She paused to light a new stick from the stub of the old one. ‘Poison. An accident.’

‘And my corpse?’

‘A revenant stole it.’

‘Stole? Perhaps it seemed that way. In truth, I was retrieved . I was carried back to a place I had been to before. My very name was carved upon a standing stone. Joined to countless others.’

She frowned, seemed to study the wiry grasses on the ground before them. ‘Is this what happens, then? To all of us? Our names set in stone? From death to life and then back again? As some sages have claimed?’

‘I do not know what happens, in truth. Whether what I experienced was fundamentally different from what others go through. But I sense there was something to it that was … unique. If I was inclined to blame anyone, it would have to be Kuru Qan. He invoked a ritual, sending me to a distant place, a realm, perhaps – a world upon the floor of the ocean – and it was there that I first met the … revenant. The Guardian of the Names – or so I now call it.’

‘And this was the one who came for you? In the throne room?’

He nodded.

‘Because he possessed your name?’

‘Perhaps – but perhaps not. We met in the clash of blades. I bested him in combat …’

‘He failed in his guardianship.’

‘Yes.’

‘When he came for you,’ said Aranict, ‘it was to set you in his stead.’

‘You have the truth of it, I think.’ Or so it seemed .

‘The “names” you speak of, Brys – does no one guard them now?’

‘Ah, thus leading us to my resurrection. What do you know of the details surrounding it?’

Aranict shook her head. ‘Nothing. But then, almost no one does.’

‘As you might imagine, I think about this often. In my dreams there are memories of things I have never done, or seen. Most troubling, at least at first. Like you, I have no real knowledge of my return to the realm of the living. Was there an invitation? A sundering of chains? I just don’t know.’

‘The power to achieve such a thing must have been immense.’

‘Something tells me,’ he said with a wry smile, ‘even an Elder God’s power would not have been enough. The desires of the living – for the return of the ones they have lost – cannot unravel the laws of death. This is not a journey one is meant to ever take, and all that we were when alive we are not now. I am not the same man, for that man died in the throne room, at the very feet of his king.’

She was studying him now, with fear in her eyes.

‘For a long time,’ Brys said, ‘I did not think I was capable of finding anything – not even an echo of who I had once been. But then … you.’ He shook his head. ‘Now, what can I tell you? What value does any of this have, beyond the truths we have now shared? It is, I think, this: I was released … to do something. Here, in this world. I think I now know what that thing is. I don’t know, however, what will be achieved. I don’t know why it is so … important. The Guardian has sent me back, for I am his hope.’ He shot her a look. ‘When you spoke of Tavore’s belief in the boy, I caught a glimmer … like the flickering of a distant candle, as if through murky water … of someone in the gloom. And I realized that I have seen this scene before, in a dream.’

‘Someone,’ murmured Aranict. ‘Your Guardian?’

‘No. But I have felt that stranger’s thoughts – I have dreamed his memories. An ancient house, where once I stood, but now it was empty. Flooded, dark. Like so much upon the bed of the oceans, its time was past, its purpose … lost. He walked inside it, wanting to find it as he once found it, wanting, above all, the comfort of company. But they’re gone.’

‘“They”? People dwelt in that house?’

‘No longer. He left it and now walks, bearing a lantern – I see him like a figure of myth, the last soul in the deep. The lone, dull glow of all he has left to offer anyone. A moment of’ – he reached up to his face, wiped at the tears – ‘of … light. Relief. From the terrible pressures, the burdens, the darkness .’

They had halted. She stood facing him, her eyes filled with sorrow. She whispered, ‘Does he beckon you? Does he beg your company, Brys?’

He blinked, shook his head. ‘I – I don’t know. He … waits for me. I see the lantern’s light, I see his shadow. All a thing of myth, a conjuration. Does he wait for the souls of the drowned? It seems he must. When we flounder, when we lose the sense of what is up and what is down – is that not what often happens when one drowns? And we see a lightness in the murk, and we believe it to be the surface. Instead … his lantern calls us. Down, and down …’