There was a final roar of the great qarnu. Its heaving drone squealed with such intensity that Nawirnushu was reeling, plugging his ears with his palms and burying his face in his lap. He grit his teeth and his knees trembled, and then, he listened, and he let go of his head, but when he looked up the band was gone.

Everyone was gone but the king himself.

Out of the disquieting silence, a woman's piercing shriek flooded the palace grounds and a strong gust blew in from the wind above the canal and snuffed out every torch and candle at the banquet.

In the dark there came a wailing, a woman who cried as she crawled and stumbled across the party grounds bereft of guests and servants.

"Where is Bazi! Where has he gone!? Who has taken him!?"

Nawirnushu recognized that voice. It was Reshaya.

Beyond the balcony the breeze that had comforted the city strengthened into a howling gale, and Nawirnushu stared up at the churning black clouds. Before his very eyes Zumun withered into a smokey shadow. He could not see one single star in the sky!

Nawirnushu could not even see the ground in front of him. All of his companions had vanished into the night without a trace, yet he stared out upon the skyline of Kharani and still saw the gleam of Nusku burning behind windows, and so he set out to find another man in the gloom.

He left the palace unremarked. The streets were silent, save for the whirling void which heaved above him in the place where the gods of the night sat in judgment. After a few moments looking for any signs of life in the alleys, he found myself stumbling down the incline of the temple district mound deeper and deeper into the city, past the innermost ring and towards the door of any home or apartment with their lights on, yet his efforts were always in vain. No one would ever come to the door, no matter how boisterous the king's commandments.

As he wound deeper and deeper into the winding alleys, as though wrapping a string around a spool, he completely lost track of where he was.

The night was filled with the sound of hounds howling up to Lord Zumun, the chorus was so loud, and it seemed to come from every side. Nawirnushu stopped walking.

That's when he began to sense that he was not alone. Around him he would hear scraping and shuffling in the far distance ahead, and behind, and around corners. Above him the rooftops creaked and shifted.

Then, up in front of he, he caught the first glimpses of the tall ones that darted from rooftop to rooftop above, and snared in the corner of his eye the shapes that dragged themselves across the dirt paths around him. The cacophony of baying resumed, now even more frantic and intense.

Nawirnushu's heart raced, he took flight through the back streets, his eyes and ears scanning the dark and the movement of the shadows. He plead to his personal god to protect him, desperately searching for some shaft of deliverance from his wretched pursuers.

He finally found a way out onto one of the broad streets of the old town and emerged from the labyrinth of walls and corners. Instead, as he continued down the thoroughfare, he saw before him what had only once been a means of escape, but was now an insurmountable obstacle of collapsed wall and beam. Nawirnushu knew this street from his early sojourns into the town, there was no dead end here, and yet here there was!

As Nawirnushu stepped back in a pang of confusion he realized his pursuers had caught up to him. He was surrounded by the faint hum of low growling. Carefully, he began to inspect the alleys which diverged from the street on which he stood, and he could see their silhouettes. The impression of four-legged beasts, gathered in packs, and in the corner of his eye the impression of these... lumps. Lumps which seemed to crawl and drag themselves out from the cobbled street corners like the flailing of an infant.

On the rooftops above him, scores of those things had gathered to watch his persecution. They stood like people, but taller in limb and stature than any person he had ever seen. Their piercing green eyes glowed in the dim radiance of the windowlight which crept out of the empty houses.

The pack of hounds had now swelled into formation. 'How many of them now roar at me? How vicious their bloodlust?' Nawirnushu lost his breath.

Then they descended. The king instinctively tried to turn back, looking all around him for some tatter in their ranks, but there was no such fortune! The ones in front of him came first, the wolves bearing their fangs and baying at him. Two more hounds jumped out from its flank to corner him from the sides. Nawirnushu tried to turn his back on them, and run yet again, but more of the feral beasts emerged from behind him.

Then one of the dogs leapt upon him, its claws bearing into Nawirnushu's back and shoulders, and he lost his footing and fell into the mob of canines. Together the pack lunged at his joints, tearing open his neck and veins with their jaws, soaking Nawirnushu in his own blood. He tried to cry, to scream out for help, to call upon his men and his gods, but as the king struggled and flailed his consciousness dimmed. He was strewn apart.

Out from the deep darkness of the night, came a roar as fearsome as a lion's, but also more terrible than any other beast's! As Nawirnushu felt the ligaments of his flesh stripped from his bones, and all life faded from him, he beheld from his sorrowful heavy eyes an enormous bull standing in the street before the thrall. Its dreadful long horns wrapping themselves around the body of Zumun, as if to strangle him!

-and then he arose in a cold sweat only to be comforted by the fingers of Shamash which brushed through my windows and bed canopy and nudged gently through the braids of his hair. Ziqiqu had released him.

Nawirnushu got up out of bed, stood up, and hastened to the water basin in his room, splashing his face to shaken him from such a terrible nightmare, and to douse the tears welling in his eyes.

As the cold water dripped from his brow, he walked out from his chamber onto the patio of the royal gardens, the same which held the banquet he had attended in his dream. There were, of course, no signs of such nocturnal festivities there this morning.

The sky was grey, it was one of the few precious rain-filled days of the year, and the pale atmosphere seemed to dull the pleasure of the rich reds, pinks, and blues of the garden specimens. His heart began to wander to the discord of the splashing and plopping of flooded drainage paths and the moving current of the city canal, and his ears even stretched to find a soothing rythym in the drip-drops.

Nawirnushu looked out over the garden balcony's view of the Purattu, the vein of sweet water which brought life to the town from its very foundation. Today the waters were dull and muddy, and the flow of the river was not placid. No reed gondola dared to brave the current.

That's when he saw it, out of the corner of his eyes. Something solid and pale. For a moment he thought it could be driftwood, but as he looked closer upon the shape he knew it could not have been driftwood! He saw something which looked like a tree branch, or a limb, but it bent softly so that it could not have been wood.

As the king began to recognize what the shape was, a sense of fear took hold of him, but he was driven to keep following it. He raced along the balcony to make sure he didn't lose sight of it. He shouted to his servants walking along the river bank to take notice of it.

The morbid bundle of skin and hair seemed to flow, past the periphery of Nawirnushu's gaze, past the walls of the palace complex, and his heart lurched in fear. He hastened down the garden stairs and emerged out of the gate onto the trail parallel to the canal. The king scoured the river for the floating thing and managed to find it, pointing it out to the sentries who came to his aid.

There he watched on the banks as the royal guard and the local ferrymen who patrolled the canal fished out the remains of a young boy, his body in pieces. His face cold and hollow and mangled in terror.

And in that moment Shakkunakku Nawirnushu collapsed to his knees in dread and sorrow, for he knew then that the gods had abandoned him.