Interlude
If man is to sit in the Throne of the Gods, he must endure the seven baptisms of fire. The first is the soul bond with Sirin. The second is the passage from the Realm of Earth to the Lows of Aer. The third is the shedding of the skin of the old man. The fourth is the purification. The fifth is the first death. The sixth is the second death. The seventh is . . . (illegible)
An apocryphal and incomplete variant of “The Emulation of the Powers”
The Sayings, Appendix 10D
The assassins came for Rogned on a night of the full moon. That was Yarpolk’s one mistake.
Rogned had always had a special love for the moon, and not only because the Karila of old had seen her as a queen of the night, a demigoddess of purity and virtue. She was also a being of white fire. And it was that fire t
