The night goes by, day is breaking. Bungoore nas Lahdree gets up and approaches the window limpingly.

There’s mist outside.

Taciturn is tossing and sighing in his sleep behind the wall; Taciturn is a gloomy wizard, a veteran of three wars between the Bushtargs and the Saihens. It is by chance that both of them, Taciturn and nas Lahdree appeared in this island, and in this house.

By the time Bungoore got here, Taciturn had already been living in the house for a month or so. The Saihen reaction to the appearance of the uninvited visitor in his usual (as Bungoore found out later) manner: he shrugged his shoulders and silently pointed at the house as if he was saying: go ahead and choose any room. Taciturn didn’t seek after open conversations, but he also didn’t stop nas Lahdree from unburdening his heart when he was not himself in a sense.

Bungoore has seen a lot during the months that had passed after the disaster. Like a chip in an impetuous torrent he was carried and tossed from one island to another… actually, at first he didn’t even know that entire Ragnesis had broken up into islands. He realized it after his second or third passage when he jumped into a new spontaneous portal again while escaping from a frenzied mob – and he found himself at the very edge of the abyss. The land was over there, and then solid fog followed: Bungoore saw similar fog at the night of disaster when he was lying under the balcony debris; such fog was ascending over distant hills above the town wall.

Nas Lahdree threw a pebble into the fog and had been listening for a long while, but he couldn’t hear a knock. Then he thrust an end of his new crutch into the gray puffs. He kept it for a while and pulled it out.

And he simply opened his mouth when the end of the metal rod turned into rusty dust before his very eyes!

Fortunately, nas Lahdree was smart enough not to continue his experiments and not to enter the fog. Later he found out that all the islands are surrounded by such fog, the islands are actually floating in it.

That’s the way it is now: Ragnesis has turned into scattered islands drifting in the poisonous fog. Traveling from one island to another was made possible only by means of portals. Fortunately, many wizards were able not only to stabilize spontaneous portals, but also to create quite large permanent portals as well.

However, nas Lahdree far more often had to make use of spontaneous portals. He is standing at the window and it occurs to him that during these months he saw nearly entire Ragnesis… well, entire spared Ragnesis.

The world he used to know has become much smaller. Very many things have been lost forever. And the largest of such losses is a country of the Etreions: it simply does not exist any more.

But those survived pieces of the former world have changed a lot. Bungoore has visited hot islands of the Bushtargs, and dense forests of the Giltaries; he was wandering among canyons carved with mountain rivers in the country of the Saihens, and looking for shelter in valleys populated by the Faldorts… He had a narrow escape from death at a nameless island when he ran into a monstrous beast-creature which seems to have been produced by the Collapse. Once he escaped execution at the very last moment – he literally ran away from a scaffold! He helped to save scrolls in Skullurg’s library from fire, and he nearly died in the fire. For a couple of weeks he had been living at a Giltariens’ widow who had lost her speech out of grief.

Everywhere he observed a new order replacing the old one. Having disregarded previous family relations erlanies are uniting into clans. Now clans matter: clans seize power and establish their rules over islands; clans defend peaceful erlanies, and clans also perform vile rituals trying to appeal to mercy of Ragnesis ancient inhabitants. A new era in the history of Ragnesis has begun, and nas Lahdree won’t be surprised if it is once referred to as the Era of Clans.

He also understood that this era will not go without bloody wars. After the first wave of panic and massacre had finished, after physically and spiritually strong erlanies had managed to establish order, after the last Etreions had been killed or had hidden themselves (“Just like me now”, — he is thinking bitterly), the former quarrels and offences broke out with new intensity.

Now each of the survived nations accused others that it was them who caused the disaster which had split Ragnesis into islands. These accusations often sounded absurdly, but who needs logic and well-composed arguments at such moments. What’s important is an enemy who can be blamed for all the trials and tribulations – the enemy that one can take revenge on while at the same time expanding one’s own estates and filling the treasuries with gold.

Nas Lahdree understands: “From the very beginning it was obvious that it’s going to end up this way. War is inevitable. If only…”

He cuts short this thought and listens to the sounds behind the wall. It seems Taciturn has stopped snoring. This can happen only in two cases.

— No, I am not dead yet, — growls the wizard as he drops in Bungoore’s room. — So, are you going to have breakfast?

Certainly, this gloomy Saihen wants to ask an absolutely different question. But there are questions that shouldn’t be asked. As soon as nas Lahdree figures everything out, then… he’ll tell.

