In another life, Rilian travels down: down from the Sunless Lands that were his prison for unknown changeless years, down through the fiery dance and pulsing joy of Bism, down through the deepest crevices where heat and light gush up through stone like blood, down past where anyone has ever traveled and returned.

In the deepest bend of the deepest tunnel, chasing the faintest glint of light, he swings his borrowed axe until he breaks through a shell of diamond to a sky of velvet black, bestrewn with its own living jewels who welcome him in echoes of his mother's voice.

The roots of the earth are nourished by stars.