AN: Um… what do I have to say about this story before I start? This is a story; it's not an account of a D&D game. That means – well, basically, things happen the way I want them to for the benefit of the story rather than relying on dice. I don't think there's anything else right now… so, enjoy it! Please R&R and concrit welcomed – if you think it's bad I'd rather hear that than nothing at all. In fact, the more detailed and severe you can be, the better, since if I don't know what's wrong I can't fix it!

Oh yeah – sorry about the really lame title. If I think of something better then I'll change it later on.

Emlyn sat on the doorstep. He could hear the high, piping notes of a blackbird singing and it burst on his ears with surprising volume because he had been inside for so long. Emlyn sighed. As long as he could remember there had been blackbirds nesting in the spinney at the corner of Long Acre, and the bird's piercing song was a fragile link back to his childhood and beyond, to the generations of his family that had lived in this place before him. It seemed wrong that the blackbird which had woken him at dawn to begin the routine of the farming day should still be singing as his whole life changed.

The sunlight was dazzling and the world seemed made of bright colours and sharp outlines. The scent of the wild flowers that had seeded themselves in the top field was hanging strongly in the still air. Emlyn rubbed a hand across his eyes. He hadn't had enough sleep recently.

He didn't know what to do.

He couldn't stay here, he knew that much. He was no farmer. Highwell was falling to pieces before his eyes. It would take dedication and devotion to nurture a farm through the raids and the uncertainty and the fluctuating prices, and Emlyn knew he didn't have the single-minded love for the land that it would take.

All his life Emlyn had wanted to leave, to take his father's old sword and armour and go looking for adventure. But he'd had to stay for his mother… He blinked, and swallowed down the lump in his throat. Now that he could do anything he wanted he couldn't seem to find the motivation.

He kept remembering his mother's face. She'd looked so old at the end, ancient, and yet she was not yet fifty. It was Goldisle that killed her, he thought savagely. Goldisle was the rotten apple in the barrel, the serpent hidden among the gems of the Islands. Emlyn was too young to remember a time before the Isle's troubles began. All his life he had been struggling to survive against the corruption and the armed might of the gangs that ran the Island, and that was the struggle that had etched lines into his mother's face long before her time and then killed her.

Emlyn glanced up at the hill. Over its brow lay another farm, and yet Emlyn couldn't remember a time when they'd last had neighbours. There had been people – people his mother would greet on a market day, people with whom they could trade goods or favours, lots of people they'd known, but no friends. All the good folk of Goldisle had cleared out, leaving the rogues and the thieves and the gangs. But his father had been a fighter by nature, and he had refused to leave. We'll manage, he'd said. Highwell had been his father's before him, after all, and his father's before that. But he hadn't reckoned on the vicious tithing that began as soon as the gangs had burned down the temples and taken control of the Island's law courts, and he couldn't predict his own death when he protested.

But there were no neighbours, no relatives and no friends. No one to know or care that Emlyn's mother had finally given up her hold on life. Not even a cleric to be with her at the end. They too had been driven off the Island or killed on the fateful night the temples burnt.

Emlyn hated the Island. He wanted out. But there was one thing he had to do first…

Sighing again, he climbed to his feet. The blackbird was still singing, and his mate had joined in, the pair calling backwards and forwards across the spinney, their liquid notes answering one another through the calm air.

There was someone coming up the track. Blinking, trying to clear the fog of tiredness from his brain, Emlyn squinted into the sun to try and make out the figure steadily climbing the dirt road that led down towards the far off dazzle of the sea.

A man's figure, slim and dark, not above the average height, bulked out only a little by his light leather armour. Emlyn frowned. Coming up here where no one came, at this time, it would have to be more than a coincidence. Was it possible…?

As the man reached the rickety gate and swung it open, the gate listing drunkenly on its one remaining hinge, Emlyn was sure. 'Tynan!' he called. He began to walk down the path, concentrating on staying upright.

Tynan Orn looked up, abandoning the gate, and came up to meet him in long strides. He clasped Emlyn's hand firmly. 'I came as soon as I got your message. My aunt…?'

Emlyn shook his head. 'I'm glad you came. But…' He gestured to his left. On that side of the path was a half-built funeral pyre.

Tynan didn't need to look. 'I'm sorry.'

Emlyn shrugged, though his throat was constricting. 'Don't be. Not too much. Look around you. The farm's failing. We both knew that. And she didn't want to have to leave.'

Tynan did look around him then. 'I knew the gate wouldn't have been in that condition in the old days,' he said, quietly. 'And I came through Goldport, of course. I think things are even worse there now than I've ever seen them. But I didn't realise quite how bad things were getting. What'll you do now?'

Emlyn shrugged again. 'I don't know.'

Something in his voice made Tynan look back at him sharply, this time noting the shadows underneath his cousin's blue eyes. 'How long is it since you slept?'

Emlyn struggled to think. 'I don't know,' he said again. 'I didn't want to leave her alone, and there was no one else…'

'Go and get some sleep,' said Tynan, taking Emlyn's arm and piloting him back up towards the farmhouse. 'We can discuss things when you wake up.'

'Uh-huh.' Emlyn cudgelled his thoughts into making some kind of sense. 'There might be some food if you're hungry. Water in the well.' He could still hear the blackbird's song, but now the pure notes seemed melancholy and heartbreaking.

'I know where you keep things, Emlyn. Sleep.'

Emlyn was woken by the birds. The rich golden light of evening was flooding into his room, and all the birds outside were singing fit to burst, a riot of chirps and twitters in full swing. It was such a familiar sound that Emlyn could cut it out of his immediate awareness and concentrate on other things.

