Demetos stood at the mound overlooking the encampment. The sunshine and the clatter of soldiers dismantling tents energised him. The men worked fast, even more so than usual. They were excited, nervous and, above all else, relieved to finally be moving. What had previously resembled a makeshift town in identical rows now pulled itself apart and began to coalesce as an army ready to march. At the bottom of the slope, soldiers felled trees and cut them into usable timber.

  When Demetos was a boy, his uncle had fascinated him with stories of the early wars against the servile kingdoms, especially the Kingdom of Giftahl in the West. It was the cunning strategies and deft manoeuvres of those early generals which had excited him, as they did all children. When Demetos grew older, he learned the truth about war. It mostly consisted of logistics and construction. The smaller, more glamorous part was tactics. His new resource would soon have that covered. He looked down again at the hastily scrawled note in his hand. Tristor had sent two pigeons with the same message. Flying above the forest canopy, free of its twisting, deceiving pathways and terrors, both had returned to him.

  Gen. Demetos. Powder discovered. Vast supplies. A bitter fight to secure five barrels, lost many men. Mountain beasts not yet cleared out. Two captives obtained. One highly valuable but severely injured. Returning now. Larger force required to secure the caves. Must inform you in person of some details.

  Five barrels. Those were the words to which his eyes kept returning. The things I can do with five barrels... And there is more waiting for us! He'd send a larger force to secure those caves and whatever treasures lay inside them. But first, there was work to do at the border of the forest. Erlends had assured him that he would stop any clans from leaving. Demetos was preparing in case he failed. Gavan approached from the side.

  "We're ready to leave, Advocate. Are you sure you don't want us here until the forest is secured?"

  "There's nothing more for you to do here. It's muscle work now. I'll coordinate from a small group here at the encampment. When Tristor returns, he'll lead the main force south to block their exit and set out some fortifications on the border. When it's all calmed down, we'll pacify the caves. I need you two back in the capital. I want Listener Norlon to meet Ingo, to know that we have some Seveners working with us. Be careful what the boy hears, though. Be careful that Ilargia does not get to him. Here: take the letters."

  Gavan reached out and took a stack of letters from Demetos' hand.

  "Of course, Advocate. Your return will be triumphant."

  Demetos nodded and Gavan departed. He read the note again. Five barrels and a valuable captive. That second part intrigued him. Who are you bringing me, Tristor? He was starting to warm up to his hot-headed captain.

  The journey away from the encampment, that took Ingo down the ‘wrong’ side of the Lawbreaker’s Pass, turned out to be much easier than the way up. The hardest part had been starting it – taking yet another step away from his father and clan. And yet, he did not know where they were. Demetos had broken the news to him that Sullin scouts had found his village deserted, the buildings burned to the ground. They had moved without him. The thought stung his heart and he had awoken in the night dwelling on the meaning of it. Had they given up looking for him? They had not given him much time to find his way back. Did they think he was dead? A bitter feeling lodged itself in his mind. It made the decision to accept Hesio's invitation a little easier. An invitation to Dombarrow. An invitation to the Godless City.

  The far slope fell away just as roughly from the plateau as the one which climbed to it. However, a smooth, perfectly straight path ran down the middle. The four-yard width of ground they walked on was flatter than nature would allow and must have been built by humans. Ingo’s boots clipped on smooth, flat stones which did not shift under his weight. Its appearance reminded him of the sheer stone walls of the buildings in Scursditch, or rather how they would look if someone laid them flat on the ground. When the slope became steeper, the central pathway transformed into perfectly rectangular steps, so they could climb down the mountainside facing forwards and move just as quickly as if they were crossing a meadow. Doubtless, it made the journey easier, but it hardly seemed necessary. Why go to all this trouble? thought Ingo. How many generations of skilled craftsmen had laboured on the mountainside, just to make a simple journey easier still?

  In a quiet moment, Ingo voiced these questions and Gavan chuckled.

  “Generations?! We built this road last summer.”

  Ingo stopped, one foot on the step below. He looked back at how far they had descended and tried to imagine hauling just one of those great slabs up the mountainside. He looked down at the road, which cut a straight line directly towards the tower and extended so far it looked only a hair's breadth wide at its farthest point.

  “You’re lying,” he challenged. They stopped too, realising they had left him behind. He noted their expressions: smug satisfaction from Gavan and that sad, wistful look Hesio made when he pitied Ingo for his ignorance. It was true.

  “How? Who does it?" he asked aghast.

  Hesio stamped his boot on the stone beneath him. "This is the work of soldiers. All soldiers are builders in the Republic. If we didn’t know how to build, we’d be living in rubble.”

  “What are you living in?” Ingo looked over them into the distance where the tower stood, much nearer than before. He could see its base now – a squat rectangle of stone as black as the tower itself. He couldn’t see a city though. He searched the dusty landscape for other signs of life. The clouds hung low and visibility was poor. He thought he saw grey forms of some kind to the right, beneath a concentrated area of fog.

