On a clear day, Fen'Dagher could be seen from about a hundred kilometers away. At night, it was just a conical black shape, occluding the stars and moonlit clouds behind it. Were it not for the torches of its lower habitations, which illuminated its belly with a stove-like ruddy glow, it would have appeared as a void on the horizon, an absence of matter rather than a mountain.
Apt, I thought, that vermillion glow. From a distance, it looked as if the entire bottom half of the mountain had been dipped in mortal blood. And in fact, it was. Even from so far away, I could smell the blood soaked into the earth and stone of the dormant volcano. I could smell its putrescence. The decay of mortal flesh. The rot of hope and joy.
"It is a terrible thing," I said to Zenzele, as we stood there looking on the mountain. I could not help but shudder. "When the God King has fallen, we will sweep it all away. We will carve it from the world like the diseased flesh of a festering wound. Every stone. Every timber. Even the memory of this place. We must erase it from the minds of men forever."
"A cleansing," Zenzele said, nodding in agreement. "Yes, my love, it shall be done."
We marched on.