Departing Iylum's necropolis, he passed the blackened hull of a grange and its tract. There toiled a man alone, back bent to the barren earth, so to deterge it with sweat, and eat, and live a little longer.
He obscured himself below the path and hurried on his way, or else his numinous aura might be detected, and aligned with this fatal causatum.
Crossing the high bridge into a bordering cloh, he met a woman strange and ragged. With the fence she struggled, so to thrust herself into the nadir, but was too weak, too gravid, to climb and to fall.
He sued: "Do you accept death? I ask you. Do you really? How do you know? What is the quale of acceptance?" So she presented his hand to her bare womb, full but cold. "It is the subtraction of will." Pitying he touched her with death, and she wandered the other way.
Arriving the river's native side, plangent he knelt. To forget hunger, to slough infirmity, to last undying through the night of years - but still to know grief, was the greater curse. Now would she know it too?
He saw his reflection in the mirror. To him it spoke, but he would not remember the words, their sounds or shapes. Reviled it touched him with life, and he came awake.
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