"Soren," Rita whispered urgently. "Soren, please! Wake up!"

He grunted and rolled over to face her, though his eyes wouldn't open. "What?" He waited, but nothing happened. His mind receded into sleep, but now she was shaking him again and talking...

"...the mountain. Something different. We have to go see. Wake up."

"The mountain?" he echoed, his eyes opening momentarily. If the problem was outside... He looked at the window, then frowned. "See what? It isn't even light out."

"I know," she said petulantly, "but it doesn't matter. Something is on the mountain and we have to find it."

"Find what?" he asked, growing irritated. It was too late, too early, for a wild goose chase, and the mountain was forbidding, a private domain not to be intruded upon.

"I don't know. It's different. We have to find it."

He grunted and rolled over again, turning his back on her. "Speak for yourself. I'm going back to sleep."

"Soren please! It's important. I saw something. Something big and black. We have to find it now."

"You're dreaming Rita. The mountain is too far away to see anything from here. Go back to sleep."

"Fine!" she snapped angrily. "I'll find it myself." She waited, apparently for him to protest, so he didn't. She waited longer than he expected, and he almost rolled over again when she finally moved to leave. Maybe she would just go back to bed...

He woke the next morning to the sound of birds chirping, and smiled. It was a luxurious feeling, not having to prepare for duty, and the singing of the birds seemed to verify it. He climbed out of bed - the non-Hammerstar style of bed - and ran his fingers through his hair. Smiling again, he left it at that, feeling positively lazy and loving it. He could comb it later. He slipped on a robe and headed to the kitchen for a cup of coffee. Sitting at the table, he sipped gingerly and looked out the window.

The mountain loomed, high and majestic, and he remembered Rita's strange summons last night. Had she gone out? Big and black, she'd said, but how could she have seen something black as far away as the mountain, in the pitch dark of night? She'd been dreaming. Or else he had. Well, he'd have to ask her when she got up.

Mark wandered in when Soren was halfway through his second cup. "Morning."

"Morning," Mark returned. "Where's Rita?"

"Still in bed."

Mark shook his head. "Mm-mm. I passed her room going to the bathroom. It's empty."

He looked out at the mountain. "Crud."

"What's wrong?"

He sighed and shook his head. "Nothing. Just that she came and woke me up last night, in the middle of the night, wanting me to come with her to look for something on the mountain. Said she saw something on the mountain. I told her she was dreaming and went back to sleep."

"Well, if she's not back by the time Arion gets up, we'll all go find her."

They finished the pot, but Arion still hadn't come out. Growing impatient, Soren went to wake him while Mark made a new pot. He came back empty-handed. "Looks like she found a sucker to take with her," he said, feeling much better that she wasn't alone.

Mark smiled. "Arion's gone too?"

"Yeah. Well," he sighed, "let's have one more cup and then we'll go find them, huh?"

"Sounds good to me. Maybe they'll come back and we won't have to." They drank half of the second pot, but no one showed. Soren dressed and combed his hair while Mark did the same, and then they started out. They reached the foot of the path without meeting them and began going up. The sun was bright and cheery with a crisp breeze to keep it from being too hot. It was a gorgeous day. After twenty minutes of hiking they reached the final bend.

As Soren rounded the corner of the cliff into the clearing he staggered and slowed, stunned beyond any recognition of reality. After several more steps he halted completely. He stood and stared, trying to convince himself it was a nightmare. A human figure hung from a single pole, arms raised, unrecognizably drenched in blood from slashed wrists. Beyond, on the smooth bare stone of the cliff face, in tall bloody letters, was written, VAMPAT. As his faith in fantasy dwindled, he dropped his eyes. On the ground at the base of the pole lay the shattered remnants of a mythra. The information filtered in slowly as denial strained to find some other meaning.

"Oh dear God," he cried softly, falling to his knees. All of Arion's horrors had come true. He wept, heartbroken and afraid. "Why?"

