Fen Seriphina had always imagined that the end of his ordinary life would be louder.
A truck, perhaps.
A collapsing building.
A doctor lowers his eyes while pretending not to have already decided which words would hurt the least.
Instead, it happened while he was standing in the frozen-food aisle of a twenty-four-hour grocery store, holding two boxes of the same cheap dinner and trying to remember which one had tasted less like damp cardboard.
The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead.
A compressor rattled somewhere behind the glass doors. The store smelled faintly of detergent, bruised fruit, and the hot oil used to fry the chicken near the entrance. It was almost midnight, so the only other customers were a tired-looking woman comparing medicine labels and an older man leaning heavily on a shopping cart containing nothing but canned soup.
Fen turned one of the boxes over.
Creamy chicken pasta.
The picture showed golden pieces of chicken resting on thick noodles, surrounded by vegetables bright enough to have been painted individually.
He looked through the clear plastic window at the pale, frozen lump inside.
"False advertising should be punishable by prison," he muttered.
The older man glanced at him.
Fen gave him a polite nod.
The man pushed his cart in the opposite direction.
Fen sighed and put both boxes into his basket.
His phone vibrated in his coat pocket.
He nearly ignored it. The battery had been hovering at five percent for the last ten minutes, and nobody important usually contacted him that late. Still, habit won. He pulled it out and squinted at the cracked screen.
A message from his landlord.
Will rent be late again?
Fen stared at it.
His thumb hovered over the keyboard.
He could have lied. He had lied before, though never convincingly. The landlord had developed the unnerving ability to recognize Fen's lies through punctuation alone.
Friday. Definitely Friday.
Three dots appeared immediately.
Fen waited.
You said Monday.
He typed:
I meant the next Friday after Monday.
The dots appeared again.
Then vanished.
Then appeared once more.
That is every Friday.
Fen smiled despite himself.
Exactly. Plenty of options.
The response took longer this time.
Friday.
No threat. No lecture. Just one word with enough weight to crush a small animal.
Fen slipped the phone back into his pocket.
"Friday," he repeated.
It was currently Thursday night.
His account balance contained eleven dollars and eighty-three cents.
The frozen meals cost seven.
He carried the basket toward the register anyway.
That was how Fen handled most problems. He gave them a date farther away than the present and hoped reality would grow tired before catching him.
It had worked surprisingly often.
Not well, but often.
The cashier was a university student Fen had seen several times before, though they had never exchanged names. She had dyed blue hair, a silver ring through one eyebrow, and the expression of someone who had been awake for several years without interruption.
She scanned the first meal.
"Thrilling dinner."
"I'm celebrating."
She scanned the second.
"What happened?"
"Nothing yet. That's the exciting part."
The corner of her mouth moved.
"Seven forty-nine."
Fen looked at the small display, then at the basket, then toward the exit as though an alternative currency might be waiting outside.
He pulled a crumpled ten-dollar bill from his wallet.
The cashier accepted it.
"Big spender."
"I believe in supporting local businesses."
"This is an international chain."
"Then I believe in diplomacy."
She handed him his change and receipt.
Fen tucked the coins into his pocket. "Do you think people ever completely change their lives overnight?"
The question escaped before he decided to ask it.
The cashier looked up.
For once, her exhaustion loosened.
"What kind of change?"
"I don't know." Fen lifted the plastic bag. "Something ridiculous. They wake up somewhere else. New country. New job. They suddenly discover they're heir to a fortune, or a secret agent, or the chosen hero in another world."
She studied him for a moment.
"Did you buy a lottery ticket?"
"No."
"Then probably not."
"That feels unnecessarily realistic."
"You asked someone working the graveyard shift."
"Fair."
She began straightening the stack of receipts beside the register.
Fen turned to leave.
"Hey," she called.
He looked back.
The cashier nodded toward his bag. "Don't microwave both at the same time. The middle stays frozen."
