"I tire of voids," Mundhir quipped as he once again found himself in an endless expanse of nothingness. "Am I carrion? Asleep? Worse?"

Nothing made a sound; no one answered his queries. He was alone, in infinite darkness, with only the slow drum of his heart to keep him company. Duranar was dead, though he had hoped Ebli was a mere hallucination - a manifestation of the Ice Venom - he knew it in his bones that the menace had spoken truth. The world had been in a constant revolution of war and thunder for a thousand years... any [i]good[/i] God worth his or her salt would have intervened by now. 

"So then, humour me," Mundhir spoke again, "what purpose did I serve in the mortal realm? Ebli spoke favour of my actions. What fell plot have I unleashed upon the dwindling peoples of my country?" 

Nothing.

The Prince sighed. Dark thoughts started to creep into his mind, and for a moment his heart fluttered as he mulled the possibility of his death. If there was no Duranar, then there was no Undying Lands, and nor was there the Underworld. In the great being's absence, would there be only darkness? Surely his machinations would thrive without him, built from his infinite power as they were? So many questions, and nothing but dread to answer them with. 

"I'm sorry father," the Prince said finally with a sad wheeze of regret. "You were right all along; Duranar's will was peace, and I was a fool for heeding vague visions." 

A white haze suddenly set upon Mundhir's surrounds. He rolled his eyes as the familiar fog started to swirl, and another aspiration came forth to visit him. As the figure took on solid form, the Prince raised an eyebrow in a mixture of intrigue and indifference. 

"You too?" He asked, smiling slightly.

Prince Thrandel had been a handsome man in his living years; porcelain skin, wrapped tightly in the reflective green of Elven silk. Eyes, deep and full of youthful good wil, and the colour of the deepest ocean. A friendly, yet sad smile formed under a hawkish nose. 

"So it would seem," the Mad Prince said. 

"What fate befell you, after your encounter with Ebli?" Mundhir asked, giving little patience to formality. 

Thrandel paced, hands clasped behind his back. He stopped when he spoke, and looked at the Prince; anger twisting his lips. "What you see is my soul; what you see in the waking world is my body. The two were cloven from each other." 

Mundhir clambered to his feet, to look the Mad Prince in the eye. "This... does not surprise me, unfortunately," he said, "I have learned much of the world since I came here." 

The Mad Prince's anger vanished, and his smile returned. He nodded thoughtfully. "Yes, the void does well for one's wisdom. I too have learned much in my time here." 

"Where is here?" Mundhir asked. 

"It has no name," Thrandel said immediately, as if reading from a script, "it is truly a void. We are outside the realms of logic and time. Trapped with the nightmares of the universe's unsettling dreams." 

"Can we escape?" Mundhir pressed, stepping forwards as if doing so would haste Thrandel's reply. 

"You can, not I," the Elf said, still smiling. "You carry the blood of a God in your veins; Ebli was no apparition. He came here in person to see you, to torment you - to temper you for his designs." 

"I will kill him," Mundhir spat, "and any who aligned to him." 

Thrandel's smile vanished, and he shook his head. "No. You cannot. My father tried, and he was an infinite amount more powerful than you will ever be; divine or no." A tear strolled down the Elf's left cheek, and his right eye twitched with some hidden rage. "Though you can escape."

"How?" 

"Kill me," Thrandel said plainly. "Kill me; it is [i]his[/i] price for your freedom." 

"Ebli's price?" 

"Yes." 

Mundhir shook his head, "I have no weapon with which to run you through." 

"Really? I see a sabre in your hands," Thrandel shot back, nodding his head at Mundhir's right hand. 

Mundhir looked down, and realised he was clutching his ancestral sabre as if it had been willed there by an invisible force. Hesitantly, he stalked towards Thrandel. "You are sure this will work?"

"Yes." 

The Eblistani Prince drew his hand back, ready to run the Elf through the chest; a clean, lightning fast strike. It would be both humane, and- 

"No," Mundhir sighed, lowering his blade. "I have killed enough in Ebli's name. He may have taken everything else, but of what there is left, he shall not have."

The Elf Prince looked saddened by this, as if he was hoping Mundhir would kill him. Perhaps doing so would have been a mercy? How long could someone dwell in the void before their sanity was lost to the ages? 

"Then you will be here for a very long time," Thrandel said at last. 

"Perhaps that is best," Mundhir grunted. "I grow wearisome of being a pawn in another man's game. The death of some hapless Elf's soul on my hands will do little to help things."

Mundhir felt a sudden unease; Thrandel's sad smile flattened, and he peered over Mundhir's shoulder.

"What is it?" Mundhir asked, half-afraid to turn. 

"You have won someone's curiosity," Thrandel said, and he stepped backwards, gradually fading away into the darkness.