Page 3377

“Whatever mighty deeds you might perform, however many people might speak your name, whatever riches you might acquire, it will all become as valuable to you as dirt before long.” The farmer wasn’t even looking at him, now. Instead, he’d grabbed a shovel by a fencepost and started digging a hole in the ground by his cobble porch. “Until you have conquered yourself, you have conquered nothing at all.”

After that, the lord was quiet. For quite a long while, in fact. He and all his men merely stood there, watching the farmer dig.

“...What is your name, farmer?” asked the lord.

The farmer, however, did not answer.

The irritation on the lord’s face was apparent. “Please, tell me. My name is Unso. I should like to know your name before you enter my service.”

“Perhaps you are hard of hearing. I serve no lord but my own.”

“You will enter my service, or I will kill you where you stand. In either case, I must know your name, for ‘twould be a shame if your tombstone had to remain blank.”

And what followed was a light so blinding and persistent that Hector thought the dream to be over. But when it finally abated, the lord named Unso had been torn asunder, head removed from his shredded shoulders. On the end of the farmer’s shovel, a reaper was skewered, smoking and dying.

The army was already scattering. Some of them had fallen to the ground and were scrambling back to their feet, though it didn’t look like the farmer had done anything to them.

Once it was over, Hector was able to continue watching the scene for a bit longer. It reminded him of his time within the Candle, the way it could manipulate visions of the past for him. He tried to do that here, to rewind or fast forward, but there was no response. The scene was merely played out, allowing him to wander about and look at things.

He tried to look at the farmer’s face in greater detail, to get a true picture of who the guy might’ve been, but it didn’t seem possible. His awareness in this place was strange. Being half-asleep was likely the issue. He felt like he couldn’t fully concentrate. Couldn’t really absorb details.

It was only after he awoke that he truly began to process what he’d seen, and even then, he wasn’t entirely sure what to make of it.