Fen placed a hand over his heart. "You may have saved my life."
"I doubt it."
He left the store beneath a weak electronic chime.
Outside, rain had begun falling.
Not a storm. Just a thin, cold drizzle that softened the city without making it any kinder.
The streetlights reflected in black puddles. Cars whispered past on wet asphalt, their tires hissing. Across the road, the windows of an apartment building glowed in uneven rows. Some were blue with television light. Others are warm and yellow. One window held the silhouette of someone watering a plant.
Fen stood beneath the store's narrow awning and watched the rain.
He had forgotten his umbrella.
Again.
He considered waiting, but the clouds did not appear interested in negotiation.
His apartment was twelve minutes away if he walked quickly. Fifteen if he stopped to complain.
He stepped into the rain.
Cold water found the back of his neck within seconds.
"Wonderful."
Fen hunched his shoulders and crossed the parking lot.
At twenty-two, his life had settled into a shape he had never consciously chosen.
He worked irregular shifts at a warehouse where boxes arrived, disappeared, and returned with different labels. He slept too late on his days off. He owned three good shirts, two pairs of shoes, and a collection of unfinished stories saved on an old laptop that made a grinding noise whenever it opened anything larger than a text file.
As a child, Fen had assumed adulthood would arrive with instructions.
It did not.
There had been no ceremony. No moment of clarity. One year, he was asked what he wanted to become; the next year, people asked why he had not become it yet.
He had wanted many things.
A writer.
An explorer.
An actor for nearly six months, until he learned actors had to audition in front of people.
For a while, he had wanted to become an archaeologist because of a documentary featuring a temple buried beneath a jungle. It took him several years to realize that archaeology involved more paperwork than ancient curses.
The goals changed.
The hunger beneath them did not.
Fen wanted a life that felt as though it had begun.
He crossed beneath a railway bridge, moving around a shopping cart abandoned on its side. Rainwater streamed down the concrete walls in thin silver threads.
His phone vibrated again.
This time it was his younger cousin, Mara.
You awake?
Fen typed while walking.
Unfortunately.
Mom said you're coming on Sunday.
He stepped over a flooded crack in the pavement.
She told me I was coming on Sunday.
That means yes.
Authoritarian family structure.
Bring the cake.
Fen paused beneath the bridge.
What cake?
The cake you promised.
Fen closed his eyes.
He had promised a cake.
Two weeks ago.
Possibly three.
Of course. The cake. I was testing you.
You forgot.
I remembered I'd forgotten—same result.
Chocolate.
Your trust in me is inspiring.
Chocolate, Fen.
He smiled and slipped the phone away.
Sunday dinner.
Friday rent.
Work at eight in the morning.
A cake he could not afford.
Small things. None of them is terrible. None of them is impossible. Yet together they formed a net so ordinary that Fen sometimes felt embarrassed for struggling inside it.
The rain strengthened as he left the shelter of the bridge.
He broke into a jog.
His boots splashed through shallow water. The grocery bag struck his leg with every step. His wet hair clung to his forehead, pale blond strands darkening beneath the rain.
The apartment building came into view at the end of the block.
Four stories of aging brick, rusted fire escapes, and windows too narrow to properly ventilate anything. Fen lived on the third floor in a room barely large enough to contain his bed, desk, and accumulated mistakes.
He reached the entrance, dug through his pockets, and found his keys tangled around a loose thread.
The lock resisted.
He turned the key harder.
Nothing.
"Come on."
The entrance light flickered above him.
Fen pulled the key out, wiped it on his coat, then tried again. The lock clicked.
"Respect gets results."
He stepped inside.
The hallway smelled of wet carpet and someone's burnt dinner.
Mrs. Dalca from the second floor was standing beside the mailboxes with her small white dog tucked under one arm. The dog disliked Fen with a consistency he almost admired.
It began growling immediately.
Fen stopped.
