This is how it ends, came the thought.
And, for a time that could not be measured, he felt himself held at the finest of balances.
Resignation flowed over him, soothing, calming — a destination had been reached, a journey over time; time to lie down, to rest, to let all travails go.
Yet the scents and sounds of everything around him were washing through him, overwhelming in their intensity. At their heart was a glowing totality — a lifetime — his lifetime — leavened by many struggles and full of the joy of being. And though it was his and his alone, it was also part of a greater whole that would be diminished by its loss.
It must not end thus.
The resignation slipped from him like a soiled cloak. He prepared to face the monster who had made this awful place.
But even as this decision