He sat up and swung his legs out of bed, stuffing his feet into his boots. He was clearer-headed than he'd been for days, and suddenly hungry. But that too was familiar, and it didn't bother him so much any more.

He went out into the kitchen, boots knocking on the flagstones, and was about to cross to the outside door, standing invitingly open to let the sun stream in, when he stopped. The place had been cleaned up, he thought vaguely, pots washed and put away. The old oak table had been scrubbed, and Tynan's neat backpack was lying on it, his sword belt slung over the back of a chair. The ranger had shed his armour too, and stacked it neatly in a corner. Emlyn saw, without really looking, that the hardened leather was reinforced by metal studs and it was worn with use. For a second the old longing rose up in him. To be an adventurer; to walk the roads clad in armour with a sword at his side…

The door to the dark back bedroom had been closed.

Emlyn paused. Then, not quite sure why he did so, he walked around the table and opened the door.

His mother was still lying on the bed. Instinctively trying to be as quiet as he could, Emlyn walked over to look down at her.

Marisa Ulmer had never been a beautiful woman, but he could remember how pleasant and comforting she had looked when his father had been alive. Now all the gold had faded from her corn-coloured hair, and the blue eyes she had bequeathed to her son were closed. The skin was stretched so tightly across her broad cheekbones that her face looked like a mask.

Emlyn could feel all his strength fading. I'm sorry, ma, he said, silently, his eyes pricking with tears. I'm sorry I failed you… All at once he seemed to be trying to justify himself. I tried! I worked and slaved at the farm, though my heart wasn't in it! I did everything I could… Emlyn had the sense of hammering at an immoveable wall, his protests bouncing off as if from a hard surface, words flung vainly into a great gulf as if they might bridge the emptiness. But I still failed.

Outside the light was fading into deep blue twilight. Emlyn looked down at his mother's pale, gaunt face, and suddenly found himself praying. Lady Amarill have mercy and let her spirit walk swiftly to her final resting place. Koron walk beside her and give her courage. Arcaren guard her from the shadows, and Tiniel put a light before her spirit that she may see her way. Most Islanders would have added another prayer, that the spirit should not become lost and return to its old dwelling, but Emlyn somehow had no fear of that. He knew that his mother was at peace now.

A deep hush had spread itself across the whole world, and even the birds had fallen silent. Emlyn felt the tranquillity spreading through himself. 'Goodbye, ma,' he whispered, and bent down to gently brush that cold, withered cheek with his lips. Then he turned and walked out, closing the door behind him.

The flames were dazzlingly bright and he could feel the skin of his face tight with the heat while his back was cooled by the night air. But it was only the smoke that made Emlyn's eyes water. The feeling of peace was still strongly with him. It wasn't his mother lying on the pyre. She'd gone to a place where there was no hunger or hardship.

At least, he fervently hoped so. He'd been taught that as a child. He'd never been sure… But in the mild calm of the summer night, it seemed a viable option.

The fire was crackling eagerly and burning higher and higher as it consumed the sun-dried wood he and Tynan had collected. In the villages down on the coast they would be able to see it, he knew, and know of his mother's death. If there were any good folk left among them – and there must be some, the old fisherfolk who would never leave the homes where they had been born – they would pray for his mother's soul tonight, as he and his parents had always remembered to pray when they saw a flame down below. And that was as it should be, for in these dark times who was untouched by death?

He heard Tynan's soft footsteps as the ranger came up behind him. For a while they stood in silence, feeling the heat beat upon their face as the flames danced. Then Tynan said, quietly, 'You know, even after everything I've seen it still seems strange to me to burn the dead.'

Emlyn threw him a quizzical look. 'Why, what do you do in Wayrin?'

'Lay them in the ground, so that gradually they become one again with Iluen.'

Emlyn frowned, momentarily distracted. 'What? But don't they… Walk?'

Tynan shook his head, his eyes still on the leaping flames and the silent figure they enshrouded. 'No. I've seen Shara and I've been in Eldavir, and nowhere have I seen any place where the spirits of the dead cannot find their way to the Gates. No place but the Islands.'

'Oh yes, I remember.' Emlyn stared into the fire also. The smell of woodsmoke was hanging in the air, and with it the acrid stench of burnt flesh, and Emlyn's vision blurred, obscuring the still figure at the dark heart of the blaze. The Dead that Walk was the particular curse of the free Isles, though he had forgotten it of late, that difficulty obscured in Goldisle's more pressing troubles.

He cleared his throat of the smoke, blinking. 'I've got to take her to Graveisle. There isn't anyone else.'

'And after that?'

'I don't know.'

There was a pause, and then Tynan said, with a touch of hesitation in his voice, 'If you'd like to come with us, Emlyn, you could.'

'Us?'

'Myself, and – a friend. An elf. He's staying in Goldport for now. He didn't want to intrude in family affairs.'

'I don't know any elves…' said Emlyn, irrelevantly, staring into the fire, the blazing whites and reds dazzling his vision. 'But then, I suppose I don't really know very many humans either…'

Tynan was silent. Somewhere in the darkness behind him, Emlyn could hear the coughing bark of a fox. Once, he would have moved to drive it from his lands, but now the fox was welcome to the earthy banks and whatever prey it could find. There was no danger to the chickens any more. There were no chickens any more…

Above him in the sky, the stars were blazing with a harder and colder light than the fire. The wolf star hung low over the horizon in its diamond brightness.

'I'd like that, I think, Tynan,' Emlyn said, at last. 'If you'd have me.'