"Good evening, General."
The dog showed its teeth.
Mrs. Dalca frowned at it. "He's tired."
"He's planning something."
"He's a dog."
"Exactly. No legal accountability."
She adjusted the animal against her chest.
Her gaze dropped to Fen's plastic bag.
"That's all you're eating?"
"I also have water."
"You're too thin."
"I'm aerodynamic."
"You need real food."
Fen began climbing the stairs backward. "I'll inform the frozen pasta."
Mrs. Dalca shook her head.
The dog continued watching him until he disappeared around the landing.
On the third floor, Fen unlocked his apartment and pushed the door open with his shoulder.
Darkness greeted him.
Not dramatic darkness. Cheap-apartment darkness, crowded by the red glow of a power strip and the outline of laundry resting on a chair because he had decided it was not dirty enough to wash or clean enough to fold.
He switched on the light.
The bulb slowly came to life, revealing pale walls, a narrow bed, and a desk covered in notebooks. A cracked mirror hung near the closet. Several paper stars had been taped around its frame years ago by Fen's cousin and never removed.
He placed the grocery bag on the counter.
His apartment was quiet except for the rain tapping against the window.
Fen removed his wet coat and draped it over the back of a chair. He kicked off his boots, peeled away damp socks, and stood barefoot on the cold floor while reading the instructions on the frozen meal.
Pierce film.
Microwave for four minutes.
Stir.
Microwave for another two.
Let stand.
He followed the first instruction, placed the tray inside the microwave, and pressed the buttons.
The machine began humming.
Fen leaned against the counter and listened.
He should sleep.
Instead, he stared at the rotating meal and thought about other worlds.
It was a private embarrassment for him.
He had never stopped wanting one.
When Fen was younger, he used to open closets slowly, hoping the darkness inside might continue farther than the wall allowed. He pressed his hand against the mirrors when nobody was watching. He read old myths with the solemn focus of someone searching for a clerical error in reality.
Some children wanted to be famous.
Fen wanted to be summoned.
Not abducted. Not cursed. Summoned.
Chosen by a kingdom in peril. Called by a goddess and dragged through a circle of light by desperate magicians who had exhausted every other hope. He would arrive, naturally, confused, but would adapt quickly. There would be a sword waiting. Perhaps an old prophecy. He would protest that they had selected the wrong person before proving, through an impressive but accidental display of courage, that they had not.
The fantasy survived long after Fen stopped believing it.
That was its advantage.
Belief required evidence.
Longing did not.
The microwave beeped.
Fen opened it and peeled back the plastic.
Steam rose into his face.
The middle was frozen.
He stared at it.
The cashier had warned him.
That somehow made it worse.
Fen stirred the pasta, set the timer again, and carried his phone toward the desk.
The screen displayed three percent.
He plugged it into a charger that only worked when the cable was bent to the left, then opened his laptop.
The machine groaned awake.
A document remained open from the night before.
THE KINGDOM BEYOND THE SUN
Beneath the title sat four paragraphs, the last ending halfway through a sentence.
Fen read them.
Then he deleted one.
Rewrote it.
Deleted the replacement.
He stared at the blinking cursor.
The prince in his story had been standing before a sealed gate for three weeks.
Fen had not decided what waited beyond it.
That seemed unfair to the prince.
He rested his chin in one hand.
The rain tapped steadily against the glass.
The microwave beeped again.
Fen ignored it.
For several minutes, he sat without typing.
Then the room changed.
Not visibly.
At first, it was only the silence.
The rain vanished.
The microwave stopped humming.
The laptop fan fell quiet.
Even the faint electrical buzz inside the walls disappeared.
Fen lifted his head.
The timer on the microwave still showed eighteen seconds.
Frozen.
He watched it.
The numbers did not move.
Fen slowly stood.
"Power outage?"
The ceiling light remained on.