  “A more welcome place to spend the night than the Lawbreakers’ Pass,” said Hesio. “But it’s two days away yet.”

  Ingo stepped down and they resumed their journey. He asked the next question that occurred to him.

  “You call it the Lawbreaker’s Pass, too? It seems odd when its safe enough to travel in a group of three.”

  “Hmm,” Hesio grunted but did not reply.

  Ingo glanced at Gavan, who he always expected to chime in about history. His face was creased into a frown and his lips were pursed.

  The sound of their boots falling hard against the steps filled the silence until they reached the bottom and started walking on a gentle slope. When Ingo had forgotten his question and begun to focus again on the bleak landscape and the grey sky, Gavan announced:

  “There’s nothing to be ashamed of in crossing the pass.”

  “I’m not ashamed,” replied Ingo, defensively.

  “He meant for us,” Hesio clarified.

  “Why would you two be ashamed to cross the pass?”

  “It’s been called the Lawbreaker’s Pass,” Gavan explained, “since the first days of the Republic. There was never really a law against crossing it, but the only ones who did were those who broke the faith. The ones who returned with their tails between their legs. Who gave up and chose the comfort and safety of the gods, when their people still needed them at home. After those early years, it was more about survival. Our ancestors feared to provoke their oldest enemy. For generations, no apostate has crossed into Western land. We've travelled far and wide and roamed the world in ships, but we've never crossed the pass.”

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “Until Demetos crossed it,” said Ingo.

  “Until Advocate Demetos and his army,” agreed Gavan. “He has enemies in the city who would like to pretend he has broken a law, rather than simply departed from custom. But he crossed the pass to further the faith, not to flee from it. He crossed it to secure the future of our people.”

  “I thought he crossed the pass to look for timber and powder?” Ingo shot back. Demetos had said nothing to him about furthering the faith. He had reassured him that he had no interest in doing so. Gavan ignored the question and asked one of his own.

  “Why do your people call it the Lawbreaker’s Pass, then?”

  “We thought it was filled with the criminals from your city. That you banished them to live in the mountains, and they would come down from the pass and attack the forest folk. The Sullin have always said so...” Ingo trailed off, remembering the Sullin that walked freely around the camp on that very pass. Hesio guffawed.

  “They’ve been having you on, boy! Aha! The Advocate said they were wily. What tributes have they been demanding for holding that pass?”

  Ingo stared ahead as they walked. How long had the Sullin deceived the Hallin and the other clans? It was a lie that sweetened the truth they all knew: the truth that the Sullin extorted the forest. He found it easier to trust the Republicans now than those so called Seveners who were supposed to be his neighbours. As he ruminated on their lies and their betrayal, he suddenly wondered if he was the same. Here I am, travelling with two apostates to a city beyond the sight of the gods. No, he decided, he wasn't like them. He had not lied to anyone, nor had he done anything for his own gain. Why then did he feel these pangs of shame?

  Hesio glanced sidelong at him and laughed again, perhaps taking his expression as consternation. Ingo looked away, pretending to take in the empty landscape around them until the redness left his cheeks.

  Before dusk they arrived at the first sign of Republican civilisation and their lodgings for the night.

  A gated compound inside a neat wooden wall accompanied a point where the road forked in three. The central road continued in a straight line toward the tower, which Ingo could barely see at all in the gloom. Only a bright, white flame so high up that it could almost have been a star was visible now. To the right and left smaller, equally neat roads diverged. One of them led to the grey buildings he had seen in the distance, but they were clearly set apart from the black base of the tower. Perhaps the city was in a different place. Perhaps even these people did not want to live in the shadow of that edifice. As they approached the gate at the side of the road, two faces beneath helmets appeared above the wooden parapet.

  “One room,” Hesio shouted up at them. “On Advocate General Demetos' account.”

  “Wait there,” instructed one of the soldiers. A moment later the gate opened and he emerged alone, letting it shut behind him before he approached. He held a small lamp from which a flame sprang that required no wood to burn. He looked like Ingo imagined a priest of Hurean to be, as he descended the steps of his temple in a great Western city. Two guards watched his light from the darkness above.

  “Seals,” the lamp holder demanded, with a sceptical glance at Ingo. Hesio rummaged inside his tunic and brought out a wooden case that fit into the palm of his hand. He opened it and revealed a symbol that was pressed onto a layer of wax inside. The soldier nodded. “Come in.”

  The guard showed them to a long room with wooden boards running the length of each side. Sack cloth lay on some of them, presumably for padding, and Ingo surmised they were meant to sleep there. He copied Hesio and Gavan as they chose a space and unloaded their packs beside it. The other guard brought a wooden board laden with bread and bowls of oil, as well as a jug of wine. Before he departed, Gavan took a carefully wrapped bundle from inside his pack and pulled on the string, letting the cloth fall open. Inside were layer upon layer of carefully folded papers. Each one was sealed shut with wax and had a name on the front. Hesio looked up in surprise.

