plants false hope in human souls and then violently steals it back. And he does this not only to humans, but to every creature in this world.

  He vanished from my sight.

  Only the stone figures remained.

  One by one I touched them. The power Kalli had given me released them from their torment. While they remained motionless they had watched the battle rage without cease, they told me. Their heads had stopped ringing the moment they turned to stone, but their eyes had continued to witness everything. And all of it only after they had given up and let the second knee touch the ground.

  I let them rest a little while, weapons scattered on the earth, and walked toward the place where the five thrones had stood. When I reached it I heard voices behind me. I turned. The weapons rose once more, then dissolved into the wind that suddenly blew.

  I wondered again: was the only thing required of anyone simply to walk forward—to end this endless repetition, to free the souls of those who perished in that tragic battle?

  Once more I did not feel capable. Yet I certainly felt blessed. Because now I know it is not I who overcomes the obstacles, but those who wish for me to overcome them, and those who have shared their strength with me.

  If someone had refused to kneel, if someone had simply kept walking, they would have brought this nightmare to its conclusion. But who could do this alone?

  So I too must keep moving forward—without looking back, no matter what happens. No evil reaches its end unless I first decide to leave it behind.

  I raised my head once more and looked at the castle.

  For the first time it seemed I had drawn a little closer to my final destination.