The Imposter Complex, Chapter 41: (Don't) Fear The Reaper.

A/N: My apologies for a long absence, more on that at the end of the chapter. Now strap in for my weirdest chapter yet.

The music Tom hears in this chapter is Hyperreal, by Flume. Pay no attention to when that song actually came out. ;)

:-:-:-:-:

Peter Hein, his blond hair slicked smoothly back along his head, rounded the corner of my chamber door. He eyed me coldly, taking in my shock.

'Riddle old boy.' he said, and he was wearing that false posh accent of his once more. 'It's high time we had that long awaited chat.'

I gaped at him, taking in his full form. His hair wasn't slicked back, I realised. It was drenched, he was drenched, just as soaking wet as the ebony chest, the same weird beige residue clinging to his coat tails.

'W-what...' I stuttered through a fuzzed mind. 'What are you doing here? Why did you bring that back here?'

'This little suitcase?' He asked, and kicked the chest. I flinched back again. 'Why, I stumbled across it in the old Lost and Found. A fortuitous find, wouldn't you say so? I thought you might like it back.'

'You thought wrong.' I snapped. 'Put it back.'

My wand found my hand, and I raised it, its tip glowing deadly green.

Hein smiled at that, cold and mocking, and with his hair sleek against his head, it made him look like a skull.

'Now that would be a rather poor choice, sport. I don't really think you want me putting it back either, you'd be terribly shocked at how often wizards get the bright idea to throw their secret shames into the Mariana Trench. Not very original, Tom. It's surely only a matter of time before some chap or another thinks to goes fishing. Honestly, you all ought to think these things through more thoroughly...'

My face twisted. He'd picked the wrong time to prod at me, and my temper broke through my better judgement. The words were out before I even realised I was saying them.

'Avada Kedavra.'

The jet of green light darted across the room between us, and Hein's hand lashed out before him, snatching it out of the air.

I gaped. The spell shimmered in his fist, writhing like a captured serpent trying to be free. Hein's expression had shifted, ever subtly, to something I could not decipher.

'Hello there beautiful...' he murmured to it lovingly in Dutch, before squeezing his fist closed. The spell dispersed, or perhaps was absorbed into him, but it was gone, and he was very much still animate.

'What are you?' I breathed.

Hein sneered, and settled himself down in my favourite armchair, immediately soiling it with muck. He raised both arms to me invitingly and said simply 'Guess.'

I met what I thought was his gaze, noticing for the first time that I could not tell what colour his eyes were. Hell, I couldn't even tell if he had eyes.

'...Not entirely human, that much is fairly obvious.' I began, and he scoffed loudly.

'Oh come now Tom, you can do better than that! And sit, while you're at it. You're, ah, swaying.'

I realised that I was. Hell, I felt near enough to punch-drunk. Still, I scowled at being told to sit in my own home. 'We didn't leave off well last time, Hein.'

He flicked a hand dismissively. 'Unimportant. Do get on, I'm terribly curious to see if you can pick it.'

I glared at him, fearful and furious in equal measure. Trying to summon all that I knew of him.

'You want me to think you're a god or something.' I said finally. 'But you're not. Even when the gods did stride the earth, they were nothing like you.'

He chuckled. 'Are you so sure? Those are accounts are all so very old, after all.'

I sneered despite myself. 'You don't look like a walking verb to me. No, you're no god. But you're not just some weird monster either. Not with the power to crush a Killing Curse. You showed up out of nowhere in New Orleans, and put us back onto Lord Voldemort's track for seemingly no reason at all. You're impossibly strong, and you claim to know the future. I know who you are. You're Cain. You're Qayin of Atlantis.'

Hein blinked twice, then burst into raucuous laughter, almost doubling over, Pacific seawater splashing from his coat onto my rug. My face fell.

He pulled himself back into the chair, wiping a tear from his eye. 'Oh dearie me, no, I'm quite afraid to say. Not even close.'

'What?'

He sighed, long-sufferingly. 'I hand-pick a name like Peter Hein and people still don't catch on. Honestly, it's like nobody reads the old lore anymore. Very well.'

