A saffron scarf fluttered within his field of vision, a pennant against a sky so saturated it seemed unreal. The little cloth tugged and twisted, not as if by wind, smoothly, fluidly, but by some unseen grabbing hand. Unravelled along one side, where its weft and flow were pulled apart and strands of it danced, discordantly, trying to escape the whole, its yellow-gold seemed to seep out into the world there, fading away at the edges, receding, greying. When colours bled, where did the blood go? --back into the world; into life; but far away from here, to be tossed someday by the breeze, to be painted in leaves upon twining flowers that climbed the spires of castles ivory and pink, like those in fairy tales. His colour would find itself in a beetle someday, shimmering bottle-blue iridescence under the endless sun.

All at once there was a bunching up of the scarf, a hand encircling it, pulling it taut, preparing to knot it so that the colours couldn't bleed any more. A sharp, flanging pain dissolved the sky; the light before his eyes was an illusion, the only illumination the soft filtering, through the window, of the rays of an overcast sun. Raindrops jittered through the light, little dancing shadows, their paths sloped by its refraction.

"...don't," he managed to utter to the mage who sat there serenely, her long robes looking out of place in this infirmary ward, her eyes closed and hands unmoving, yet her magic doing the nimble, professional work of a nurse upon his soul. Stop the life from leaking out, bind it up, let it heal; it was all the same. Except it wasn't, not this one.

"Lord Sasarai," she insisted, "you'll die if I don't."

Golden threads uncoiled themselves, pawing at empty space, feeling out the distance between from the way the tapestry flowed. It was too far, it was always too far. But it was reach out or give up.

Somewhere out there, too far away, True Earth hummed. He felt it carried to him, too far away, the barest living pulse.

"If you do," he said to her gently, yet with an evenness that belied the pain, "I will forget what it is to be whole."

"But your Rune is gone," she protested. Worry, or perhaps simple duty, framed her face in lines.

The walls of the old castle sang, giving praise to the rain that fell on them, giving praise to the wind that vowed they would be weathered to dust. It was a song only one person in the room could hear.

"It will return."