Its glow had changed, though. The light no longer flickered or hummed. It was perfectly still, washing the apartment in an even white brightness that produced no shadows.
Fen looked toward the window.
The rain hung outside the glass.
Individual droplets remained suspended in the air.
One had struck the window and flattened into a clear trembling crown, but it did not slide downward.
Fen approached.
His reflection appeared faintly in the glass: small frame, damp blond hair, red eyes narrowed with confusion.
He raised a hand.
The reflection followed.
Beyond it, the entire city had stopped.
A car stood in the street below, its headlights cutting through motionless rain. A woman beneath a red umbrella remained frozen mid-step. Water floated around her boot in a broken ring.
Fen touched the window.
Cold.
Real.
His first thought was that he was dreaming.
His second was that people in dreams rarely had the clarity to consider that possibility.
His third was less useful.
"This is incredible."
The words sounded wrong in the dead room.
Fen stepped back.
A pressure formed behind his eyes.
Not pain. More like the sensation of standing too quickly, except the dizziness did not fade. The walls seemed to lean away from him. The apartment stretched, subtly at first, then far beyond its actual dimensions.
His bed moved ten feet away.
The desk receded into the distance.
Fen grabbed the windowsill.
The ceiling rose.
The white walls expanded into a vast empty chamber, their corners disappearing into brightness.
"No."
The word came out quietly.
Excitement vanished beneath instinct.
Fen reached for his phone.
The charging cable slipped through his fingers.
Not because he missed it.
Because his hand passed through it.
He stared.
His fingers were still visible. So was the cable. Yet they occupied the same space without touching.
He tried again.
Nothing.
Fen grabbed the edge of the desk.
His palm sank through the wood.
The pressure behind his eyes deepened.
A low sound entered the room.
It had no clear direction. It was too deep to be called a voice and too steady to be thunder. Fen felt it in his teeth before he heard it, a long vibration passing through the apartment and everything beyond.
The suspended raindrops outside began to rise.
Not upward.
Toward him.
They passed through the window without breaking it.
Thousands of droplets entered the apartment, moving slowly through the air. Each one caught the motionless light and reflected a different image.
A blue sky.
A field of white flowers.
A city beneath enormous trees.
A golden river winding through green hills.
Fen turned, surrounded by pieces of a world he had never seen.
The droplets gathered around his body.
Cold touched his cheeks, his arms, the back of his neck.
"What is this?"
No answer came.
The deep vibration grew stronger.
The floor beneath Fen's feet became transparent.
For one terrible second, he saw something beneath the apartment.
Not the second floor.
Not the building.
A depth without bottom, filled with spiraling bands of light. Worlds seemed to turn inside those bands, each one smaller than a grain of dust and larger than anything Fen could understand.
Between them moved shadows.
Immense shadows.
One passed beneath him.
Fen could not see its entire shape. He saw only a curve that might have been a limb, or a wing, or the edge of an eye larger than the sky.
His excitement returned in the wrong form.
It became fear.
Pure and immediate.
Fen stumbled backward.
The floor vanished.
He fell.
There was no impact.
The apartment remained above him for half a heartbeat, its furniture suspended in perfect silence. Then it folded inward, shrinking into a small square of light.
Fen reached for it.
The square closed.
Darkness swallowed everything.
He fell without wind.
Without direction.
Without knowing whether he was falling at all.
His body became weightless, then impossibly heavy. Heat passed through his bones. Cold followed it. Fen opened his mouth to scream, but heard the sound before he made it, echoing from somewhere below.
Images struck him.
A black ocean beneath a starless sky.
A woman with blood covering her hands, smiling as she wept.
Twelve figures are seated around an empty throne.
A sword buried point-first in a mountain of white bodies.
A child opening its mouth while something inside looked out.
Fen squeezed his eyes shut.
The images continued.
They were not appearing before him.
They were being placed somewhere deeper.
A voice finally spoke.
It did not call his name.