He came to his feet, looming, and as he did, the shadow of every candle in the room twisted, growing larger than they should and settling over him, until no light was falling upon him at all. Every single solitary hair on my body stood on end. There was a coldness to the room now, and even where the candles shone seemed to be fading into monochrome, as if the very concept of vibrancy were being siphoned out of the world.

'What are you?' I demanded, again, my heart thundering in my chest. 'What the hell are you?!'

'I think you know, Tom.'

And then, by the barest glint of residual light off the blade, I laid eyes upon the scythe.

I disapparated in a heartbeat, ripping my way across space and time with a greater and more instinctive urgency than I ever had possessed. No barrier met me, I felt no ward redirect me or cut through my spell, but when I landed, I was right back in my house, as if I had not moved at all.

'Oh, hard luck,' said Hein, his voice echoey, and sounding almost empathetic from the blackness. 'You could try the old fashioned means of fleeing, of course, but I'd not trust that either, myself.'

He stepped forward from the black then, almost unchanged but for the scythe he held casually in his left hand. His face was identical, but it bore that alien expression he had revealed to me only once before. I could see his eyes now, and they were black, abyssal black, all the way across.

I drew a rattling breath across a suddenly very dry tongue, half-formed plans of escape racing across my weary brain with such a cacophonous roar that I could scarcely think. I seized my mind in an iron grip, yet still it writhed.

'You're not Him.'

I wanted to think I'd managed to keep my voice from shaking, but I doubted it.

'You're not Death. He left, like all the rest.'

'Quite.' Hein agreed. My eyes fell, whether by my will or his, upon the ring that sat on his left hand, thrust into prominence by his grasp on the scythe. The make was different, of fine coiled silver instead of heavy-wrought gold, but there was no mistaking that exquisite black opal, nor the golden triangular sigil it bore.

He looked thoughtful. 'It's not often I actually describe myself, you know. I suppose you could call me an… emissary. Not quite a psychopomp mind you, but somewhere in that area.'

'Are you here to kill me?' I croaked.

Hein tapped his chin thoughtfully. 'Well, now that I come across it, I suppose in a manner of speaking I am. Though not in the common sense of the word.'

It is quite a sensation, to have every muscle, every tendon in one's body seize up as mine were doing. Fight had failed. Flight had failed. What else was there?

Hein grinned, suddenly and jarringly jovial. 'Oh there's really no call to look so terribly tense, Tom! It's not like you don't put yourself on my doorstep every time you step into a fight, you don't let it distract you then. Sit. You'll feel better.'

To my surprise, when my legs moved it was at my own volition, not his. He might not be letting me leave, but he wasn't controlling me either. I collapsed awkwardly onto my couch, and he sat down in my armchair again, leaning his scythe on the arm rest. I found it difficult to tear my gaze from the thing.

'Oh for goodness- it's a prop, dear boy.' Hein said pointedly, laying his hand on it again. 'The scythe doesn't actually do anything, it's just a symbol of office, and not even an official one.'

My voice was steadier this time, even if my mind wasn't. 'What... what did you mean by "in a manner of speaking?"

Hein smirked. He rapped the scythe on the Ebony Chest, and I twitched. 'What do you think is in there? Be honest now.'

The image of that tall white fountain skittered unbidden across my mind.

'Doom.' I said. 'Some kind of weapon, a destroyer of worlds.'

Hein sighed. 'Heavens spare me from the rampant egotism of would-be immortals. No, Tom. Not a weapon. Not mass death. Just a death. Yours, specifically.'

I blinked. 'I... what?'

'The metaphysical concept of your death, manifested into the Real and locked up in a shiny little box so Voldemort can sleep at night.' Irritation showed on Hein's face, and the Dutch accent slipped out again. 'Professionally speaking, I find it rather insulting.'

I stared. 'How the hell do you lock up your own death?'

