An-uxhwi had heard Evrith and Shyriath speak of Barith's Gate, the only pass with any real amount of accessibility through this part of the mountains. What he had not heard them say, however, was that “gate” was not merely a metaphorical description, but a literal one.

Though he had little detailed knowledge of stonework, the brief glimpse of it he had gotten from a distance suggested that it, or at least its foundation, was very old; newer, if somewhat more haphazard, construction had taken place higher up, but it rested on massive, solid stones that had clearly been there for ages. It also entirely blocked travel through the pass except by going through the gate, where there was considerable traffic.

Shyriath had, with surprisingly little complaint, instead volunteered to take the book around, by going through the rock. It was bound to be time-consuming and tiresome, but also considerably less trouble than trying to go through the gate without being noticed. And so a mobile hollow began traveling through the mountainside, with Shyriath inside it, as well as someone else occasionally keeping him company.

An-uxhwi was fulfilling this function when Shyriath once again paused in exhaustion. But at least from here, through the slot that served as an airhole and an observation point, there was a certain amount to see, because they had a good view down into the settlement that existed within the fortress of which the gate was part. Here, too, ancient stone buildings had been repaired, and new ones crammed in. Caravans entered in from either side, giving the meager settlement - and its inn - what life it had.

Shyriath grunted at the side before gently sliding into a heap on the floor. “Busy little place,” he wheezed. “Gods, what I'd give to be in an inn with proper beds. And food. And possibly a drink. And also whose denizens wouldn't kill me on sight.”

“That is the general problem we're facing, isn't it?” An-uxhwi echoed to share in the lament. Privately, he noticed an amount of envy for Shyriath's talent - in the deep darkness of the hollow, his memories were bringing him back to those awful mines he had escaped from. Being able to simply suffuse through the rock would have been an awfully useful trait to have, even if it cost this much energy. With a pickaxe, their current endeavour would certainly have taken longer than the time he had left in his life to even come to the current point. “Do you want to rest for a while?” he asked, encouragingly. “I have no bed to offer, but I could certainly bring you some food and drink from the book world.” Or Shyriath could disappear into it and get his own, of course.

Shyriath fought to get his breath back. He couldn't say with certain knowledge that this was the most inefficient method of stealthy travel ever devised, but it had to be in the top twenty-five or so, surely. Some food sounded good, but-

“In a few minutes,” he murmured at last. “In fact… in fact, while we are undisturbed here, there was something I wished to ask you about.” He paused, his exhaustion mixed with what An-uxhwi was coming to recognize as a takma expression of one choosing their words. At last, he said, “I have gathered that… when Ynudh attacked you and injured your tail, you had some kind of… dream? Vision?”

The topic visibly surprised An-uxhwi, and he tilted his head to convey his reflection on it. “I suppose I did,” he ventured. “It was quite odd, altogether. More like a half-awake hallucination, with sleep paralysis and all. What did you want to know about it?” he asked, his tone carrying a curiosity of his own.

Shyriath stared into the darkness, working his jaw. He wasn't sure if there was a point to asking, since any answer he received would almost certainly fail not only to help, but even to make him feel the slightest bit better. But he supposed it would at least remove a source of suspense.

“Did you… did you get any sense of a… being? Something that drives Ynudh in his actions?” he asked, very quietly.

An-uxhwi tried to remember the dream. “Maybe?” he said. “It began in a quite abstract manner, like a fever dream. There was definitely a sense of something rather unseemly. Maybe a malevolent spirit. I'm less sure it represented anything other than the physical and psychological trauma of the situation, mind you. Although the forms from the dream that came after did refer to something called 'the hungry one'.” He shrugged a little helplessly.

Shyriath shut his eyes, and shivered. He whispered, “And Evrith said that, shortly before, Ynudh mentioned a Devourer…”

He trailed off. Eventually, he added, eyes still shut: “When Ynudh came upon you down in the valley, and Tikke brought me over to help… there was a point, just as Evrith came through as well, when I was in his mind, hoping to confuse him. But at the moment Evrith appeared-”

Shyriath stopped abruptly, and An-uxhwi could hear the quavering of his breath. At last, so faintly that he could barely be heard, he ccondluded, “-there was a voice.”