It did not offer instructions.
It whispered a single word in a language Fen had never heard.
He understood it anyway.
Enter.
Something seized him.
The darkness tore open.
Fen struck the ground hard enough to drive the air from his lungs.
For several seconds, he could do nothing but lie there.
His cheek rested against something cool and soft. A sweet scent filled his nose. Wind brushed across his back, carrying warmth over his damp clothes.
Fen coughed.
Air returned painfully.
He rolled onto his side, clutching his ribs.
"Okay."
His voice trembled.
"Okay. That happened."
He opened his eyes.
White petals surrounded him.
Not a few.
Thousands.
Millions.
They covered a vast field stretching toward the horizon, each flower shaped as a narrow bell turned toward the sun. Their stems were pale green, almost silver, and they swayed together beneath the wind.
Fen pushed himself upright.
The sky above was a blue he had never seen before.
Not deeper.
Cleaner.
The color seemed to possess its own light. Enormous clouds drifted lazily across it, their lower edges brushed with gold. Far in the distance, several moons rested faintly against the daylight. One was silver. Another carried a ring of fractured stone. The smallest was dark enough to resemble a hole punched through the heavens.
Fen forgot his bruised ribs.
He stood.
The field rolled down a gentle hill toward a river wider than any he had seen. Its water was clear enough to reveal pale stones beneath the surface, yet bands of golden light moved through it against the current.
Beyond the river stood a forest.
The trees were enormous.
Their trunks rose like towers, covered in blue-green bark and curtains of flowering vines. Branches spread overhead in layered canopies, some supporting entire gardens of bright plants. Birds with long, glassy wings moved between them, leaving brief trails of color in the air.
Farther still, beyond the forest, mountains climbed into the clouds.
Waterfalls spilled from their cliffs in silver ribbons. One mountain appeared hollow, its center forming a vast arch through which sunlight poured.
Fen turned slowly.
Every direction offered something impossible.
Floating islands drifted above the plains to the east, roots hanging beneath them in thick, tangled masses. A herd of delicate animals moved across one island's edge. Their bodies resembled deer, though each carried branching antlers made of faint blue light.
To the west, the field descended toward a distant city.
Fen could barely make out its shape, but its towers gleamed white and gold among the hills. Long bridges curved between them. Something enormous circled above the city, too distant to identify.
His heart began pounding.
Not from fear this time.
Fen lifted both hands to his head.
"No way."
The wind moved through the flowers.
Petals scattered around him.
"No way."
He laughed.
The sound escaped before he could stop it. Short, disbelieving, almost breathless.
He spun around as though the world might vanish if he did not look at all of it quickly enough.
"This is another world."
Saying it aloud made it more real.
Fen looked down at himself.
Same clothes.
Same body.
Same scar across his left thumb from trying to open a bottle with a kitchen knife when he was fourteen.
His phone remained in his pocket.
He pulled it out.
The screen was black.
He held the power button.
Nothing.
"Of course."
He slipped it away and examined the field.
There should have been a summoning circle.
A princess.
At least one elderly magician collapsed dramatically after expending all his power.
Instead, Fen stood alone among the white flowers.
"Hello?"
His voice carried over the hill.
No one answered.
Fen tried again.
"Is anyone here?"
Only the wind.
His smile faded slightly.
He searched the ground around him. No symbols had been carved into the soil—no scorch marks. No altar. The flowers beneath where he had landed were bent, but otherwise untouched.
He crouched and pressed his fingers into the earth.
Warm.
Dark soil gathered beneath his nails.
"This is real."
A small creature moved between the flowers.
Fen froze.
It emerged several feet away.
At first glance, it resembled a rabbit. It had long ears, white fur, and a round body no larger than a loaf of bread. Then it turned its head, revealing six black eyes arranged in two neat rows.
Fen stared.
The creature stared back.
"Oh."
Its nose twitched.
Fen slowly extended one hand.
