All at once the distant moaning changed pitch, became screams. Terrible, raw-the sounds of slaughter. Nenanda was suddenly at the door, his sword out.
‘Wait!’ cried Kedeviss. ‘Listen! That’s not him. That’s them! He’s murdering them all-do you want to help, Nenanda? Do you?’
Nenanda seemed to slump. He stepped back, shaken, lost.
The shrieks did not last long. And when the last one wavered, sank into silence, even the Dying God’s cries had stilled. Beyond the door of the inn, there was nothing, as if the village-the entire outside world-had been torn away.
Inside, none slept. Each had pulled away from the others, coveting naught but their own thoughts, listening only to the all too familiar voice that was a soul’s conversation with itself. On the faces of his kin, Nimander saw, there was dull shock, a bleakness to the staring, unseeing eyes. He felt the surrender of Aranatha’s will, her power, as the threat passed, as she withdrew once more so far inward that her expression grew slack, almost lifeless, the shy, skittering look not ready to awaken once more.
Desra stood at the window, the inside shutters pulled to either side, staring out upon an empty main street as the night crawled on, leaving Nimander to wonder at the nature of her internal dialogue. if such a thing existed, If she wus not just a creature of of sensation, riding currents of Instinct, every choice reframed into simple demands of neccessity.
‘Their is cruelty in your thoughts’
Phaed. leave me alone, ghost.
‘Don’t get me wrong. I approve. Desra is a slut. She has a slut’s brain, the kind that confuses giving with taking, gift with loss, invitation with surrender. She is power’s whore, Nimander, and so she stands there, waiting to see him, waiting to see this strutting murderer that she would take to her bed. Confusions, yes. Death with life. Desperation with celebration. Fear with need and lust with love.’
Go away.
‘But you don’t really want that, because then it would leave you vulnerable to that other voice in your head. The sweet woman murmuring all those endearing words-do I recall ever hearing such when she was alive?’
Stop.
‘In the cage of your imagination, blissfully immune to all that was real-the cruel indifferences, yes-you make so much of so little, Nimander. A chance smile. A look. In your cage she lies in your arms, and this is the purest love, isn’t it? Unsullied, eternal-’
Stop, Phaed. You know nothing. You were too young, too self-obsessed, to see anything of anyone else, unless it threatened you.