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I can travel at will, it seems. Into each and every card, of every Deck that ever existed. Amidst the surge of wonder and excitement he felt ran an undercurrent of terror. The Deck possessed a host of unpleasant places.

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A small stone-lined hearth smouldered before the hut's entrance. Wreathed in the smoke was a rack made of branches, on which hung strips of meat. The clearing, Paran now saw, was ringed with weathered skulls — doubtless from the beasts whose bones formed the framework of the hut itself. The skulls faced inward, and he could see by the long, yellowed molars in the jaws that the animals had been eaters of plants, not flesh.

Paran approached the hut's entrance. The skulls of carnivores hung down from the doorway's ivory frame, forcing him to duck as he entered.

Swiftly abandoned, from the looks of it. As if the dwellers just left but moments ago … At the far end sat twin thrones, squat and robust, made entirely of bones, on a raised dais of ochre-stained human skulls — well, close enough to human in any case. More like T'lan Imass…

Knowledge blossomed in his mind. He knew the name of this place, knew it deep in his soul. The Hold of the Beasts. long before the First Throne. this was the heart of the T'lan Imass's power — their spirit world, when they were still flesh and blood, when they still possessed spirits to be worshipped and revered. Long before they initiated the Ritual of Tellann. and so came to outlast their own pantheon …

A realm, then, abandoned. Lost to its makers. What then, is the Warren of Tellann that the T'lan Imass now use? Ah, that warren must have been born from the Ritual itself, a physical manifestation of their Vow of Immortality, perhaps. Aspected, not of life, nor even death. Aspected. of dust.

He stood unmoving for a time, struggling to comprehend the seemingly depthless layers of tragedy that were the burden of the T'lan Imass.

Oh my, they've outlasted their own gods. They exist in a world of dust in truth — memories untethered, an eternal existence … no end in sight. Sorrow flooded him in a profound, heart-rending wave. Beru fend. so alone, now. So alone for so long. yet now they are gathering, coming to the child seeking benediction. and something more …

Paran stepped back — and stood on the flagstones once again. With an effort he pulled his eyes from the carved Hold of Beasts — but why were there two thrones and not just one? — as he now knew the card was called. Another etched stone, a dozen paces to his left, caught his attention. A throbbing, crimson glow suffused the air directly above it.

He walked to it, looked down.

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The image of a sleeping woman, as seen from above, dominated the flagstone. Her flesh seemed to spin and swirl. Paran slowly lowered himself into a crouch, his eyes narrowing. Her skin was depthless, revealing ever more detail as the captain's vision was drawn ever closer. Skin, not skin. Forests, sweeps of bedrock, the seething floor of the oceans, fissures in the flesh of the world — she is Burn! She is the Sleeping Goddess.

Then he saw the flaw, the marring a dark, suppurating welt. Waves of nausea swept through Paran, yet he would not look away. There, at the wound's heart, a humped, kneeling, broken figure. Chained. Chained to Burn's own flesh. From the figure, down the length of the chains, poison flowed into the Sleeping Goddess.

She sensed the sickness coming, sinking claws into her. Sensed. and chose to sleep. Less than two thousand years ago, she chose to sleep. She sought to escape the prison of her own flesh, in order to do battle with the one who was killing that flesh. She — oh gods above and below! She made of herself a weapon! Her entire spirit, all its power, into a single forging … a hammer, a hammer capable of breaking. breaking anything. And Burn then found a man to wield it…

Caladan Brood.

But breaking the chains meant freeing the Crippled God. And an unchained Crippled God meant an unleashing of vengeance — enough to sweep all life from the surface of this world. And yet Burn, the Sleeping Goddess, was indifferent to that. She would simply begin again.

Now he saw it, saw the truth — he refuses! The bastard refuses! To defy the Crippled God's unleashing of a deadly will, that would see us all destroyed, Caladan Brood refuses her!

Gasping, Paran pulled himself away, pushed himself upright, staggering back — and was at Raest's side once again.

The Jaghut's tusks glimmered. 'Have you found knowledge a gift, or a curse?'

Too prescient a question … 'Both, Raest.'

'And which do you choose to embrace?'

'I don't know what you mean.'

'You are weeping, mortal. In joy or sorrow?' pqdm.com