Zal stood. Zal weeping. The same one who hours ago had cradled the puppies in his arms and wept for a mother he had never known.

  Now he buried her.

  With bare hands he dug the soil. His nails filled with earth and dried blood. He spoke no words. Uttered no prayer. He only let the weight of the earth upon that small body be his final gift to a creature whose entire life had been suffering.

  The puppies gathered beside him. They no longer bit. Perhaps they understood this man was their only refuge now.

  Zal rose. Looked at the puppies. He wanted to say forgive me, but he did not know if dogs understood the language of apology.

  He turned and walked away.

  ---

  "The refugee mind, when faced with the signs of madness, always chooses the first refuge: denial. Zal told himself he would think later. And this 'later' was a lie he repeated every day."

  ---

  He ran. Toward the tavern. His breath caught, dry coughs crushing his ribcage, but he did not stop.

  Running in that state between waking and coma. Between remembering and forgetting.

  He looked at his hands. There was blood.

  The dog's blood.

  Yes. The dog's blood. Surely that was it. In that moment when he broke its neck... blood must have splattered on his hands. Natural. Nothing strange.

  He looked at his clothes.

  These clothes were not his.

  Why? When had he changed? Where?

  ...Don't think. There's no time. Today is the promised day. The day of the journey to the White Spire. Think of that.

  ---

  "Small lies are the bricks of silence's foundation. Zal did not know what he had spoken, but he knew it was not the truth. This was his new habit: hiding the void."

  ---

  He threw open the tavern door.

  "Hello! Adam! Breath... breath..."

  Adam looked up from the counter. His face reddened. "Didn't I tell you not to shout—" But when he looked, his words died. The boy was pale, hair disheveled, his eyes elsewhere. As if he had just crawled from a grave.

  Adam spoke more softly. "Well... where were you, boy?"

  Zal placed his hand behind his neck. "Nowhere... the streets."

  Adam raised an eyebrow. His gaze lingered on Zal's clothes. "Hah, go on. Bought new clothes? Aww, our boy's stressed for today, hahaha!"

  Zal smiled. A smile that did not reach his eyes. "Yeah... yeah."

  Adam stroked his beard. "Alright, alright. You leaving now or in a few hours?"

  Zal said: "I'm here for a few more hours. Maybe... ask some questions. Then I'll go."

  "Better that way. The more you know, the better for you."

  Zal sat on the chair. Hooked his hands beneath his chin. His gaze was empty, but his mind worked like a blade.

  "Adam... why is this Sage so valuable to you?"

  Adam paused. Set down his glass. His face grew serious.

  "Two thousand years ago, Cadmus was something else. Not this beautiful city, not this order, not these books. It was a valley between mountains, at the end of the world. Other nations called it 'the Valley of Nothingness.' No mines, no trade routes, nothing. Just soil and stone and people struggling to stay alive."

  Zal was silent.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  "Then a calamity came. A being. The books call it different names. The Nightmare King. The Reality-Breaker. One of the First Ones... those who were here before humans. They say it has a contract with the world: every sixty years, three years of activity, destroy one civilization. The last time was two thousand years ago. It came here. To the Valley of Nothingness."

  Adam took a sip of water.

  "It lasted three years. First came the mist. Thick, gray, as if the air itself had died. Birds went mad, crashed into walls, died. Anyone who tried to leave the city, after a few steps, would be seized by madness, turn back, and never be themselves again."

  "The rivers changed. Grew thick, lost their color. You could drink it, but it tasted like swamp blood. People shared the same dreams. All of them the same dream. A tall, gaunt man, two meters high, skeletal, came to them in sleep. His voice came from the bottom of a well. He said: 'I hope you will receive your guest well.'"

  "Two years of slaughter, Zal. Two full years. People went mad in the streets. Neighbor killed neighbor. Children opened their eyes and did not recognize their parents. That being enjoyed it. Killing was its entertainment, not its duty."

  "Then... one day it left. The mist vanished overnight. The air cleared. People woke up and half of them were gone. Only bones remained, and ash. And a wound. A wound that would not heal for generations."

  Silence.

  Zal looked at his hands. At the nails still bearing soil beneath them.

  "What happened next?"

  "Nothing happened for eight hundred years. Eight hundred years of dying. Not from war, from remembrance. The old wound would not heal. Children had nightmares of things they had never seen. Fathers went mad. The earth was still wounded. Nothing would grow. No one trusted anyone. Small civilizations rose, lasted two years, crumbled. As if a curse hung over this valley."