'Old magic.' said Hein, profoundly unhelpfully. 'Secrets that those in my line of work have gone to considerable lengths to erase, that make those quaint little soul jars of yours look like an episkey. Unfortunately, we missed Qayin's book of tips and tricks.'

I cocked my head to the side. 'Why? What makes creating this worse than a Horcrux?'

I couldn't think of pretty much anything that could be more vile than the process I'd gone through to create the Diary. Just how low had Lord Voldemort sunk?

Hein scowled openly now, and his scythe gleamed. 'Ethically, it's not. Cosmically, it is much more dire. All men must die, Tom, and those like me must guide them to what comes next. It is how the universe works. Your death can be delayed, certainly, but it must and will come, be that tomorrow or a thousand years from now. In that way, a Horcrux is no different from a Philosopher's Stone.

'This is different. Voldemort scratched his death off the Fates' own to-do list. No effort made to pass your soul from this mortal coil shall ever be successful, so long as the Idea of Tom Riddle dying remains locked up in this box. As I said, rather a bit insulting to my line of work.'

'So... I can absorb all of of my Horcruxes and still be immortal?' I asked, an involuntary thrill of excitement blooming in my chest.

Hein's grip tightened on his scythe, and his expression grew uglier still. The room became bitterly frigid then, frost beginning to spiderweb across the windows.

'Hear you nothing that I have said, boy? This thing is not permitted. It breaks the natural progression of the Real!'

'What does that even mean?' I objected. 'You could say the same thing about a lot of magic. You're hiding something, Hein. I want answers, real ones, or I'm not helping you with a gods damned thing!'

He gave me a long, scrutinising look. Then, in an instant, faster than blinking, we were simply elsewhere, my living room vanishing and the Chest along with it. Walls of maple and obsidian replaced them, a hallway, shrouded in a heady mist that hit my dazed state like a train. Dense music rolled over my ears, a heavy and throbbing electronica, seeming almost muffled as every sense began to dull.

I knew this place. The House of the Rising Sun.

:—:

My knees went weak. There had been no indication, no flash of light or rush of sound, not even a tremor in the gut. He had simply Moved us, seven thousand kilometres in a heartbeat.

'Very well. You shall have your answers. Walk with me.' said Hein, as if he had not just outperformed Merlin the Greater without a shred of effort. He turned away from me, strolling down the narrow corridor we now stood in.

I hesitated, then followed half-staggering, my mind doing its level best to race. The mist hadn't been this strong last time, had it? Surely not? It... I could scarcely even remember.

I felt like I'd not slept in days, each stray thread of thought unravelling before it could run its course. The music seemed to thump to my own heart's beat... or was it the other way around?

People... there were people around us, at some point we had entered some kind of dance hall. Few of them human. A tall tiger-faced man with backwards hands, who scowled down at me when I bumped into him. A bronze woman with gilden flames for hair, her head thrown back in laughter at the sight of me. An undulating man-sized shimmer of blue-green light holding a beer, that murmured profound truths into my soul that were forgotten an instant later.

Throughout it all, I never lost sight of Hein. In a world that was quickly melting into a puddle, he alone remained in my gaze, razor-sharp. He was walking away from me still, at speed. I had to catch him, he needed to tell me... something? A box was involved, I think, or...

A firm hand grasped me tight by my upper arm, stopping me fast, and jerking me back. I flailed, fearing wildly that the tiger-man had come after me, but my fists clattered off of shining plate armour. A man, a human, bald and moustachioed, a tattoo I could not make out emblazoning his forehead.

'Hero, your will energy is low.' he said gravely, pressing a flask into my hands. 'Watch that.'

I blinked stupidly down at the flask. The fluid within was sky-blue, and glowed with an inner light.

Sure, my dulled mind reasoned. Why not?

I quaffed the thing in one go, and it was as ice water through my veins. I felt my heart slowing, the haze sweeping from my eyes and my mind. I breathed in the mist again, but it had no hold over me now. I was, more or less, myself again.

The man offered me a grandfatherly smile worthy of Dumbledore, and he gave me a firm pat on the shoulder before turning on his heel and sidling away. I almost followed. Whatever he had given me was better than Wiggenweld, it was a miracle worker!