Or he won’t tell – and it also will be an answer.

It has been about a week since they have been living on this tiny island. Actually, there’s nothing more here except for the house they sleep in (luckily, intact stockrooms with provisions remained in the house). From every side the island is surrounded by the fog, and the fog is getting closer and closer every day. Once — they both understand it — the fog will get to the house. And then…

However, one of them certainly will not be here any more by that time.

Nas Lahdree goes downstairs to the first floor and goes out to the garden. Taciturn is already having breakfast here at a small fire.

— Do you still think I shouldn’t go? — Bungoore asks.

The wizard is shrugging his shoulders:

— I wouldn’t. I would keep jumping from one island to another. You know, I have seen this life in all its so-to-say manifestations. And I don’t believe in good will, peace loving and other crap. It’s strictly for poets, you know. They are about to start wars not because somebody doesn’t know – what-a-nuisance! – about the Etreions who actually ruined Ragnesis. If it were not you folks – anybody else would have done this, trust me. Look, if the Bushtargs, or the Faldorts, or the Giltaries had been revealed such a secret – do you think, they wouldn’t have itch in their backs? – Taciturn spits into the fire. – Trust me: the Saihens would be definitely itching to do something! So, my boy, here is my opinion: you won’t save anybody with your confession. You won’t save anybody’s head or back; while you’ll put your own head into the noose: you know what law was accepted by the Bushtargs – each Etreion must be hanged! Just because he is Etreion. Or are you tired of living? Then just say it – and why posing as a hero then?...

Nas Lahdree is shaking his head. He is not tired of living, not at all. No, he still feels emptiness in his heart; and those regular night-dreams also don’t contribute to making his life better. But this very moment, this foggy cold morning, regardless of anything and anybody he passionately and senselessly desires to live!

He finishes up their simple breakfast and nods to Taciturn, as if saying: well, come on. He, Bungoore nas Lahdree, has already made a decision. The matter is not whether he can prevent the war which it about to break out.

It is just that erlanies have a right to know the truth about what has really happened. The truth about Lahrden and the Etreions.

Perhaps, Lahrden would also want this; and sometimes it seems to nas Lahdree that Lahrden’s small part entered him that very last moment before His death.

Taciturn groans for form's sake, and then gets up. He has a staff with him: the Saihen must have also known beforehand what nas Lahdree would decide.

The portal sweeps open with its usual crack, and Bungoore, having tapped Taciturn on his shoulder in a friendly way, approaches the shining emerald oval.

— I will keep it as long as I can. — the wizard says. — In case you change your mind.

— Thank you, — nas Lahdree replies. Although both of them understand: he will not come back.

Bungoore awkwardly jumps into the portal – and he finds himself in a luxurious high and light corridor. Just as Taciturn had promised, the portal linked their small island with a palace in the capital of the Faldorts.

“So, there should be a throne-room behind these doors?”

Nas Lahdree hears guards already rushing towards the portal. He really hopes that Taciturn’s calculations were correct.

Bungoore looks around and snatches a very long candlestick, dislodges unlit candles on the floor, and turns the candlestick upside down to make it comfortable for him to lean against while walking.

Clinking with his just another crutch over marble slabs and limping, nas Lahdree approaches a very high double-wing door. The door is decorated with embossed images of battles, ancient beasts, and of something else only the artist knows what.

For a moment nas Lahdree stands motionless at the entrance. He looks around and sees the portal, and guards appearing behind it in the distant end of the corridor.

He pulls the left leaf of the door and enters the spacious hall. Candles are alight, garments are rustling, somebody’s voice repeats very loudly and irritatingly:

— I emphasize: even provided we agree with what you state – it’s awful anyway! The Etreions would have never been able to set up a disaster of such scale!

— This time I must agree with the Giltaries, — another grandee proceeds. — And why would they need to destroy their own country?!

— So, are you saying, it was the Bushtargs who did it?!.. — the third erlany is growling with a distinct accent belonging to a northern deserts inhabitant.

— Hum… A killer would have blood under his nails…

— What?! Say it again!

— Calm down, gentlemen, calm down! Remember, we are Ambassadors Plenipotentiaries; we are not some dirty villagers. And we are being received by the Faldorts’ sovereign, we are not…

— What you are driving at?! You!...

Bungoore nas Lahdree deliberately bangs the door, and makes another step towards a wide table where the arguing parties were sitting.

— I came with peace, — he says.

And he hopes – he really hopes that this time such words mean much more then the traditional greeting accepted between free nations of Ragnesis.