The group is almost back to E’armos from the First Gate. The group has traveled through the Howling Wastes, but has made it out of them. Alexis is walking beside Ca’armine.
“You know,” Alexis said, eyes on the horizon, “I keep thinking about the Gate. About what we walked away from.” He hooked a thumb toward the north-west without looking. “They knew Bandesingh’s name there. They knew his allies. We tracked the weapons being made to there. That wasn’t nothing; we had a trail, and we left it cooling.”
He glanced sideways. “You’ve said Raiden wanted you to turn back. Maybe. Or maybe… it wasn’t about turning at all. Maybe it was about where to put our eyes. We were looking one way, but the truth was sitting right there in front of us. Or maybe going to the First Gate wasn’t the most direct way to get to Bandesingh, but perhaps it could have been the quickest way, that Raiden knew-if asked, to disrupt his working, or to topple the Hand.” Alexis shrugs at his thought that will never be known and was never tested.
“And Drennos. You said he taunted you. Maybe he did. But it sticks with me—reminds me of that beggar in Sutheron. ‘You may have killed the snake, but the wolf still hunts, the spider weaves, the king behind the throne is coming.’” Alexis pauses to gather his thoughts. “Whatever that poor beggar was trying to say, Rask certainly took it as some sort of curse or threat. But sometimes messages come in ugly wrappers. Perhaps Raiden was working through Drennos.”
Alexis kicks a stone forward, watched it skitter. “And those visions—the ruins of Raiden’s long-gone armies? They don’t have to be warnings. That could have been a clue or an omen of both weal and woe. When his armies fell, they almost certainly left something behind. Power. Tools. Maybe even a key to tearing the Hand apart or to stop Bandy’s evil master plan.”
“So maybe the Gate was a pit.” Alexis nods his head towards Ethelred, to emphasize ‘pit.’ “Fine. And we climbed out. And we carried things with us when we did. Maybe doom wasn’t the only story written for us there.”
Alexis keeps walking beside Ca’armine. Letting the words hang between them as the group moves closer and closer to E’armos.
