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It wasn’t easy going; it seemed to be pointing through the mountain at one point, and I had a long, weary hike to get to an opening.

But it was one I recognized—a well-hidden nook that peered down at the pathway I trod so that anyone up there could rain rocks, arrows, and ill wishes down on me with impunity.

I had come back to the lair of the brigand Ylda, who’d slain her husband and then died of the Murder Alphabet at my own hand. The cave where, with Norrigal’s help, Galva had come back from a killing fever.

Only now it was a tomb.

I walked in quietly, wary, as ready as one so tired could be.

My wariness sharpened when I smelled yak oil and knew the lamps had recently been lit—but they hadn’t been lit by the geezer I now made out on the bearskin on the floor. He lay there deader than hell, his skin little different in color to the stone of the cave, his lips blue, his eyes sunken and closed. A pool of dried blood lay beneath his head, and his arms were crossed over his dagger much as Galva’s were crossed over her sword back in the cloud-ship. I should say, his arms were crossed over my dagger, for there was Palthra—or petal, as I called her. And under this deadly petal lay several pieces of thin, dried parchment, and on that I saw writing.

In Galtish.

The dead man was myself, and I had written myself a letter.

I’ll get to that in a moment.

The stone around other-Kinch’s neck was the twin of the one I wore, and pointed toward it as it once had toward the half worn by Norrigal. I understood part of the dream now—she had crushed hers so now these two halves would be drawn toward each other and I could find the twin—or rather the remaining triplet—the Thrice-Goddie had made before punting me west and this geezer here.

One goes back.

“Well,” I said to dead Kinch, “I’m sorry to see you in this state. Maybe it had to be so, though. What would the world make of two of us? And are you gone to Fothannon now? Did you take my place in his paradise of cool woods and nymphs and honey on the comb?”

And then I put a cloth over his face, for it’s a fair unsettling thing seeing yourself dead, and I’d had my fill of it. I thought about Norrigal coming to see my face one last time when I was dying of thirst in the Great Dry, doing so by means of the Deadlands. Had she visited this one as well, to give him comfort near the end? Likely she had. I knew this one was no less myself than I was, and I knew it in a way I can’t explain. This was no mere likeness of me, like the many exact impressions inked on pages by the Erydoni printing tiles. It was me. Or at least, it had been, until we were split and began living separate lives like one river forking into three.

Then two.

And now one again.

I sat and looked at his, or my, dying words to myself.

Sprumlel

I havent strengh to tell you all I shoult

about the book. First: there’s a way in to what you want to see. 49th page, theres a hanging. Upside down all of them. Executioner holding a paper, too small. But f you count for 49 heartbebeats, text letters grows. It tell you what page to go to is nex it’s next. Geezer pointing swords at his own head. Look in his eyes those 49 hetbeats hee opens his head, bleds more text. Wish my head wold open it hrts but red that bit otloud and the book will flim to a new piture. House with a widow. Crawl in it and kill a geezer yah he might be real you might be really d it. t might give you soemon else to kll Buut I think murder its the only way in. I cant write it all dh down, you’ll have to it.

Hoped it woul tell me who ful shadowws are an who is ther chief but not even locked in killen alpabet will they spake those names

but the spells learned so much wou won’t believe who forbidenn god is hah a th bastards I’llet the book tell you he karkers really haf a sense of humor.

Oh the horses. That was just the gerb gerblinh goblins they the Guild never did it fuck them anyway sprumlet fuck thim hard you can you know youl hav enouf you knowt all Ha HA HAAA fuck

I rolled the letter up again and felt like crying.

Then felt it was a stupid and crazed thing to cry for myself, then started anyway.

It’s bewildering, you know?

Bully Boy now raoed a loud, bullish rao, the one he used when he was in a new place and wanted to take its measure. He paced the edges of the cave, dragging his whiskers on the wall.

“Bet you’re hungry,” I said to him. “Foxfoot knows I am. And I seem to remember these karking brigands had decent rations stored away, if they weren’t all eaten by…”

Right.

Here was other-me.

Where was the book?