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"I do," said Vell. "Maybe more than you can know. But they are safe now. I know they will be left in your care."

"Those few whom you saved," one Shepherd spat.

"And you wonder why he doesn't want to stay with you," said Kellin.

"But the behemoths are part of you, Vell," said a Shepherd. "Will you give away a piece of who you are?"

Sadness weighed in Vell's voice. "It was never mine. I carried it, but it was never me."

The Heart of Runlatha was restored to its place atop the menhir at the center of the Sanctuary. Its glow brightened, and its red light spread across the swamp.

"In time, its magic will restore all of the damage that has been done," one of the Shepherds explained.

"Can you take these powers away from me now?" asked Vell.

"Come with us."

The Shepherds led him to the center of the Sanctuary. The ancient men and women surrounded the menhir, whose runes now glowed faintly. They linked hands and bid Vell to join them. He reached out and clutched two shriveled, bony hands.

They chanted in Netherese, the runes on the menhir pulsed with magic, and the Heart glowed brighter. Vell cried out as he felt part of his soul begin to rip away. His connection to the behemoths in the Sanctuary-something he had experienced for so long that it felt like second nature to him, like one of his five senses-faded and extinguished.

"It is not too late," said one of the Shepherds. "We can give it back to you."

"No," said Vell, though tears filled his eyes. "Finish it."

The unnatural strength Vell had felt in his muscles for so long was ripped away, and he felt weak as a child. All of the skills and senses that had imbued him on Runemeet at Morgur's Mound were gone. He was the plain, ordinary, and unremarkable Uthgardt warrior known as Vell the Brown again.

But he didn't feel that way.

* * * * *

"We are your ancestors," the Shepherds said as they again gathered before Sungar and the others at the Sanctuary's edge. "We are your history."

"Yet no songs are sung of you," said Sungar. "Perhaps some of the songs our skald sings are about events that never happened. They never tell the whole story, but they hold our tribe together. They preserve the stories we tell about ourselves. You are not part of us.

"And now," Sungar said, "I must return something to you."

Sungar raised the axe and held it high over his head, just as he had that day in the Fallen Lands. "With this locked inside your walls of illusion, you can live out the remainder of time safely, and the North will never again suffer your manipulations."

"Wait," said Thluna, reaching out a hand to stop Sungar. He turned to the Shepherds. "As you took the magic from Vell, can you also take it from the axe?"

The Shepherds cast glances among themselves. "Why do you ask?"

"Could you remove the magic so the axe can never access the Sanctuary?" asked Kellin. "In essence, could you sever the magical connection between it and the Heart of Runlatha?"

"Yes," said one of the Shepherds firmly. "We can. Indeed, we would be happy to prevent the Sanctuary from ever being disturbed again."

Kellin turned to Sungar. "It's your decision. And it will still be a magical weapon afterward."

Thluna said, "But it will always be the weapon of Berun, of Chief Tharkane, and of Uthgar."

"Let it be done," decided Sungar.

The Shepherds gathered around the Heart again. A faint red glow within the axe flared then faded out, marking the weapon's separation from the artifact to which it had been tied more than fifteen hundred years earlier.

Before long, the Sanctuary and all within started to flicker and fade as the illusion returned. "You belong to the past," said Vell. "Stay there."

In a blink's time, the entire Sanctuary was gone, replaced by a huge field at the foot of Mount Vision, marked by three massive phandar trees. For quite a while the six comrades stood there, staring at the untouched landscape before them, the high Star Mounts towering into the sky above. They knew what they saw was false, but there was no way for the eye to see