The dead ruled the back roads. They had worn and weathered faces, eyes hard against the horizon. They were staring at that unwavering point, always visible, no matter which direction one was traveling. The horizon beyond the horizon and the sky beyond the sky. No matter where one looked, it was there, and the dead were always walking toward it, though they could never arrive at that destination. It was the land of the living, and they had passed beyond it.

Xue had as well, though he was not dead. Not yet, anyway. He avoided the dead, hiding himself along the roadside whenever he saw them approaching. Caution was his watchword in this place, for he had none of the powers of the inhabitants here. He was a mere swordsman, practitioner of those sacred arts, though no master. His failures were that of any man, and for them he had been punished—cursed—and now he found himself wandering this land, just as the dead did, hoping somehow to reach that point on the horizon and cross to the world beyond.

Xue stayed to the nether regions and the back roads, for beyond them were things far worse than the dead. If he wanted to return to the land of living he needed to stay alive, a difficult proposition in this realm, where ghouls, demons, and things not even imagined by mortals existed. Had he understood the terrible cost his actions would carry, the damnation he would incur for his wrongs, he would not have been so quick to act.

“Vengeance is a luxury only the rich can afford,” his master had once told him. He had been correct, but Xue had not been willing to listen. Now he rued his impatience and anger every day.

The road upon which he walked during this endless day—for evening never came here, just as morning never returned anew—was a trail worn by an unending multitude of walkers. Dust stirred with his every step. He was on a vast and arid plain, that seemed to cross all of the realm here, the sky above vast and incomprehensible. It was blue, though somewhat faded and drawn, with specks of clouds adrift within. They never seemed to move and the weather never changed. It was as though the sky was caught in an instant forever. And he was ensnared in it as well.

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The bones had been bleached dry by the sun and now were a gleaming white amidst a sea of green grass that stretched on for miles in any direction. The sun glimmered off the bones, drawing the two riders to it. They came across the rest of the body on their way to the skull—a femur here, a rib there—the body having been torn apart by whatever carrion hunters inhabited these parts. When they reached it, one of the riders dismounted, picking it up gingerly to study it, while the other kept her eyes upon the horizon in all directions.

“Be quick,” the woman, whose name was Harni the Cleaved. “There is someone approaching.”

“You know this cannot be rushed,” Mejk the Unharnessed said, not taking his eyes from the skull.

“It may have to be,” Harni said.

Hearing the urgency in her voice, Mejk looked up from the skull and cast his eyes along the horizon. “Who is it?”

“Who else,” was her whispered reply.

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It began sometime after Beata put on her coat—the long winter one that came down to her thighs and clung to her form in a way she liked—and left her office. She had just left the building and was on her way, walking with purpose, her boot heels clicking in that pleasant rhythm she enjoyed. The day was cool but pleasant, with no breeze bringing an extra chill. A skiff of snow had fallen during the night and the way it caught the light made the day seem vibrant and alive.

Beata adjusted her purse on her shoulder and halted mid-stride. She nearly fell over so abrupt was her stop. Someone brushed by her, muttering and shooting her a quick glare. Her hands were tingling as though she had absorbed some electricity. Even her hair felt as though it were rising off her head from a static charge. She reached out to touch her curls, but everything felt in place.

When she was certain that everything was in its right place and the effects of the charge—or whatever it had been—had passed, Beata started forward again. Only to stop a moment later. She could no longer recall what she had been doing, or where she had been going. That she had left the office to go somewhere was clear. A glance at her watch showed that it was two in the afternoon, too early for her to be leaving work. So it was an errand.

She looked around and saw that she was heading down the street away from where she normally parked her car and assumed that she was on her way to the nearby strip mall. What she had to do there she still didn’t know, but she started forward anyway, certain that it would come to her eventually. Instead, as she came to the end of the block, she saw her car parked across the street. She stopped again and stared at it, utterly mystified.

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In springtime the nobles of Nazagul would gather in the finer districts of the city, or, for those of particular fortune, in the court of the Emperor himself, to watch the blossoming of the baha flowers. Such an occasion, which came but once a year and lasted for only a week—two if the season was truly favorable—was an opportunity to observe the ephemeral splendor of nature. Life itself was transient and fleeting, a moment that passed and disappeared without a thought. A beauty that could never be captured and held.

Genha felt herself to be in such a moment now, an exquisite perfection that she would spend the rest of her days seeking to replicate, all to no avail. Everything stood on the precipice ready to collapse, but it yet stood, all in balance. The flowers bloomed, and though she knew the day would come, not long from now, when the blossoms would fall and scatter to the winds, they seemed so alive that she could almost believe it was impossible that they should perish.

The moment of her realization came during that year’s baha festivities. She and her husband attended the celebration of one of the Emperor’s viziers in the hills above the imperial city in the park the Emperor had set aside for the nobility. The group of them—the vizier and his wife, Genha and her husband, their children and retainers—sat beneath one of the baha trees, five trees from the Emperor himself. Two trees further yet was the family Leiy’s celebration, and sitting with them was their firstborn son and his wife and their children.

They spent the afternoon beneath the trees contemplating the baha blossoms, amidst laughter and joking , eating and drinking,. The moment that Genha would remember, that she would treasure for the remainder of her days, came as the sun’s descent became obvious. The shadow’s began to lengthen around them, the air seeming to change, as if to announce that night would not be held at bay for long. As she sat at the edge of the vizier’s blanket, watching her second–born son play with the vizier’s firstborn daughter, she felt the eyes of someone upon her and glanced up to see the Firstborn Leiy staring at her. Their eyes met for an instant, and they both looked away before anyone noticed. It was in that instant, that exquisite glance, that Genha realized she had never known such happiness.

The day went on and the blankets were folded up and the Emperor led the procession back into the imperial city. As they descended from the hills, down the wide imperial avenue, everyone could see as smoke began to billow from the Xavin District near the city walls. A quiet murmur passed through the crowd, as various parties speculated about the fire and its cause, as well as its location, so near the army barracks. The Emperor made no comment and gave no sign he even noticed the blaze, leading the procession below with his head held high.

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