But no. I stopped before I'd taken a full step. I had more pressing matters than a restorative potion. Hein had promised me answers.

I found him again easily. He stood on the far end of the dance floor from where we had entered, leaning casually against a booth, chatting to a seated and nearly-naked man, with marbled skin of onyx-black and wine-red, who bore a hard tan carapace where hair ought to be. They spoke in no language that I could recognise, and conversation broke off as I approached.

'Feeling better, old chap?' Hein asked, offering me a winning smile.

My eyes narrowed. 'Who is this? Why did you bring me here, Hein? What's your game this time?'

Hein held up his hands placatingly. 'Fret not, my dear fellow. All shall become clear by the end of tonight, you'll see. Now sit.'

I growled, but did so. Hein's friend across the booth peered at me with alien eyes, too large and oddly-shaped to ever be mistaken as human, and matte black all the way across.

'Tom, I'd like you to meet Klaravoi. He shall be serving as our... chauffeur, on the next leg of our journey.'

Klaravoi said something in a song-like language I did not know, his voice like sonorous wind chimes. Hein grimaced.

'No English, I'm terribly sorry. It doesn't exist where he's from.'

I raised an eyebrow. 'I can fix that. Is he safe to legilimise?'

Hein looked thoughtful. 'I don't quite know. Have you ever attempted to legilimise a crab?'

I looked at Klaravoi again. He stared back blankly at me. I elected not to touch his mind.

Hein spoke again. 'Trotting right along, he said he would be honoured to guide us into Roshar.'

'...You'll have to be more specific. Russia's a big place.' I said. I looked at him incredulously. 'What do you even need a chauffeur for?'

Hein grinned widely, and I was scowling again before he even answered.

'Roshar, Tom, not Russia. As for why we need dear Klaravoi's assistance, well, the House does haverules that even I cannot violate.'

I had never heard of any such place. But then, I'd never seen anything like the creature across from me either.

I sighed. 'Fine. Then can we hurry this up?'

Hein said something to Klaravoi, who pulled out an odd-looking device, like some kind of steampunk pocket watch, with a big glowing gem embedded in it. He ducked his head oddly, and stood. He muttered a few words, to which Hein grinned.

'Apparently so, dear boy. Come.'

They led me up a flight of stairs on this end of the dance-floor, and soon the techno became muffled and indistinct. I recognised the long hall we entered next, broad, and lined with little couches and tables, hosting beings too alien to the senses for me to truly describe. We were near the entrance, and my two companions were sidling right along toward it without a care in the world.

'Wait!' I hissed, seizing Hein by the shoulder. He gave me a look that made my spine coil up into a ball somewhere behind my loins, and I released him immediately.

I gestured at Klaravoi. 'We can't just take him out into a muggle city.'

Hein's expression shifted to flippant immediately, and he flapped a hand breezily at me. 'We'll be fine. Don't even worry about it.'

He turned away up the narrow stairway to the street, leaving me - as ever - frustrated in his wake. I slipped my wand into my hand. If my recollection served, the alley that the House was located on was a quiet one. But I would still have to be swift with a memory charm if a muggle happened to be hanging about.

But it seems Hein wasn't done with shocking me today. For when Klaravoi roughly shoved open the narrow glyph-marked door, it was not out onto an early-afternoon New Orleans alley. It was somewhere... else.

I blinked. I blinked again. It was still there. Klaravoi was just walking out into it.

Beyond the doorway - where there should have been an ageing and heavily graffitied brick wall - was a dark and rocky chasm, teeming with life unlike anything I'd ever seen before. Bizarre fern-like plants, mutant molluscs, and bioluminscent moss grew everywhere in a kaleidoscope of living colour. But where Klaravoi walked, the plant life retreated, zipping back into the rock at tremendous speed, sealing into polyp-like shells. Crab-like creatures skittered across the chasm's floor and walls by the dozen, and they too fled at Klaravoi's approach. There was something odd about the way the creatures moved as well, which I could not quite identify.

