They were watching, out there past men's knowing, where stars are drowning and whales ferry their vast souls through the black and seamless sea.

Whatever in creation exists without my knowledge exists without my consent.

Peering down into the water where the morning sun fashioned wheels of light, coronets fanwise in which lay trapped each twig, each grain of sediment, long flakes and blades of light in the dusty water sliding away like optic strobes where motes sifted and spun.

Finally he said that among men there was no such communion as among horses and the notion that men can be understood at all was probably an illusion.

I will do what I promised." He whispered. "No matter what. I will not send you into the darkness alone.

The trouble with a liar is he can't remember what he said.

Long before morning I knew that what I was seeking to discover was a thing I'd always known. That all courage was a form of constancy. That it is always himself that the coward abandoned first. After this all other betrayals come easily.