  “Some of these are for the attention of Advocates not resident in the city," Gavan stated. "Do you have patrols running east and west? The ones for the city we'll take ourselves.”

  “Periodically.” The soldier took the papers which Gavan passed him and and scanned the names. “For names like these, we can change the schedule.”

  “Please do."

  The man left and they devoured the bread and oil. In the quiet satisfaction after the meal, Hesio shifted and commented:

  “Delivering letters, are we?” He spoke with a forced nonchalance, as though straining to keep some hurt out of his voice. Only Gavan had been privy to this, Ingo understood.

  “The Advocate decided just before we left,” Gavan replied breezily. “After the message came from Tristor. Not something he wanted talked about in camp.”

  “Of course,” Hesio replied.

  Ingo wondered what the Advocate would not want discussed in camp. He wondered about Gavan's comment earlier - or was it a slip-up? Something he'd said about furthering the faith. Since Ingo met Demetos, the old man had opened new worlds of understanding for him. He'd shown him possibilities he had never imagined, not to mention a respect that no Sevener ever received from outsiders. Had he sold him fictions as well as facts? Was I blinded by my wonder? The thought passed and they prepared to sleep but as the other two snored, Ingo fell into a fitful slumber.

  "She's coming closer, coming closer, but it's almost too late."

  Ingo was already half awake when Gavan began to ramble. His eyes shot wide. In the gloom, he saw the soldier try to raise himself onto his elbows. Ingo edged closer, quietly so as not to wake him. Closer to the forest, these ramblings had terrified him. But a mountain lay between him and the sleepers, now. He recalled Gavan's words from just the other day. Learn as much as you can about as many things as you can as often as you can. You never know what will connect. Next to Gavan's bed lay some pieces of paper and the fire-lighting tool.

  "The imposter has hope again. It's almost too late. It's time."

  Ingo flipped open the little lid and spun the wheel. The sparks jumped and he lit a candle, then grabbed the paper and a quill. This is about my home - my world. As Gavan spoke, he scribbled. The soldier turned over and, for a moment, Ingo thought he was awake. But Gavan's open eyes stared lifelessly past him. His heart settled and, as quietly as he could, he probed with a question.

  "Who is she, this imposter?"

  "She stole her place! She never belonged here. It was our world before she came."

  "Why is it almost too late?"

  "The imposter thinks her sacrifice is coming... We have to reach the hiding place first... We only need a taste..."

  "What sacrifice? Who are you talking about?"

  Gavan's voice changed to a high rasp as he hissed his next answer.

  "Her desperate attempt to copy me! No matter if I'm too late. It's only a delay. The venom is already inside her..."

  Ingo whispered through trembling lips: "Are you her? Are you the sleeper queen?"

  Gavan's blank eyes locked with his. The dilated pupils looked like pools of ink. "Say my name, human. You know who I am. Soon I will be your master. Say my name, human."

  Ingo realised, with dread, that he was seeing inside a world that was previously unknown, though it slumbered directly below his own. How old was this evil that they shared a home with? How powerful was it? The sleepers fought the Seveners every summer, battling to get closer to the heart of the forest. Each winter they tracked down their nests and pushed them back. Nobody had ever really known why. What if something more than mastery of the forest paths was at stake? And yet, he thought also of the light that burned beside him, lit with the flick of a finger. He thought of Gavan, through whom this wicked entity spoke, who had survived a bite and now served as a window into its secrets. He thought of Hesio with the cylinder of fire, commanding flame as though it were his servant.

  "I'm not afraid of you," he said out loud. "You don't know the things we can do... Yurusuuru."

  The eyes swivelled and re-focussed on him. The inky pools retracted as they adjusted to the candlelight and, perhaps, returned to their owner. Beads of sweat emerged on Gavan's forehead and he shook himself, then sat. He panted and held his knees. Hesio, now awake, crawled over and placed a hand on his shoulder. Ingo pushed the paper behind him. Perhaps Gavan would not take kindly to knowing that he had been studied.

  They waited together, awake and silent, until the first rays of natural light came in through the shutters of the wooden barracks. In the daylight, with all the terrors of the forest and the night seeming farther away, Ingo asked:

  "What do you remember when this happens?"

  Gavan looked up. His cheeks seemed flusher than they had done recently. He blinked, and his eyes looked more alive.

  "Just feelings, really. Sometimes the feeling of the ground pressing around me. It feels safe and cool. Sometimes I feel their rage and their patience. And sometimes I feel her, whoever she is. Perhaps I'm imagining it. If I'm not, she has a plan. She's going to finish something. And then she'll be worse than any of the gods."