Hein looked back as he crossed the threshold, and chuckled at my expression. 'Surely this cannot be the most bizarre thing that you've encountered today.'

True, I supposed, it wasn't. That is, until I stepped across that threshold myself.

I stumbled, and fell immediately, all balance lost. My arms flung forward to catch myself, only for it to take far too long for me to hit the ground. My hands landed in a puddle, the water splashing higher than it should, striking me square in the face.

Laughter rang out across the chasm, human and crabman alike.

'You'll want to mind your balance there, old boy.' Hein, his voice even more full of mirth than it was before.

I brought my head up to glare at my companions. But what I saw past their shoulders wiped all thought of ire from my mind.

Three moons. Three beautiful, colourful, impossible, alien moons, hanging across an unknown sky.

I pulled myself to my knees, unable to speak. A ring of spectral blue smoke plumed around me, but I barely noticed it.

Hein's smile changed, to something a little more solemn as his gaze met mine.

'Welcome to Roshar.'

:—:

I sat upon a narrow plateau, my legs dangling off the edge to the chasm below. The land Klaravoi had brought us to was fragmented, like the surface of tiger bread. Stone pillar-plateaus as far as the eye could see, canyons running between them like the roads of a complex maze.

Beside me sat a small little pile of pebbles, broken off from the clay-like substance that coated seemingly every surface in this land. I plucked another one up, and tossed it out into the canyon, watching it fall. Perhaps two thirds as fast as it should. A little more, perhaps.

Merlin. Sibrandr Oryx had called the House of the Rising Sun a crossroads. I could never have predicted he meant anything like this. Hell, even the air tasted different.

'Are you finished absorbing the obvious yet?'

It had not taken Hein long to become bored.

I looked incredulously up at the Grim Reaper - somehow the least insane thing in my line of sight. 'I'm sorry, you just dropped me onto an alien planet, Hein. It's going to take more than ten minutes to get my bloody bearings!'

Hein tapped his wrist with significance. 'It's almost time Tom, we don't want to miss our chance.'

I frowned. 'Time for what?'

A tiny spectral red ribbon wriggled its way into existence on his shoulder and flapped in an absent breeze - a spren, Hein had called them. Odd little magical manifestations of nature that seemed common on this planet. Hein took no notice of it.

'A demonstration, my dear Tom. I did not bring you here merely for my own amusement. You wanted to know what made Voldemort's action so troublesome, and I will show you, and then we will make sure that he won't be able to do it again.'

I flushed. In my shock at this latest development, I had in fact temporarily forgotten what had even precipitated all this. I abandoned my pile of pebbles, and stood, dusting off my hands. I wavered, almost falling over. I felt queasy, like I'd been on a merry go round too long. I waited for it to pass, and looked around me one last time, drinking in the sight.

'Right, yes, of course.'

Klaravoi was long gone, having taken some small bag from Hein before his departure, leaping from plateau to plateau like a grasshopper. Hein and I stood alone.

'Jolly good.' Hein nodded, and then without warning we were elsewhere.

I almost stumbled again at the sudden transportation, the new gravity still making me clumsy.

'Merlin, stop doing that, Hein.' I growled, taking in my new surroundings.

We were still on the fractured plainlands, as alien as ever, save in one respect. Devastation lay upon the plateau around us, the aftermath of a great battle. Change the gravity, change the atmosphere, change the people - war always ended up the same. Bodies piled on top of bodies, of both crabmen and... humans?

The stench of death hung heavily in the air. In the centre of the battlefield, a great spike of brown stone rose about thirty feet up, like an enormous fang.

I nudged a corpse with my foot. The proportions were a bit odd, but it was unmistakably good old homo sapiens. 'Who're this lot? Colonists or something?'

Hein was carefully picking his way across the field of the death, examining them. 'Something like that. Help me find a live one, haven't got all day.'

I wrinkled my nose. 'You don't know? You're the Grim Reaper.'