"Are you friendly?"
The animal opened its mouth.
Inside were several rows of tiny flat teeth.
Fen withdrew his hand.
"Reasonable boundary."
The creature hopped away.
He watched it disappear through the flowers.
Something warm spread through his chest.
Wonder, perhaps.
It had been so long since Fen experienced it without embarrassment that he almost failed to recognize the feeling.
He was here.
Somewhere else.
Not dreaming. Not writing. Not staring at a screen while imagining a life grander than his own.
Here.
Fen stood and brushed soil from his trousers.
"Think."
He pointed toward himself.
"Fen Seriphina. Twenty-two years old. No food except two frozen meals, which I assume did not make the journey."
He checked his coat pockets.
Keys.
Wallet.
Three coins.
A receipt.
A pen.
One piece of mint chewing gum is pressed flat inside its wrapper.
No weapon.
No map.
No instructions.
He looked toward the distant city.
Civilization was the obvious choice.
That was where summoned heroes usually received explanations.
Maybe he had appeared in the wrong location. Perhaps whoever summoned him had made a minor mistake—a misplaced decimal in the sacred coordinates. The important part was that someone had called him here.
There had to be a reason.
Fen glanced back at the empty hilltop.
The excitement in him tightened around a small thread of unease.
Why him?
He had always imagined being selected, but imagination had never required qualifications. Reality usually did.
Fen was not strong.
He had never held a sword.
His most impressive physical achievement was carrying a broken washing machine down two flights of stairs with his former roommate, and most of the effort involved swearing.
Perhaps summoned heroes received immediate abilities.
Fen raised one hand.
He focused.
Nothing happened.
"Fire."
The flowers continued swaying.
"Flame."
Nothing.
"Status."
A bird cried somewhere above.
Fen cleared his throat.
"Open menu."
The landscape remained offensively beautiful.
He lowered his hand.
"Worth trying."
He began walking downhill.
The flowers brushed against his legs. Small insects rose ahead of his steps, their transparent bodies filled with points of light. When they gathered in clusters, they resembled fragments of the night sky drifting through the day.
Fen followed the river.
The city looked closer from lower ground, though distance was difficult to judge in such an enormous landscape. Everything seemed built on a scale slightly larger than necessary.
The air itself felt different.
Lighter in his lungs, yet richer. Each breath left him strangely alert. The exhaustion from his walk through the rain had vanished. Even the ache from his fall was fading faster than it should.
Fen pressed a hand against his ribs.
Tender, but no longer painful.
"Magic," he whispered.
The word felt childish.
Perfectly, wonderfully childish.
He walked faster.
Questions gathered faster than he could organize them.
What kind of people lived here?
Were there kingdoms?
Gods?
Monsters?
Could he learn magic?
Had he been brought to defeat something?
The last question should have frightened him more.
Instead, Fen imagined a throne room full of armored knights. A desperate ruler. A threat no ordinary warrior could face.
He pictured himself standing before them, sword in hand, trying very hard not to look as lost as he felt.
A grin returned to his face.
Then he noticed the stone.
It stood near the riverbank, partially hidden by tall grass.
A narrow pillar of dark gray rock, reaching just above Fen's waist. Its surface was covered in writing.
He approached carefully.
The symbols were unfamiliar. Thin lines curved around one another, forming shapes that almost resembled letters before slipping away from recognition.
Fen touched the stone.
The writing moved.
He jerked his hand back.
The symbols crawled across the surface like insects, rearranging themselves. A dull warmth entered his fingertips. For a moment, the strange language blurred.
Then he could read it.
Not naturally.
The meaning appeared in his mind.
May those who cross the Fields of Luma do so without grief.
May the river carry no name unwillingly given.
May every traveler reach the western gate before the bells begin.
Fen read the final line twice.
"Bells?"
A breeze passed over the river.
The golden currents beneath its surface brightened.
