Every so often, the voice would surface and make some strange pronouncement, but so far it hadn't said anything of great import. Just odd, sing-song couplets, like:

Still, the Alchemist pressed on, knowing that the end of the hour - much like his subject - was dwindling further away into nothing all the time. He asked everything he could think of, hoping that he could find some crucial link, or at least goad the voice into saying something noteworthy...

"Did you ever have any contact with the Believers?" Ethan asked at one point, having exhausted all other possible allegiances he could think of {except for some of the more disgusting and socially awkward options, of course}

"...who...?"

"Oh... sorry. I guess you would have missed all that. We used to call them Heretics, but they've insisted on a change of name, these days."

Daniel thought for a moment, and then, slowly, nodded. Tiny snowballs of soot trailed down his forehead like sweat.

"You were?" Ethan asked softly, coming a little closer. Could this be it?

"... not for long..." the Legionnaire said: "... started going to temple, again... before the Storm... met them there..."

"Temple?" the Alchemist said: "One of the Jewish groups?"

"... The Children..." he replied, shaking his head 'no':"... multifaith... met there... haunt..."

Ethan listened as Daniel explained who and what The Children were, and which each word the Alchemist's hopes sank even further. They sounded like a fairly run-of-the-mill group of Heretics - nothing special about them at all.

At some point, the exasperation must have been all too obvious, because Daniel trailed off and didn't continue his story.

"... sorry..." the man said, shrugging his shoulders and wincing as more of himself fell away with the action: "... not too helpful..."

"No," Ethan allowed himself to be honest: "You're not."

"... why... Believers...?"

"Well, you heard that Charon, Himself, Transcended... didn't you?" Ethan replied: "Bit hard to call them liars and fakes after that."

Daniel shook his head, smiling, and then got a dark look in his eyes: "iF history'S a talE that'S tolD by liarS... anD memorieS changE oveR timE... theN hoW caN yoU trusT a paiD memorY-makeR who'S trulY losT hiS minD?"

"What?"

Daniel's eyes went blank: "...what?"

"You said something, again."

"... don't remember..."

"'If history's a tale that's told by liars, and memories change over time...'" Ethan mused: "That sounds like the Mnemoi, almost."

"... who?"

"No, you wouldn't know about them either, would you?" Ethan sighed. He was becoming very frustrated in here. This isn't how he'd envisioned this going. Not at all.

Stick with it, Ethan... his Shadow coached him: Don't give up.

I wasn't intending to, damn it, he thought back: But you have to admit... our friend here isn't being the most cooperative subject.

You've nothing to offer him but a headful of questions and worries before he flakes away. What do you expect?

I won't lie to him, Ethan replied after a moment: I detest illusions.

His Shadow probably came back with a witty retort to that one - even Ethan knew he was spouting junk, there - but Daniel started talking again, and that commanded all the Alchemist's attentions.

"... can't think..." Daniel said: "... not different, am I?"

"I'm sorry?"

" ... nothing I did...?"

"I wish I knew, Daniel. Maybe you didn't do anything, but there has to be a reason why you were gone so long while others just like you came back."

Daniel looked down, and seemed ready to say something, but then the voice took over.

"threE abovE anD threE beloW, shalL knoW... shalL knoW..." the Legionnaire pronounced, mouth grinding against itself to form the alien voice: "iN thE enD, wheN foE iS frienD, anD frienD... iS foE..."

"What does that mean?" Ethan asked, breathlessly. But, once again - just like every other time the voice had appeared - Daniel's eyes were blank and stupid. They reminded Ethan of a cow's eyes: uncomprehending, even right up to the moment of death.

"... don't know..." he whispered, losing more soot from his face as he did: "... what did... it say...?"

"'Three above and three below shall know, shall know,'" Ethan repeated, leaning closer: "'In the end, when foe is friend, and friend is foe.'"

Daniel shrugged, wincing as more of himself came off at the sides: "I was never... good at... riddles..." he explained, by way of apology.

"Neither was I..." Ethan lied - out loud, this time. In truth, he was reasonably decent at them, as long as he had some idea what the subject matter was about. It was the open-ended ones that stumped him, and he really had no idea where to begin with that one.

You could always just try to remember them, and ask others back at the Guildhaunt for input, his Shadow suggested: Sometimes the best researchers are the ones willing to share in the glory.

Ethan had to admit that his Shadow was right, there.

