'Go, if you're going, man. You're chilling us all,’ was their gist.

Without turning, Antyr waved a scornful dismissal to his erstwhile companions, then, seizing the heavy wrought-iron latch, he yanked the door shut. It was a heavy door, notorious for its stiffness, and its frequent noisy closing through the nights was the constant bane of the neighbouring sleepers. Now, however, its window-shaking slam was muffled by the clinging fog, and the image of a closing tomb came into Antyr's mind as an eerie reverberation echoed back at him out of the gloom.

The darkness of this unexpected image was deepened by the sudden ceasing of the clatter from the inn, and the equally sudden vanishing of the warm yellow light that had thrown his long shadow so boldly out into the fog. For a moment he felt disorientated, as if he had only been in someone's dream about the inn and his raucous friends and had wakened suddenly to find he had been sleep-walking.

It was an unsettling thought for a Dream Finder and involuntarily he reached back and briefly touched the familiar rough wooden door for reassurance. Then, more relieved than he cared to admit, he growled into the fog, and wrapped his cloak tight about himself.

'Too much ale,’ he muttered. ‘I'll have less tomorrow.’ It was a ritual nightly utterance that, like most rituals, had long lost its true meaning.

He glanced up and down the street. In both directions the only things visible were the flames of the pitch torches, flickering, despite the stillness, and issuing coils of their own black smoke to add to the murk. The fog's clammy touch might have swept the people from the streets as effectively as any blustering winter storm, but the Guild of Torchlighters knew their duty. Antyr curled his lip unpleasantly.

Sanctimonious lot, he thought, as he tried without success to bring the shimmering corona around one of the wobbling lights into focus. He couldn't stand these pompous Sened-appointed Guild men with their unctuous self satisfaction. If it wasn't for them doing their jobs, you'd be staggering around lost all this night, wouldn't you? said a quieter, kinder, part of his mind.