  "Then the Sage came."

  Adam paused.

  "Eight hundred years later, he appeared. There was one called Kael, found in the forest. Mad. They healed him. He became a monk's disciple. Later he had three students. After a hundred years of journeying, those students returned and merged themselves with the church. From the fusion of the three, a new awareness was born. They named it the Sage of the White River."

  Zal whispered: "So the Sage is... a library that thinks."

  "Yes. A library that answers. For fifteen hundred years, people have come to him with questions. They say he performed three miracles so the people would believe. The first they call the 'Miracle of Hope.' He split the dead earth of Cadmus, and pure water flowed forth. Agriculture thrived. People were saved from starvation."

  "The second miracle... he gave a book to the first King of Cadmus. Filled with knowledge. Philosophy, geography, science. The third miracle, he gave a sword. Within it was the power of reality itself. The king used it to protect the new civilization."

  "Where are the book and the sword now?"

  "After the king's death... they vanished. They say one day they will return to the hand of one worthy." Adam smiled. "I don't believe that. But the Sage himself... well, he exists. For fifteen hundred years he has been answering questions. People come to him from all over the world. I think that's the most valuable thing in our lives. That there is a place you can go and ask a question. And hear an answer."

  Zal remained silent.

  Do you really hear an answer? Or only the echo of your own voice?

  But he did not say this.

  ---

  "Forgetting is the greatest gift of civilization. And its greatest curse. Zal knew he had never received the gift of forgetting. Now he was beginning to understand why: he was not rooted in this civilization, but in its wound. A wound named Kael. A wound named the Thread. A wound named himself."

  ---

  Zal stood.

  "It's time."

  Adam looked at him. A few moments of silence. Then he went behind the counter and returned with a small pastry, wrapped in clean cloth.

  "Take this. You'll eat it on the way."

  Zal took the pastry. His hand trembled. "Thank you... Adam."

  "Don't mention it."

  ---

  The courtyard behind the tavern was so small Zal could not believe he had never seen it before. High, damp walls, moss-eaten cobblestones, dark and secluded. Room for one carriage, no more.

  Adam took the paper from Zal. Placed it on the ground, in the center of the courtyard. Knelt. Lowered his head.

  And whispered:

  "I swear by the oneness of God... and by the true prophethood of the Sage of the White River... that there is no god but Him, and He has no partner..."

  Zal held his breath.

  The earth cracked.

  Not with a roar. With a whisper. A circle of hidden, ancient, faded light opened beneath the paper. And from the depths of that circle, from the abyss, from a place of absolute darkness and pure silence, a carriage emerged.

  Black.

  Two black horses.

  Silent.

  Neither hooves nor wheels made sound. As if they were made of the same substance as the tunnel Zal had passed through months ago. Of the substance of conscious nothingness.

  The carriage door opened.

  The darkness within was thick, like burnt honey.

  Adam looked at Zal. "Good luck, boy."

  Zal stepped onto the carriage.

  The door closed.

  Absolute darkness.

  ---

  "And thus, Zal stepped upon the threshold of his life's greatest question. Not to find an answer, but to face the price of the questions he had until now fled from. The carriage moved not toward the White Spire, but toward an encounter with his own self. And he did not know this."

  ---

  The wheels began to move. Not upon earth. Within a tunnel of darkness that had no beginning and no end.

  Zal was alone.

  And then, from the seat across from him, where moments ago there had been no one, a voice rose.

  "Finally... you are late."

  Zal flinched. His hand moved involuntarily toward the Thread around his wrist.

  A man sat there. Not a shadow, not a spirit. Flesh and bone. Long black robe, a face white as marble, eyes that glowed in this absolute darkness. Neither kind nor cruel. Just... an observer.

  "Do not fear." The voice was calm, emotionless, like cold wind seeping through a crack in the door. "I am only the driver. I will take you to your destination."

  Zal whispered: "Who are you?"

  The man smiled. A smile that did not reach his eyes.

  "Just a driver. Do you board, or do you stay?"

  The carriage continued through the darkness. There was no light. No path. Only this man and this voice.

  Zal looked at the Thread around his wrist. Cold. Silent.

  He leaned back in his seat.

  "...Let us go."

  The man nodded. Drew the reins.

  And the carriage, in the heart of endless night, toward the White Spire, galloped forward.