'Not with this much death about.' Hein replied, his accent slipping with irritation. 'It's like a Where Is Wally out here. Are you going to help me or not?'

'Your abilities are wildly inconsistent, you know.' I muttered under my breath. I raised my wand. 'Homenum Revelio!'

There, on the other side of the big rocky spike.

'Got one!' I called out, carefully stepping over bodies, almost slipping in blood of red and putrid orange.

When we turned the corner on the spike, I gasped for what felt like the thousandth time today. It was no rock at all, I realised, but a garganutan chrysalis, and someone had cut it to shreds on one side, all the way to the core. Purple ichor was still spewing sluggishly from the wound. Beside it lay the human whose presence I had detected, a broken spear through his gut.

'Fuck me...' I breathed, and the human shifted. He opened his eyes, unfocused and searching. His gaze settled briefly on Hein and I for a moment, then fell to a bare patch of ground. His face turned fearful, and he started mumbling something under his breath. I didn't know his language either, but I could recognise a prayer when I saw one.

I raised my wand to help him, but Hein caught my wrist.

'No.' he said stoutly. 'It's his time. Observe.'

Hein snapped his fingers, and like a veil was lifted, I could see what had terrified the dying soldier. Half a dozen of those spren things, these ones shaped like big spiders with far, far too many legs, each slowly creeping their way towards him.

Hein plucked one from the ground between two fingers, and it wriggled and writhed against his grip.

'Deathspren.' he said. 'An embodiment of death, and a vital ingredient in Voldemort's ritual. They appear only to those who are about to die. Not you though of course-' he added when I backed away rapidly. 'I'm giving you a glimpse behind the scenes. This one belongs to young Jash here.'

I peered at the thing from about three metres away, repulsed. 'So that's what's locked in the chest then? One of those things, with my name on it? You brought me all the way out here for this?'

'I brought you out here to help me seal the way to Roshar. This is the only place in existence where death is both personified and helpless to interlopers. It's the only place anyone can even try Qayin's trick. We seal it off, we've got no more worries.'

'Then why the battlefield? Why this?'

Hein turned to me, his expression hard. 'To get my point across. Observe.'

He pointed to the soldier. The other deathspren had stopped around him, scuttling in place awkwardly. The soldier started to hyperventilate, rocking back and forth, and then cried out in pain and confusion. Unable to die.

Hein dropped the deathspren, and spoke again. 'Taking your death out of the equation changes everything. Destinies unravel, prophecies break, the world twists out of order. What Qayin, what Voldemort did was fundamentally unnatural. He stole death. Only you can undo that.'

As we watched, the deathspren reached the soldier. As it touched him, he let out a surprised sigh, almost of relief, and then the light left his eyes. In death, he looked at peace. The deathspren, including the one Hein had released, dissolved into nothingness.

He clapped me on the shoulder. 'Come, Tom. let's get that passage sealed.'

:—:

I blinked, and we were back in the chasm. Gods I hated that. Apparition may be uncomfortable, but at least it has the god damn common courtesy to let you know it was happening.

My mouth opened to grumble, but Hein spoke first. 'Alright Tom, bring down the walls and let us get out of here.'

I frowned. 'What about the crab man?'

'He won't be back. His bill was paid. The House is the only passage from other worlds to this one, and in this instance, it won't pop up in some other city. We seal this properly, and that ought to be the end of it. The denizens of Roshar won't be able to get in.'

Something bout what Hein said niggled at me. I looked at the door to the House, sunken into an alcove in the wall of the chasm. The alcove was coated in that crem stuff, but the angles were too sharp to be natural. Why on earth would someone build it here? I cast my gaze around to the other pillars of this shattered landscape, the chasms that ran between them. I could almost see it.

'This... this was a city once, wasn't it?'

Hein nodded. 'Eons ago, yes. It was young when Qayin came here. He wrought some very particular magics on this entrance to the House of the Rising Sun. The Roshar door cannot move on from this spot whilst... whilst his magic remains upon it.'

'What's the deal with the House anyway? It just portals people around the galaxy?'

