"Shatas!"
Angel cried out. She wanted to grab the Elf Singer nearest her, but feared even that touch might hasten Shatas's aging. Shatas did not seem to hear her. Instead, she turned her tear-filled eyes toward Mobet beside her.
The flaxen hair of this Solomon Empire noble from the Fourth Epoch had turned gray. Wrinkles covered his face, and his eyes clouded so quickly that he could barely make out his surroundings.
Yet he, too, looked at the woman who had kept him company for a thousand years in The Travels of Grosell. Her aged face was reflected in his eyes.
They needed no words to understand what was happening to them. Wasting none of their remaining strength, they tightened their clasped hands and embraced.
And yet this was the first time they had met in "reality."
Clang.
Behind Mobet, Longzeer slumped into a chair. His aged body no longer had the strength to support his black armor. His drooping eyelids closed over his eyes, and his grip on his sword slowly loosened. The black blade fell to the wooden floor, its surface mottled as though a century had passed over it.
The Loen soldier's final act was to turn his head north.
That was the direction of Backlund, the home he had left 165 years ago.
The calmest of them, perhaps because he had foreseen his end, was Snoman the Ascetic. He knelt gently, facing the wall, and traced a cross before his chest with a scarred, wrinkled hand. He murmured:
"Father of All Things, Great Source...
"May the pure souls here enter Your divine kingdom and receive Your Redemption, even if they were not Your believers..."
His voice grew fainter, and his back bowed.
Watching it all, Grosell's legs gave way. He sank backward, crushing two chairs and