Suddenly Roland found himself getting an outrageous notion.

“And if light wouldn’t move at all Shadow? And all motion just is that space getting longer and shorter?” As soon as he said it he realized how weird he sounded, but he still couldn’t get the idea out of his head. And if it was true then? That time slowed the faster you went. “What would that sand corn of light see?” he asked wonderingly. “Traveling faster than anything else. Would distances even exist for it? And without a distance, how could one prove a time?”

Shadow who had been fixing with the campfire looked up at him. “Yes.” He said. “You are right to wonder. The ancients had an explanation for why light could be the way it was though. They named it to be without mass, meaning that it had no weight and no substance, except that of heat or energy as they called it.” He stood up. “Being mass-less allowed it to move without time, making it possible to have a ultimate speed, fastest in the universe, accelerating without ever involving time, well, as seen from its own frame. But only ethereal things like light could have those properties Roland.”

“You can’t talk about acceleration without involving time?” Roland protested. Shadow nodded, secretly pleased again. “No, you can’t Roland, you’re right again. And without time, distance becomes meaningless.” Watching the twilight suffusing the dunes into an unearthly constellation of silvery shadows, reflecting the yellowish tinge from the remains, spread all over the desert, like silent marks of time passed by. “And time too it seems?” He added thoughtfully. He looked into the fire, listening to the twigs crackling, then turned to Roland saying. “One last thing to ponder friend. If you ride that speeding mirror near the speed of light and send out a light corn before you, why shouldn’t it go twice as fast?”

“No more, Shadow.” Muttered Roland as he stood up, his legs stiff from sitting. "My head hurts enough as it is." Watching he could see the last light disappear, shrouded under the impending darkness building over it, the air becoming increasingly chilly. “You want us to make camp here, or?” He asked suddenly, changing the subject, as he looked up at the few stars shining through that impenetrable darkness looming over them.

Shadow who still sat resting by the fire, watching it smolder, nodded slowly. “This did take us some time.” He admitted. “But I’m not quite finished. There is something more you need to know Roland. What I described was the way the ancients saw it, and as far as I understand it’s all true. The veil, as I calls it, are those demarcations limiting us. But it’s not as stable as it once was, and.” He stopped, looking searchingly at Roland as the thought struck him.

“Roland, you do know that Merry is gone, don’t you?” he asked.

Roland, roughly thrown back into his memories, turned away from Shadow as he tried to assimilate Shadows statement. Gone? But Merry wasn’t gone, was she? Suddenly he remembered the shore, and the flaming pyre he had made of her raft. “Yesterday then?” he protested, sounding like a forlorn child, not able to stop himself. “She was here Shadow, I can swear to that.”

Shadow also had to look away as he answered. “You have to accept that she’s gone Roland.” He said it with a heavy finality, staring into the night rolling in . “You can’t resurrect the dead my friend, you were there, watching the raft burn.” Roland looked up at the few stars he saw, coldly gleaming, as he tried to collect his thoughts. “Yes, I know she has to be.” He admitted at last. “But, I meet her? How could I meet her Shadow?” Shadow shook his head, sickened of what he would have to say. “No, you didn’t friend. You meet a soulthirster.”

Roland stared at him, wondering if Shadow finally was losing it. “A soulthirster?” he said incredulously. “Are you saying that they exist?” Shadow didn’t answer, swept in darkness as he stood at the lights perimeter, staring into the darkness. Roland sat down beside the fire again, looking at Shadows back, wondering, waiting for him to explain. After a while he thought he could feel a sound, more of a vibration really. A vibration that somehow made him sleepy at the same time as he felt more awake than ever before. Finally breaking his silence he asked. “Shadow, is that your doing?” But just as he asked, or maybe whispered it, he could feel something tugging on him. Like invisible ghost hands dragging him, leaving a strong impression of something calling him. Without knowing how he found himself standing at Shadows side, having no remembrance of himself moving. Not for the first time he found himself wondering what more Shadow might be than his teacher and friend.

As long as he could remember there had been those warning him of Shadow in the village, saying that he was more than what he seemed, and that his goals was not theirs. But he had refused to listen to them, and his father had always treated Shadow as a friend. But standing beside him, watching the impenetrable darkness closing in on them, he realized that they had been right. Shadow was more than just his friend, more than just a teacher. And maybe his goals were different too. It was like looking out a window pane of a slightly darker shade, subtly transforming what he once thought to be his view.

'It's different' the soulthirster thought as it tried to assimilate its new surroundings. It was here, always here, the only constant presence being itself. To it all feeding grounds were the same, flashes of existence without substance. The recent exchange of essence with that being called Roland had forced it to reevaluate those assumptions though. The nourishment it craved built firstly on its need to assimilate those jagged pieces of dreams, inconclusive memories digested inside its interactions, clashing constantly making it all a kaleidoscope of emotions and jumbled thoughts. But to it, as to the weave itself, time was just another depth and a way of wandering. But this anchoring without taking had forced new truths upon it. It had never before had any need to question itself, seeing all as fertile feeding grounds bowing to its needs. Meeting Roland, finding itself forced into a material form disturbed it, making it wonder if there was more to the fleeting glimpses of sentience it preyed upon. For the first time it found itself locked to that linear mode of processing called thinking and with it that strange idea called time.

As it felt Shadow calling it was drawn irresistible towards him, but where there before had been an undefined animal, now instead there was a girl. Roland couldn’t help himself as she materialized out of the darkness. “Merry.” He cried out as he moved to meet her, only to find his legs refusing to move. “No Roland, not Merry. A soulthirster, as bound to you as you to it.” She came out of the darkness clothed in something Shadow first took to be a skintight outfit, but as she came closer he realized that it was herself, her skin a multitude of colors making it hard to see pass it. Leading them back to the relative safety of the fire he sent Roland to rummage after something for her to wear. Roland couldn’t take his eyes of her, it was just as in his dream, and she was back. But as he drank in her presence he slowly realized that she wasn’t his Merry. Her color, or colors, was all wrong, intricate patterns drawing his eyes making him lose track of the time. And mixed with that was other influences like the subtle changes in her eye colors, shifting independently of each other. And the way she looked, almost as if she wasn’t truly there at all. No, no matter what clothes she wore, his Merry she was not. And with that came a bitter realization that he had shared the night with a stranger, not even a human, just a twisted lie.

Shadow, understanding how close to the edge his friend felt tried to calm him. “No Roland, it’s not her fault. She had no freer will in this than you. Don’t blame her for your dreams. They have no shape of their own, normally they just mimic their environment Roland, and for this one, that, was you.“ The soulthirster had listened to him as she tried to adjust to her new shape. She was wordlessly screaming feeling the transformations continue to work their changes, binding her too this new and terrifying place. Never had she been bound to anything before, her species, if now species was the right word for her kind, came out of that seething energy creating what the ancients had called SpaceTime. The way she normally moved was at sharp angle to that human SpaceTime, only defined as by her needs. Now she found herself restricted, narrowed in and bound. With her new, almost instinctive, understanding of this strange linear time she also found emotions, emotions of a strange kind never meet before. They were so disconcerting, making her want to rage and scream at the same time as she found herself suddenly craving nearness and companionship. To her nature a solitary predator she found no comfort in her new life and the, all too quickly vanishing, memories of her life before didn’t help either.