'You're having a terrible time with the guessing game tonight, Tom. No. It's a crossroads between realities. As ages pass, its entrances move with the civilisations. But not this door.'

He opened it, revealing that same dark hallway, the mist slowly seeping out into Roshar. I took one last long look around, for the last time I'd ever be likely to see it. An alien world. Merlin. A day ago I'd have called it madness.

I raised my wand. 'Lento Destrum!'

A jet of violet light spat out of my wand, striking the chasm wall halfway up. It seeped into the stone, the light slowly spreading across it like cracks across glass. In a way, it was almost beautiful, but I wasn't sticking around to watch. I hurried through the door, and just as Hein swung it closed, purple light flared through the gap and I heard a deep bassy roar of thunder. Then he door shut, and there was silence, save for the muffled thump of electronica from below.

'Well that went pretty jolly well.' Hein said brightly, clapping non-existent dust from his hands. 'Two birds with one stone, you got your answers and I got to seal off that blighted place. Now, we can go throw that natty old chest open and call it a day. Shall we, old chap?

He gestured to the door handle for me. I gripped it and pulled the door open. Sure enough, a graffiti-riddled alley greeted me, the sounds of New Orleans night life filling the air.

I took not three steps out into the city, before the door snapped shut behind me and I instantly found myself back in my home. Hein, of course, had already planted himself down onto my favourite armchair, grinning at me Cheshire-like

'I mean, I was going to go and get some street food, but that's fine I guess.' I said blankly. I didn't even bother scowling at him at this point, it wasn't worth bothering.

The Ebony Chest was dragging on my gaze like it had gravity. I resisted steadfastly, sitting down across from Hein. He'd summoned his scythe again, twirling it lightly in his hands. It made a slight rushing noise as the blade cut through the air, and I tried not to look at it either. The day's excitement was already draining out of me at what was coming next.

A thought occurred to me. 'What's to stop somebody else from opening the door from the inside and clearing the rubble?'

Hein shook his head. 'It doesn't work that way. Only that which call a world home can access it from within the House. That is why we needed Klaravoi.'

I nodded reluctantly. So much for that distraction.

I finally looked at the Ebony Chest. Even knowing what I now did, even as it demanded my attention, it still seemed somehow... unassuming. Perhaps it was some final remnant of the magic upon it. 'What about the fountain?'

Surprise flared on Hein's face for an instant, for the first time I'd ever seen. 'Come again?'

'The fountain? In the darkness. I saw it in a vision the last time I tried to open the chest. What is it?'

Hein was silent for a long moment, then grunted. 'The Fountain isn't for you. Don't worry about it, shouldn't happen this time.'

I could practically feel him putting the capital on Fountain.

'Will Lord Voldemort know what I've done?'

Hein shrugged. 'I'm afraid I haven't the foggiest. This sort of malfeasance doesn't come around terribly often, you know, and I don't believe I've ever seen it in conjunction with a divided soul.'

'...right.' I said slowly. 'I suppose that makes sense.'

A long moment passed. Hein simply stared me down.

I had to do it. I know I did. Forget the Unbreakable Vow, I'd made a far more important promise, to myself. I let out a last, heavy sigh, and stood before the Chest.

I gripped the latch tight. It was bitingly cold, as if it knew what I was going to do.

Could I really do this? Throw out my best chance at dodging death forever? But then, what would Hein do to me if I didn't?

I gritted my teeth, and yanked it open.

:-:-:-:-:-:

A/N: My deepest apologies again for a long wait. I could blame it on a new job, or personal issues, but it seems like Spring and Summer are just the seasons of Writer's Block for me, considering the same thing happened late 2019. There definitely will not be such a long period until Chapter 42.

This is certainly the most out-there chapter of mine, in my opinion. Travelling through the House is something I originally intended to do back in its introduction, but could never quite get to fit in well. But hopefully it worked well here.

Roshar is the setting of the Stormlight Archive books, which I would highly recommend, they're an exemplar of hardcore creative worldbuilding.

As always, please send a review with your thoughts and feedback, and follow this story.