It is cold, up on the walls.
He shivers, draws the thick cloak further around him, looks out once more: nothing. It has never not been nothing, looking out here, nothing but the mist, the smoke, the wind and cold.
There is little light to see by, but little to see, and his eyes have long adjusted to the darkness. He looks up, as he has made a habit of these past years, to see the bright and glittering dust strewn across the sky.
Eleni, the oldest of them call them, and those who had ventured out into Araman in their youth. Asyarnér is not one of those, having dwelt always in bright Tirion, where the stars never gleamed, and their light, though distant, has swiftly become a comfort in this strange land.
A hail from behind, soft and barely heard, causes him to turn. Another guard approaches, voice low for the heavy silence that lies always on this land. Asyarnér knows him, and greets him gladly in the dark, for his watch has been long and the night cold.
He descends the steps slowly, and the darkness draws in deeper around him here on the ground. The stars are far, far away, beyond the mist and smoke. He should have brought a torch, he thinks, for it is never wise to come down here alone in the dark. Nevertheless, he treds the wide flagstones with unfaltering feet.
“Asyarnér!” His name, loud in the silence, rings out and he turns. Water pools and drips everywhere, along the close walls, the floor, and the steps spiraling down before and up behind. Cold starlight glints off it, and is reflected as red as warm fire. It is not water.
A torch flares below! Safety, he thinks, and flees.
Trees branch and wave overhead, and he winces when he steps on a branch and cracks it. His companion turns at the sound, more amused than alarmed, and smiles. He speaks, but the sound is garbled.
Asyarnér flushes, and his friend laughs, strange and loud in the darkness. Creeping vines twine through his arms to hold him fast, and thorns lash out for his legs. He shakes them off with difficulty, and jogs to catch up. The forest ends, and they come to a desert.
Choking dust rises from the dead land to smother them, and they navigate around jagged gaping cracks in the earth, never losing their way. East they go, ever east, though no light remains to steer by and the seas are wide and treacherous.
“The ice,” his companion says, and this voice is clear, angry and biting. “We will go by the ice, for no other path remains.”
It is cold, freezing cold, and he draws his cloak around him. The mist and smoke rise steadily in twirling columns, forming shapes in the gloom. He is alone, and it is never wise to venture here alone in the dark.
"Why do you linger?" A young voice, a small voice, pipes up by his side--- he is not alone. He looks down, on hair lit from behind with mingled light, and a pair of serious grey eyes soft and questioning. "Why do you linger when the gates of return are thrown open? They say all but the leaders are allowed through, and you are no leader."
It is true.
"They are not," he says, and his voice creaks with age and exhaustion. He cannot see the stars here, for greater light than they drown them out, but staring upward he wishes he could. "They never were."
