Poyraz opened his mouth.
"What do you all make of the writing on the wall?"
Everyone paused for a moment. Ever since they'd come to this world, this subject had deeply unsettled many of them, but they'd never found the chance to talk about it—and now it had come up.
"You read it," said Poyraz, turning to Sevda. "Say it again."
Sevda hesitated for a moment. Then she fixed her eyes on the fire; as if she were reading the words out of the flames.
"To those torn from their roots," she said slowly.
"The one who will show the way knows not the truth he carries.
To trust the holders of the thrones hastens your fall.
The 'End' draws near. 'He' awaits you — so that you may shine in the sky."
After she said it, she added.
"It wasn't clear whether it was singular or plural. It could be 'the one who was torn,' or 'those who were.'"
The words hung in the air. Everyone had heard them, but some were really thinking about them for the first time.
"Those torn from their roots. That's us," said Tunay, then added, "Most likely."
No one objected. They all knew it already.
"The interesting one is the next line."
Tunay took his eyes off the fire and looked at Poyraz. Something brief passed between them; Hazar understood this was something they'd discussed before. Then Poyraz spoke.
"'The one who will show the way knows not the truth he carries.'" Poyraz stopped. "Who's showing us the way?"
No one answered. The answer was obvious.
"Yalaz," Yavuz said at last. His voice was uneasy, as if he didn't want to say the word.
"Yalaz is showing us the way. He said, 'the road is mine.'"
"That doesn't prove anything," Aylin said at once. "He's the only one showing us the way. Who else could it be?"
"It doesn't prove it," said Tunay. "It just fits."
A tension spread around the fire.
Hazar shifted. Two things were speaking inside him at once. Yalaz had healed his wound. He'd gotten them out of that valley, shared his own village so they wouldn't go hungry. He owed him a great deal.
But the writing was there too. And whoever had written it knew them.
"Say it is him," said Sevda. Her voice was lower than usual.
"So what? Can we get out of this region without him? A week ago a shadow could have hunted us down one by one. Who stopped it?"
"Yalaz didn't stop it." Tunay answered. "The shadow stopped either because it wounded Hazar or because it didn't want to enter the cave. Either is possible, and neither has anything to do with Yalaz."
"And the insectified rot—didn't he protect us from them?" Sevda's voice had turned prickly.
"The writing doesn't say 'don't trust him' anyway," Poyraz went on. Everyone turned to him.
"Read it carefully. It says 'knows not the truth he carries.' Knows not. Meaning he doesn't know either."
There was a silence.
"What does that mean?" said Sedef, in her low voice.
"It means," said Poyraz, "he doesn't have to have bad intentions. Maybe he's taking us somewhere and doesn't know himself where he's taking us. Or maybe…"
Poyraz paused and didn't go on.
"Or maybe?" Sevda had raised her head and was looking at him.
"Never mind."
Poyraz tried to brush it off. Sevda was about to push him on it, but Tunay stepped back in.
"There's also this." Tunay ran his finger through the air, as if tracing the writing again.
"'To trust the holders of the thrones hastens your fall.' A separate line. I don't think Yalaz has anything to do with the holders of the thrones."
"Then who's that line for?" said Tekin.
"Isn't it obvious?"
Faces turned to Tunay. Tunay raised his finger upward. He was pointing at the sky.
"Those thrones that brought us here. Maybe 'gods,' maybe something else. Whatever they are."
Hazar looked at the fire. The flames lit the faces and darkened them by turns.
A writing was warning them. And that warning might be pointing to the one man they had to trust in order to survive.
If they didn't trust him, they'd die. If they did trust him… what had the writing meant?
Hazar didn't know the answer. No one did.
And this was the coldest thing he'd felt since the day they came.
Another line, meanwhile, hinted that whatever had brought them here was ill-intentioned.
That perhaps meant something even worse.
He raised his head. He looked at the countless moons, at the unnaturally close planets, and at the two stars.
As he studied the sky, the last line came to his mind.
"And the last line?" he asked.
