He stood on a dark avenue. It was dark and colorless, and there was a curious lack of scents around him. He was surrounded by people wearing Arakite robes, young and old, men and women, adults and children. They wore gray robes, all of them, and all of them had pallid, chalky skin. They looked down, at the ground, and would not raise their heads to face him. The buildings were also gray, the stone buildings common in Dala Yar Arak, with their smooth walls and flat roofs and the gardens hidden at the centers of their walled yards. But all of the buildings looked exactly the same, as if a child's wooden toys had been set on each side of a line. There was no disparity among the houses, nothing to distinguish one from another, just as all the people wore the same robes, had the same pale skin.
Where is this place? Tarrin thought to himself, looking around. The sky was featureless, dark, completely alien, with no moons, no stars, no Skybands, nothing but empty blackness. Am I dreaming? I have to be dreaming, I'm in the desert.
There was no sound. He realized that now, no sound coming from anyone before him. Their feet made no sound, there was no wind, no talking, no clatter of hooves or squeaking of carts. There was nothing but the sound of his own breathing, an eerie sound that echoed in his ears, a sound that made him feel unease, even fear. What was going on?
This has to be a dream, he told himself, looking around, slashing his tail in agitation. Wake up, Tarrin!
"There is no waking from this dream," a hollow voice intoned from behind him. He whirled around, found himself facing one of the chalky denizens of this strange dream. It was a young woman, a young and pretty woman, who would be beautiful if not for the chalky skin. Her head was down, and a hood covered her hair. "There is no escape from this prison."
"Prison?" Tarrin demanded. "This is a dream!"
"What is a dream?" the girl asked in that same hollow, emotionless voice. "Perhaps your dream is a reflection of another reality."
"Speak sense, woman!" Tarrin said hotly, feeling his anger rise. "I'm in no mood for games!"
"Do you expect me to fear you?" she asked, raising her head. Tarrin recoiled from her, feeling sudden panic within him.
She had no eyes. There was nothing but black sockets staring at him, staring into his soul, piercing him with the eyeless gaze.
"The dead have no fear," she said in a resonant voice.
"No fear," came a murmuring echo from everyone around him. All of them stopped moving, became still as stone.
"Who are you?" Tarrin demanded, feeling true fear creep into him. Wake up! he screamed inside.
"We are what you made of us," she said, her voice turning cold, like a knife. "We are yours."
"Mine? What do you mean?"
"We are those who died by your hands," she said, her voice taking on a power of its own, as if that admission released it from within her. "See how many you have? You make sure we are not lonely."
Tarrin took a step back from her, looking around. She was right. There were thousands of people on the avenue, as far as he could see in both directions. It couldn't be! It was impossible!
"Liar!" Tarrin accused. "I've never seen you before!"
Her form seemed to shimmer, to change, to take on color. When it was done, he found himself standing before a petite woman, young and beautiful, with honey colored hair and wearing a simple blue dress that clung to her form appealingly. In sudden horror, he recognized her face, recognized her dress. She had been a servant girl under the Cathedral of Karas. She had stood before him, paralyzed with terror, and he had struck her down mercilessly.
He had killed her!
"No!" Tarrin said in a strangled tone, backing away from the apparition. "I was out of my mind! I couldn't control it!"
"Excuses do not concern the dead," the young woman said in a chilling voice, her color and features returning to their eyeless, fearful state. "Do not deny your truth. A murderer you are, and a murderer you shall always be. Never will we be anyone's but yours."
"We are yours," the people around him began to murmur. They all turned towards him, ranks and ranks of the eyeless, their vacant gazes piercing his soul like spears. He turned away from the woman, and found himself looking directly into the eyeless face of a child, a little boy with white skin and cherubic features. A child! He had killed a child!
"No!" he said, closing his eyes and flinching away. "It wasn't my fault!"
"Deny your truth, but you will never deny us," the woman said behind him. "We are yours, and we always will be. We who fell for no reason other than it suited you."
The blatant truth of her words drove into him like a sword. "No!" he screamed at her. "I didn't choose to kill you, kill any of you! I had no choice! I had no choice!"
"There is always a choice," the woman said in a mocking tone. "You have chosen to be what you are. Do not deny it. You have chosen to be evil." The black eyes suddenly flared with a red light, the same light that came from Jegojah's empty sockets, and they were all around him. "Face your choice, Tarrin Kael," the woman whispered to him, a whisper that thundered in his ears. "Face what you have become."
In her eyes, those red eyes, he saw himself. He saw himself as the monster he had become, a heartless killer who had no regard for those around him. A pure killer, unfettered by moral restraint. The monster he had always feared.
The girl reached out for him, and when she did so, so did all the others. Thousands of hands reached towards him, seeking him, thousands of red eyes burned him with the knowledge that he had killed them all, killed people he had never seen, had never known. He had killed children. They reached towards him, moved towards him, surrounded him with the unholy accusation in their gazes, whispering over and over again for him to face his truth. Utter panic swept over him. He sought to flee from them, but there was nowhere to run. He tried to touch the Weave, but even the sense of it was gone. There was no Weave to touch. He was surrounded by their eyes, by their hands, by what he had caused to be. They reached for him, and then they touched him. It was the touch of the Wraith, the cold of death, a burning cold that sought to draw the life from his bones. Their hands were all over him, sucking away his life, draining the color from his skin, turning his fur gray, seeking to have him join them in their eternal prison of death.
A terror unlike anything he had ever experienced swept over him, drove down into the very core of his being. The Cat at first welled up, and then mysteriously shied away, retreated from the fear, leaving him alone to face it. He felt paralyazed, helpless, unable to find his magic, unable to fight off the cold hands of death as they were laid upon him. Hands pressed in on him, killing him, causing his knees to buckle as they pressed in on him, until he sank into a sea of gray death like a drowning sailor succumbs to the sea.