"Well, let's not worry about solving them," the Alchemist said: "Just try to clear your mind as much as you can... and..."

And what? That was the real question, here. Daniel said he didn't have any control over when the voice came, but Ethan was starting to suspect that wasn't quite true.

The man couldn't force the voice, of course. But there were times when Daniel seemed like he was between thoughts - almost at a loss for words - and that's usually when the voice appeared, wasn't it? Right in those strange moments when he didn't know what to say, almost as if his mind had been emptied of whatever thoughts he'd been thinking of...

Ethan could have kicked himself. Of course! That had to be it. Every time his mind went empty, the voice found its way through him. So either he had to keep derailing the man's thoughts - which wasn't too tough, given the state of him - or else they could ease the process along.

"Alright, let's try this..." Ethan said, backing up a little: "Daniel, can you clear your mind for me?"

Daniel didn't sound too sure about that, and for a moment Ethan was ready to shout at him out of sheer frustration. But he calmed down, took a deep breath - such as a dead man could breathe - and tried to explain it as best as he could.

"When you were with the Hierarchy they taught you how to clear your mind. It was an exercise in meditation... remember? For when you were away from your Fetters and needed to Slumber?"

The prisoner was still unsure, but as Ethan described the techniques - especially the code words that the Hierarchy had used for the whole thing, rather than calling if for what it really was {"meditation" was too Jade-sounding for comfort, Ethan supposed} - the light of recognition started to shine in Daniel's sooty eyes again.

"Hanging on the tree..." Daniel breathed, closing his eyes and trying to 'breathe' as deep as possible. It was an odd sight to see his useless, half-remembered concepts of internal organs huff and puff themselves up to full size, but Ethan didn't dwell on it for too long. Whatever worked, worked, and he wasn't going to tell the man otherwise.

Ethan leaned back and waited, watching his subject try to put himself into a relaxed state of mind. He realized they'd been here for almost an hour, now, which meant that the Iron Marshal would be barging on in to interrupt before long.

But he had to see if this could work. Dammit, he felt so close...

"yearS gO bY, becomE aN agE, thE quieT worlD jusT turnS a pagE," Daniel said, then, smirking with an alien malice Ethan wouldn't have suspected him of bearing: "blacK anD placiD, lifE devoiD, sooN we'lL alL bE iN thE voiD..."

Ethan started at that. Violently.

The Void.

Every time Ethan's ever heard of the place, itself, he thinks of the day he died.

He thinks of the old quarry, which was dark and unlit, filled with black water that went deeper than anyone had ever been able to measure.

The place was usually dark and deserted. The only illumination at night came from your car's headlights, if you left them on. Couples went there to make out, and people went there to lose things, or themselves...

That's what Ethan was doing there, that night. He didn't like to mention it to anyone, but that was, indeed, how he'd joined the ranks of the dead - a suicide.

And whenever he hears the word "Void," or considers where the Guild posits Its true place in the cosmology of this dead world - the World-Worm's immortal enemy, of course - he thinks of utter, total blackness. The same lack of anything that yawned before him when his car went through the fence, over the edge and into the quarry.

The fear of being swallowed up again is more than enough to keep him careful, here. He doesn't want to go into the mother of all black, dark places and never come back out again.

He's had the odd Harrowing in his time, of course - who hasn't? But they've never been due to neglect of Fetters or Passions, or foolish wastes of his will. The Labyrinth's had to work at it to get him down there, and each and ever time Ethan makes it back he falls to his knees and thanks the Maker that he's escaped, yet again.

So when he first saw the Maelstrom's Stormfront coming - like a great tidal wave of nothing, heading right for the Guildhaunt - he lost his nerve and ran, shrieking, like some hapless pedestrian in a Japanese giant monster movie. To his mind, it was as though the blackness he'd escaped life in had reared back up and come to take him from here, too.

He'd redeemed himself since then, of course - several times over. No one brings that first day up, at least not to his face. They know better.

But he's never felt at ease out in the Storms, however much they've died down. It's all an illusion of calm, as far as he's concerned: just one good Stormfront away from whipping back up to what it was at the beginning, or even worse...

He's not the only one in the Guild who feels like this. Some of the older, more experienced members of his House are worried that this one really is the last one. Doomsday has been unleashed, the end is nigh, and at some point The Void is going to start buckling outward and frothing up through the Nihils.

The great war between the Worm and the Darkness is only just beginning, they whisper. And this time there will be no driving the Storm back under the ground.