Fen looked toward the city.
Too far to reach quickly, perhaps, but he could at least make progress before sunset.
He glanced at the sky.
The sun stood high.
Plenty of time.
He stepped away from the stone.
As he did, he noticed something caught in the grass behind it.
A strip of cloth.
Fen bent and picked it up.
The fabric was pale blue, torn along one edge. It looked like part of a sleeve.
Dark stains covered it.
Old blood.
His excitement dimmed.
Fen searched the nearby grass.
Nothing else.
No footprints that he could identify. Nobody. No signs of struggle. The field remained peaceful, almost painfully so.
He turned the cloth over.
A symbol had been stitched near the hem.
A white flower beneath a curved line.
The same flower covers the fields.
Fen folded the cloth and placed it in his pocket.
"Someone dropped it."
His voice sounded less certain than he intended.
He continued walking.
The river murmured beside him.
For a while, the beauty of the world reclaimed his attention.
Schools of silver fish moved through the water, occasionally leaping high enough to catch the sunlight. Great animals grazed across the opposite bank, broad-backed and covered in mossy fur. One lifted its head as Fen passed, revealing a calm face protected by a crown of dark horns.
Nothing attacked him.
Nothing followed.
The quiet felt safe.
After an hour, Fen found a road.
It emerged from the flower field as if it had always been there, paved with flat white stones fitted together so perfectly that grass could not grow between them. Slender poles stood along either side, each holding a glass lantern shaped like a closed hand.
Fen stepped onto the road.
The stone warmed beneath his boots.
The city lay ahead.
For the first time, he saw movement near its walls. Tiny shapes traveled across one of the distant bridges. Wagons, perhaps. Riders.
People.
Relief passed through him.
He was not alone.
Fen quickened his pace.
By the time the sun began descending, the city had grown clearer.
Its outer walls were made of white stone streaked with gold. Towers rose behind them, their roofs shaped like overlapping leaves. Water flowed through elevated channels between buildings, feeding hanging gardens that spilled over balconies in curtains of green.
At the center stood a structure taller than everything around it.
A temple or palace.
Its uppermost spire held a ring that turned slowly around empty air.
Fen stopped on the road.
The sight pressed the breath from him.
This was what he had wanted.
Not the rent.
Not the warehouse.
Not the frozen dinner turning slowly in a stopped microwave.
This.
A world with impossible skies and roads leading toward shining cities.
A world that had chosen him.
Fen looked back.
The Fields of Luma stretched behind him, pale beneath the lowering sun.
Something moved at the top of the distant hill where he had arrived.
Fen narrowed his eyes.
A person stood among the flowers.
Too far away to see clearly.
Tall. Thin. Dressed in white, perhaps.
Fen lifted one arm.
"Hello!"
The figure did not respond.
The flowers bent beneath the wind.
Its clothing did not move.
Fen slowly lowered his hand.
The figure raised its own.
Not waving.
Pointing.
Past Fen.
Toward the west.
Toward the city.
A sound rolled across the fields.
Deep.
Metallic.
The ringing of a distant bell.
Fen turned toward the walls.
One bell became two.
Then three.
The hand-shaped lanterns lining the road opened.
Inside each glass palm, a blue flame came alive.
The scattered travelers near the city began moving faster.
Fen remembered the stone.
May every traveler reach the western gate before the bells begin.
His stomach tightened.
Behind him, the figure on the hill was gone.
A fourth bell rang.
From somewhere deep within the flower field came a sound like branches breaking beneath slow, enormous weight.
Fen stared into the white expanse.
The flowers had stopped moving with the wind.
A line passed through them.
Something beneath the field was coming toward the road.
The city gates began to close.
Fen ran.
He did not know who had summoned him.
He did not know why he could read the stone or what waited beneath those beautiful white flowers.
He knew only that the gates were closing, the bells were still ringing, and Moria's daylight had begun to bleed from the sky.