Beyond the mountains they called the Toweradges, on the far side of a sluggish grey river, and across plains and hills all draped in everlasting twilight, a man walked in the shadows of a forest.
He walked among standing stones that were old when the gods and goddesses last fought their wars upon the Clay-o-the-Green. He walked past clattering noises, like bones clinking in the night, beside a tumbling stream, and to a place he had often visited in the past.
There he put questions to the one that waits.
He listened attentively, though he did not like the answers he got.
He stood in silence for a time, but no more answers were forthcoming, and he had nothing more to ask.
Eventually, he turned to go, whispering only one last small thing about payments and rewards. Then he went back the way he had come, alone, though he did not have the bearing of a man used to being alone. He walked as one who expects crowds to part, and expects there to be servants attending to him, and an entourage hovering about at his heel.
But his business that night was the sort of business best conducted without prying eyes, or listening ears.
And so he went quietly back down the lonely path, lined as it was with its lowering stones. He trod that path as one who is worried and deep in thought.