As the hoplites haul Gil to his feet, the last thing he sees is the dis­tant sil­hou­ette of the lamashu fly­ing away into the night sky, well beyond the build­ings and walls and fiery car­nage of Libri.

Then they put a bag over his head.

They march him through town, zigzag­ging down streets and up treach­er­ous steps. The cloth is rough and hot and moist with con­densed exha­la­tion. All around him, Gil hears the muf­fled yells of natives scream­ing and pha­lanxes march­ing and clash­ing.

The noise dies down. Now all he hears is his own hyper­ven­ti­lat­ing in the stuffy black bag, ampli­fy­ing his fran­tic thoughts. The real­iza­tion that his entire future has col­lapsed seems to grab him by his throat. His heart beats so fast it feels like it’s going to explode out of his chest.

Prob­a­bly on pur­pose, the sol­dier pushes him blindly into a stair­way, caus­ing him to stum­ble over him­self and nearly crack his face against the ground. His unseen cap­tors pull him back up and nearly lift him off his feet as they drag him up the stairs.

He hears the rum­bling scrape of a gravitic door slid­ing up and then slam­ming down behind him. The air sud­denly seems much cooler.

A few dozen more stum­bling, blind paces—and then he’s pushed down onto a wooden chair, and some­one tears the bag off his head.

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