Tunay, who had sunk back into watching the fire, began to speak without lifting his eyes from it.
"'The End draws near' could mean the end of the world, the apocalypse, something like that," then he added.
"Or our end."
That last sentence had made the already cold air colder still.
Tunay went on.
"'He awaits you — so that you may shine in the sky.'"
He thought for a few seconds.
"Succeeding? Maybe ascension? I don't know."
No one could add anything. They had no information in hand at all. And that was what was frightening. Why, how, who—the answers to none of these questions were theirs.
A few minutes after this long and far from cheerful conversation, the group slowly began to disperse.
One by one, everyone headed for their homes, their warm beds.
As Hazar lifted his blanket and lay down in bed, one question still lingered in his mind. A question that would add one more to the questions with no answers.
'So who wrote this message?'
He didn't ask. He didn't want to ask.
As the light of the stars and moons lit his face through the window, he drifted off to sleep.
Around that same time, the tireless shadow had reached the sheer mountains of the Ruined Lands. From the foothills it made its way up toward the peaks with slow but certain steps.
The five holes in its armor had shrunk a little more, and the smoke seeping out with each step had lessened. Now only a feeble wisp of smoke puffed out every few steps.
Then a loud beating of wings rose from above.
The Shadow gripped its dark sword and took its stance. It didn't take its head off the heights.
The sound kept drawing closer. It grew louder every second, and with each beat the rocks around it lifted from their places for an instant.
It went on like this. Until an enormous vulture appeared on the horizon.
The vulture slowed and alighted on one of the mountain's countless rocks.
The Shadow waited patiently, not taking its eyes off the bird.
This enormous vulture, its wings at least twenty meters across, had two heads. Or rather, once had. On one neck, where the head should have been, there was only emptiness.
The vulture waited a while. So did the Shadow.
Realizing the Shadow wouldn't speak, the vulture grumbled and broke the silence.
"What are you planning this time, honorless shadow? Just as you killed the tree, will you kill the Hound too? The ghost? Me? Or the old man?"
The Shadow gave no answer.
The vulture went on grumbling.
"You don't aim for ascension. You don't care about your surroundings. So what do you want? What are you alive for?"
Again the Shadow gave no answer.
"You and that mute act of yours. It only makes me want to eat you more."
The Shadow raised its guard.
"Don't be so afraid. You know me. We vultures don't fight. Instead we feed on carrion. The only reason I attacked last week was that I was looking for some fun."
The vulture paused a moment, looking at the Shadow's armor.
"Your leg is about to heal, and the wounds the tree opened are about to heal too."
It lifted its beak into the air and began to laugh. Though this laugh resembled a caw more than a laugh.
"CAW! CAW! CAW!"
When the laugh, or the caw, or whatever it was, stopped, it turned its crimson eyes to the gap in the Shadow's helm, to the Shadow's eyes.
Looking into the Shadow's eyes, it spoke.
"Know that whoever you attack. This time I, the one-headed vulture, will be there."
It went on.
"For the carrion, for ascension, for the pleasure of it."
It began to beat its enormous wings and rose from the rock it was perched on.
As it flew off, its voice still carried.
"Don't forget, shadow, I'll always be there. Whether you see me or not. I won't miss a pleasure, an opportunity, like this."
When the sound of the wings faded to the point of being inaudible, the Shadow loosened its hand. It stopped holding its guard. But it was still looking after the vulture.
It went on looking for a while longer. It was thinking about the vulture's words. But the words caught in its mind weren't the vulture's threats or its declarations. It was an entirely different sentence.
You don't aim for ascension. You don't care about your surroundings. So what do you want? What are you alive for?
It was a question it had long been asking itself.
A question whose answer it couldn't remember, and hoped to remember.
To remember, it had to carry on with its task.
And so it did. It turned back toward the mountains and continued its climb.
As each step brought it closer to the cursed peaks of the Ruined Lands, it took up its guard again. These mountains were dangerous even for it.
And it had to survive.
For its task, for its purpose.