Chapter 10

Synopsis
The wandering choir assembles at the foot of the mountain, its peak close but still obscured. A halfling watches a blind army. They are enthralled by the mountain's peak, holding his aerie court in a great cathedral full of babbling valor.

The mountain is mighty, but the cathedral will fall.

Otherworldly fog and righteous silence cut the guards' throats. The choir dances through the camp, twisting and turning in silence and shadow, until they reach the great convocation unmolested, pausing only to replace the army's nourishment with bitter lies. And the cathedral's canvas walls and wooden bones easily fall to the choir's machinery: a wizard's snap, moonfire, torches. Many die. The mountain's peak is powerless, his towering frame and aura of decay reduced to sputtering rage. The choir flees. They trap and defeat their pursuers with Baldr's contemplation, and bindings both arcane and divine.

They set course for the sea. The mountain's army has carved a great path from their camp to the ocean; along it many wagons travel to and fro, their purpose unknown. Where the earth falls away into water, there is a pier, and ships docked, receiving and trading cargo.

The choir will banish the ships.

The halfling again vanishes. She will collect pitch and the rest will bring fire; the pier will fall to ash, and the mountain's plans with it. She silently carves her way into one of the ship's beating hearts, gliding among the seafolk, their secret queen in ten thousand other worlds.

But in this world, she stumbles. A lamp falls; the fire has come early, and wrong. And she is alone.