A movement caught his eye and he saw Rita off on one side. She was kneeling, sitting on her heels just inside the stone circle. She was very still, looking at him without meeting his eyes. A breeze stirred her hair again. She had come here looking for something large and black. Fury swept him. Somehow, somehow it had deceived them all, even Arion. Now, after everything else, it had finally killed him. Ostensibly ceremonial, it had brought him here, mocking their ritual and slashing his wrists as the Gadamista would to deliver mercy to a dying venat. He walked to Rita then, afraid it might escape if he did not act quickly. "Did you see it?" he asked softly, "The venat. Did you see it?"

She started to look at him, but seemed distracted by something in her hands. "He was here, but they had to leave."

"They? How many?" he asked urgently, knowing the blasted vampat had already been rescued, but wanting to deny it, needing to verify it.

She frowned at him. "Arion. They couldn't stay. They had to leave."

Guilt seized him. Never before had he fought out of vengeance, but now he was letting it make him callous. Still, he was required to be certain for the safety of the town as a whole. He came close and knelt before her. "Rita," he said gently, "the black venat. Did they pick it up?"

She shook her head, sighing hard. "You don't understand."

Understatement of the year! "I know. I'm trying. But if that venat is still running around loose, I have to stop it before it hurts somebody else."

"No," she said, quietly forceful, shaking her head again. "You don't understand." She looked away and past him, grimacing at the poles. Soren writhed, looking to Mark, but his eyes were fixed on Rita.

"Arion was here," Rita said softly, and he looked at her again. She was looking right at the poles as she spoke and Soren had a wild, insane hope that it wasn't Arion hanging there, but he couldn't bring himself to look. Rita was speaking again, her voice growing firmer. "Raach was with him, but he didn't do it. He came to keep him company while he finished dying. They waited to talk to me, but they couldn't stay. They had to leave."

His hope fluttered and crashed like a crippled bird, her meaning dreadfully clear. She was speaking of something holy, but the anger that held him now held no room for it. "Who killed him Rita?"

She hesitated, then shook her head. "It doesn't matter now."

Soren struggled with that for a moment, then started as Mark laid a hand on his shoulder. "Leave it alone, Soren," he said softly, his voice like feather down. "I don’t think she’s supposed to remember."

An intense wave of bitterness swept through him, and he stood up and walked away, stopping at the edge of the path, his back to everything. After several minutes they came up behind him and he started moving, preserving his solitude.

Reaction to the news was overwhelming, and Soren found himself singularly unable to deal with it. Record crews came and went, only to be followed by streams of people that never ceased flowing. "He went Home," he told them, over and over, failing them in their curiosity. "He went home," he repeated automatically to the figure that appeared in front of him.

"Soren..."

His jaw clenched and he looked up. He couldn't ignore the Ealdred.

"We brought him down. Do you know what arrangements he wanted?"

He sighed heavily, then took a deep breath. "I don't know. The cove, probably. I think he'd like that. Give back to the fish what he took from them. ...He'd like that. Cycle of life..." He sighed again and closed his eyes. It was so unfair. They had finally finished building their bridge...

Arion's body was released from the Pier Mignon in the waters of Rhiannon's Cove by Salathiel. No preparation was made other than to weight it down. One recorder was allowed on board. Ealdred Tovi faced the recorder and quoted, "The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart: and merciful men are taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come."*

He stepped back, joining Soren to release Arion's body into the water. Turning, Soren picked up Arion's notebook and read,

"I am a seed
planted deep upon the face of the earth
in the darkness of before...

I feel the Son
shining against my shell
warming the Life within...

Oh so sweet such a Homesickness!
Such a desperate yearning
for an almost remembered future...

The secret lies within
struggling to rupture the casing and be free,
to stretch toward the Sonlight...

Oh Infinite Ra!
How I long to see Your Radiance!
when there shall be no more sun, no moon...

Marana tha!"