An-uxhwi had, of course, seen his fair share of oddities by now. It was therefore maybe not entirely surprising that he was not altogether alarmed by this, or particularly sceptical, but instead took the information in as he would a grim observation of an incoming storm. “From the way you speak of it, I assume it was not Ynudh's,” he observed.

“No. It was nothing like him. Nothing like… like anything…” Shyriath forced his eyes open. “Or at least like no inner voice I have ever heard. It sounded in the mind and the heart and the bones. And it directed Ynudh's attention to Evrith, saying: 'END IT.'” He stared into the darkness, shaking. Then he gave a brief, terrified laugh. “In other circumstances, I might feel pity for Ynudh. Though he didn't seem particularly reluctant to end lives, I don't think it would have mattered if he was. I rather strongly doubt he has a choice.”

“Hmm,” An-uxhwi said. For a moment, it seemed like that noncommital remark was all the Shyriath was getting out of his current companion. Then he said: “What do you suppose we should do about it?”

Shyriath looked up in astonishment. “Do? What do you think-”

He stopped, sighed, and then subsided a little. “…then again, perhaps not. Tell me: has Evrith explained much to you about the beliefs of the takmar? About… about the world, and gods, and things like that?”

“I don't believe so,” An-uxhwi shook his muzzle, but seemed unperturbed by Shyriath's astonishment. From an outside perspective, he was either not particularly likely to ascribe more than temporary madness to either of their experiences, or he thought the mortals had a larger say in the dabblings of deities than Shyriath's surprise indicated. Either way, it made a good opportunity for some education.

“No, I didn't think so,” he murmured. “But it is said that the first of all things to be made was Uvuun, the dweller in the cold dark depths, the god of oblivion - because in order for things to be, there must first be a state in which they are not yet and are no longer. And it is said that all else that was made afterwards was drawn forth from Him, against His will, and that He hungers for it, and that He draws all things back toward Him - and that in the End He will devour it all.

Shyriath hesitated briefly, and then added, “My father attempted to raise me in the faith which says these things. It… didn't work. Things happened in my early life to make me skeptical of the existence of our gods. And now, quite suddenly, I have what sounds to me like evidence for at least one of them, and at that the most terrifying of them all. It is a hard thing to… process. So what should we do?” He gave a brief, bitter laugh. “What does one do about death, except to live?”

He shook his head slightly. “I wondered why Evrith had so much trouble with the concept of Ynudh; now I suspect I know. She believe Uvuun is involved as well. And looking to life is… not her strong point.”

An-uxhwi nodded mildly, no disagreement in his body language about any of it, not even the characterisation of Evrith - it was, after all, the blunt truth of the matter - but went on to say: “Without meaning to make a mockery of all that, though, if a single takmar has managed to attract this creature's cosmic attention enough for it to send a thug after her, I would think it should be possible to distract its attention as well. Present something especially tasty to the thing that hungers, perhaps. Or, if indeed it must act through Ynudh instead of upon the world directly, perhaps just by breaking Ynudh as a vessel. The last time we saw him, he was alone, and we drove him away - at the very least I think if we put a concerted effort into it, we could kill him.” And in that suggestion, he made it quite transparent that he believed every word of what Shyriath had said: Ynudh was not a person, and was not afforded the protection of decency that would have stopped An-uxhwi from considering premeditated murder.

Shyriath grunted doubtfully. “Perhaps. Killing him seems a more likely option than providing a distraction. If Uvuun is after Evrith, I imagine it's because she's an obstacle to the end of the world; something-” He shuddered. “'tastier' than that prospect would be have to be fairly cataclysmic.”

He wondered what would be involved in killing something like Ynudh. Evrith's evident ability to carve up spacetime seemed to have limited effect on his… his darkness, or whatever it was…

“I could attack his mind, but I would have to be fairly close,” he mused, “and I'd really rather not be that close. I'm not sure if having that presence in his head would provide some defense, anyway. Striking from a distance would be ideal, if we could manage it - I wonder if we could steal some crossbows from somewhere.”

The little outpost on the other side of the slot in the wall was sufficiently distant that little could be heard of it, but there seemed to be some level of excitement around the southern gate; the steam of traffic, travelers and carts and wagons, were now not so much drifting in as they were hurrying, and various inhabitants were gathering there around the newcomers. An occasional raised voice made itself heard, though what was being said was impossible to make out.

