Etched on a tall stone slab were rows and rows of hatched lines and triangular depressions, winding their way from top to bottom. It was completely incomprehensible. All at once he was aware of the distance he had walked on tired, bruised feet, from his lonely yurt on the endless steppes, from the sea of grass and scrub. The gnarled, looming trees that encroached on his path choked his vision and thickened his blood. The cries of creatures from this other world screeched and bellowed from within the tangle of skeletal boughs, keeping close at his heels. Ishqa could feel the cold breath of the wind and the dark on the back of his neck.
He had never been in the midst of so much. And he had never been so alone.