A/N: So, this is the penultimate chapter of FoD (I've decided to split the last chapter into 2, at the advice of Kiaga and my own wish to do the story justice. Sorry for not updating for ages, and thanks to my reviewers. This chapter skips between PoVs quite a bit, but it was necessary and I hope it doesn't annoy any of you. Enjoy! :)

Edit: I've edited this chapter slightly, having noticed some horrible flaws...

Maerad felt her contact with Hem's mind, so painstakingly achieved, sever suddenly, and she cried out slightly in shock and fear. Immediately, the other three redoubled their efforts. Come, Maerad! urged Cadvan through mindspeak. More than ever, we need to try. Find him. Now! I feel that Hem may come to harm even as you reel from the shock. Don't hesitate, whatever you do. Maerad nodded, although aware he could not see it, and tried again to find the presence of Hem's mind. She had to find him and find out what had happened. With a growing sense of unease, and a fresh desperation, she scanned the vicinity of Turbansk for the power which usually emanated from the young Bard she had only just come to know; who had been so conspicuously absent from her life in the past weeks, who had been such a source of strength during that awful final battle that had almost claimed both their lives. Maerad would need that strength again. It could not be allowed to simply wink out of existence, she was sure; if not for those who loved him, then for the path of greatness he seemed almost destined to walk in this world.

Perhaps every moment he had lived had been for this one decision, this one great, pivotal time when his whole life seemed to come together into a clear, solid whole. Hem had been so sure of himself before, but now, as the dust beneath his feet started to compress, treacherously slowly, and his bare feet left the earth they had been born on, something changed, almost imperceptibly. He had heard tell that, when you were about to die, your life flashed before your eyes. But he knew now that was untrue. It slid. It crept through your mind, conquering every feeling and filling with some strange resolution the darkest corners and orifices of it. It played a delicate havoc with your limbs, forcing them down, and brought the tears to your eyes. When Hem had first seen Zelika, back in the days before the Singing that had made him so famous and robbed him of his life and senses...when he had seen an inquisitive, paradoxically warm pair of ice-blue eyes peering into the chest where he hid in the looted caravan. The memories filled his mind, clouded his judgement. And then they sped up, flashing as he had been told, rushing in a jumbled, strangely logical disorder: seeing Saliman, framed in the doorway of their old house, glorious in his blue ceramic armour, knowing he might never see the man again...the Osidh Am, rising in their dreadful, unbearable beauty from a land of such red splendour it brought a new wave of tears...seeing the Hulls slaughter a boy Hem had known, laughing at the youthful, naive horror in his face...they built up into a heap of tangled emotions, vibrant with his former life and loves, consoling him and yet making him desperate to know them again. They came inexorably on, driven on by the cruel, crushing instincts of the self, overwhelming his defences and his will.

And still Hem's leap continued, sluggishly sketching an arc in the blue, blue ocean of the sky he had loved from the moment he first saw it. He told his feet to stop, panicking lest the memories leave him with not a recognition. For he did not want to die. He realised it painfully, knowing that he'd known it long before that moment; but the truth of it sank like a scalpel into his thoughts. He did not want to die. Perversely, he wished to scream it to the skies, even knowing as he felt the impulse that he would die before the breath reached his lips.

Time, understanding in its wise, yet overly just mind that its natural course had been diverted, reared its head, screaming. And Hem dropped like a stone.

In his final desperation, he sent out one last message to the demure, deserted warmth of this amazing land that he had only just realised he loved so fiercely. SALIMAN! MAERAD! ZELIKA! Anyone who'll listen, hear me! Help me! I don't want to die! And then the pitiful transmission bounced off the heat and was gone with its originator.

Hearing a sudden scream of mental anguish that seemed all too familiar to her in its tones, Maerad leapt in mind onto a gust of hot Suderain wind, and willed Hem to herself. Knowing with a sluggish dread what would happen, she shrieked in the mindspeech: Don't die. Oh, please, Hem, don't die! She locked her eyes shut, caught in an onslaught of despair and such a piercing pain it seemed as if she heard the Treesong again and was caught in its endless chronicle of unflinching pasts and lives. Screaming inhumanly against the tempest of blackness, she struck into its heart – and fell with her brother.

"That'll be five coppers," said Ela to the well-dressed lad who had come to collect his master's new breeches. She would never admit it, and she was probably wrong, but she thought that, well, maybe, this boy liked her. And, she had to say, she sort of liked him. He hung round the stall in the market far more than he needed to, and he acted oddly shy when she spoke to him. Mayhap this was the time to get to know him...After all, she wouldn't regret it, even if it came to naught.

Smiling, she leaned forward on her table and asked him in a careless, pleasant manner, "What's your name? I see you a lot round here...my name's Ela, by the wa- Ah!"

Ela fell backwards into the none too comfortable wooden chair provided by her seamstress mistress, in the grip of one of the inexplicable visions she had only too often nowadays. "Uh, what's the matter, miss?!" she heard the boy say, his voice higher than usual, tense and panicky. But she could not answer him now...

Against a terrible backdrop of ochre Suderain rock, a black, shadowy figure fell, legs pumping, crying out silently for mercy and help and death and comfort, just for life. Jerking his head up from his pillow, Saliman cast about the room wildly. Hem had called for him, he knew it. And he was in pain. Falling out of the tall, simple and yet imposing bed, he crawled to the door and then ran, not caring who saw him in his nightclothes, nothing on his mind but answering to the call of the boy who needed him, finding only now the true extent of his attachment to Hem. The early morning breezes were cold, but the ground was already scalding, and he felt his skin crack as he stepped.

Released just as suddenly from the vision as it had come, Ela forced herself to stand, feeling the table topple from the force of her knees. But no matter. The boy needed her now. Racing through the archway of the market, she tripped over several objects in her path, absorbed in her praying for this boy she had only met once. Whom she now rushed to save.

United in only one thing, unaware of the existence of each other in the same place, Ela, Saliman, Silvia, Malgorn, and Cadvan leapt through the air, each desperate in a way they did not quite understand to reach Hem and his sister, who even now lay in the dust under a merciless sun.

A/N: K, review y'all! Next chapter should be up soon, but I can't promise, knowing my schedule. So, review and hope, faithful readers! ~ NSTaN