An-uxhwi's attention snagged against the distant commotion, and he craned to look through the slit, even as he said, quite dispassionately: “Maybe we could set up some trap to drop a rock on his head and squash him flat.”

“Possibly,” Shyriath replied distantly, “but we would have to bait him with Evrith, I think, to ensure he got to the right spot-”

He paused, as the distant voices began to turn to shouts, and then turned to look through the hole.

There was a sudden flood of traffic pouring through the gate, which found itself suddenly cut off as the huge doors were pushed shut, barred, and bolted. Weapons were being brought out of what was presumably an armory and passed out; some grabbed javelins, crossbows, and slings and took to the air, others began donning leather armor and gathering atop or behind the wall. There were shouts and faint noises that indicated that someone beyond the gate was being fired upon. From the increasingly shrill voices calling out, the results were not satisfying to the defenders.

And then, as those atop the walls began heaving stones and burning objects over the side, something began to happen at the gate near ground level - its substance seemed to waver, and something like black mist began to seep from beneath it and through its cracks.

“Speak of the bastard,” An-uxhwi muttered. Somehow, the whole conversation with Shyriath had made him rather less afraid of Ynudh, not more so, and the fact a whole settlement was currently in panicked arms about his presence wasn't inspiring much fear, just discomfort. The distance, of course, was helping matters; were Ynudh bearing down on their little bubble in the stone, where escape was quite difficult and they were ill-prepared for a fight, he would certainly feel differently. “Unfortunately, I doubt they'll fix the problem for us, though I grant they seem to be trying. Perhaps we should keep moving.”

Shyriath stared out through the hole in horror. “An-uxhwi-” he choked. “An-uxhwi, Ynudh was following us from the north, that's coming from the other way-”

The gate began to dissolve into chunks, like a piece of bread left in water, and something stepped through. While details were scarce at this distance, it looked bigger than Ynudh, and darker - not as if it were in sourceless shadow, but as if it were a moving hole in space. Black mist writhed and coiled around it, and appeared to intercept and consume the various projectiles being hurled its way.

It simply stood in place for a moment as the assembled soldiers - those who kept their heads, at least - began attacking it with hammers and spears and swords, only to be caught in the mists and dissolving with piercing shrieks of pain. As the rest began backing up, the thing followed after them, first at a leisurely walking pace, and then loping after them, evidently warming to the chase.

“Oh gods,” murmured Shyriath. “There's more than one…”

An-uxhwi watched the spectacle quietly, his antennae twisted into the draconic equivalent of knitted brows. Presumably, this then was the equivalent of this Uvuun making a tank after a single soldier had proven insufficient to the task. Well, either way, it wasn't very close by at the moment, and they still had a way's to go. Panicking about it wouldn't likely get them anywhere. “Do you reckon Ynudh is still alive? I wouldn't be surprised if he got replaced,” An-uxhwi mused, some tension in his pose. “Why doesn't this Uvuun always do this, though? If it's so hungry, this seems like an effective way to… consume?… a bunch of people. But this is the first time I've seen this thing, and by the sound of it, the same is true for you.”

“Most people in the world,” Shyriath said distractedly, “have never seen a Chosen either. Except in the Citadel, there aren't that many of us. Even if these were far rarer than that, there might still be thousands of them already out there. It might not be that this one was made, not for this purpose - but that it was heading in the direction it last detected Evrith, and is just now getting here.”

As more of the defenders were caught and consumed, the others began running or flying away. The dark figure did not bother to pursue any that stood between it and the north gate, though for those who did it threw out streamers of mist to take them as well.

“And if there are others, and they all can see where she is…” Shyriath added, but trailed off. Partly this was due to the enormity of the thought, but partly because, as the dark thing drew level with the slot, it paused, and seemed to turn its head toward the rock wall that contained their little bubble of air. Shyriath drew in his breath, and backed away from the slot.

It scanned the wall silently for several seconds, its muzzle lifted as if sniffing; then, apparently satisfied, it turned back to its relentless procession toward the gate - some of the panicked defenders having opened it to flee, it had no need to eat its way through.