The Roots of Fate
Ilian snorted and stamped a hoof, startling Shara under their shared harness, and the hulking Catoga wagon lurched forward a fair yard. From the rear bed of the wagon Jeeter shrieked.
“Aiieeeee! It’s on me foot! Get it off! Get it offa me foot!”
Durstan lifted a puzzled gaze from where the huge log had rolled off his wedge bar, and he peered at his friend overtop the section of trunk nearly the diameter of his full height.
“Eh?” he queried.
Jeeter’s eye’s were nearly popping from a beet-red face, and spittle sprayed from his lips.
“Whaddayer mean ‘EH?’ It’s squarshin’ me toes like kernels on a grist-mill! Git it off! Do it Do it Do it NOW, ya freakin’ baboon!”
Durstan dropped his tool and lurched into action, and Jeeter howled as his cohort clambered up the trunk and tumbled overtop. Durstan lumbered to his feet and darted his helpless stare from hand to empty hand, and Jeeter stabbed a finger at his own wedge bar, lying on the bed of the wagon out of his reach.
“Use mine, ya sponge-headed lack-wit!”
Durstan snatched up the shaft, jamming it under the log and bearing down hard, but the section of trunk barely shifted before rolling back and lifting him off his feet. Jeeter howled all the louder and slid his free foot as far back as he could, pressing his chest up against the trunk and spewing out a slew of curses half saved-up and half improvised. A revelation lit Durstan’s face and he shifted to hang bodily from the long pry bar, planting his feet against the trunk and thrusting mightily. In three building rolls back and forth, with Jeeter screeching and cursing at every reversal, the trunk finally gave it up and Jeeter flew backward, landing on his tailbone and sliding off the wagon. From his upside-down vantage Durstan watched Jeeter’s feet disappear over the tailgate, and he thudded to the floorboards as the log rolled off the his bar.
“Jeeter?” Durstan crept to cautiously peer over the tail of the wagon, and he flinched away from the flung handful of dirt and gravel.
“Ya dim-witted scatterbrain—ya gots less smarts than a bucket a’ dirt!” Jeeter rocked back and forth on the ground, both hands clamped around his throbbing foot. “If ya had t’ make yer mark you’d puzzle over how t’ spell the letter ‘X’!”
Durstan looked offended. “You knows I knows no letters.”
Jeeter shook has head, but a gravelly voice from the door of the nearby workshop cut short his retort.
“Ah… I see that the ferrymen of buried mystery have made their way back to my desmesne. And so—what have you brought for me to reveal?”
Jeeter rolled to his knees and scrambled upright, gingerly hopping on one foot while nodding his regards. “H’lo, Master Haeg’scorn. How fare ye today, good S’ar?”
Remus Haegerscorn chuckled and turned back to his shop, waving Jeeter and Durstan in behind.
A Single Moon Previous
There was yet another light clattering at the window and the innkeeper finally looked up from where he stood polishing the railing of a mahogany bar burnished by decades of planted elbows. He scowled and reached for a broom, plodding heavily out from his bastion of amber liquors, sweet and pungent wines, and frothy draughts.
“Dim-damn jaybird,” he grumbled. “Sees hisself in the pane o’ glass, and decides they’s no room for both him and his struttin’, cock-rooster reflection.” He shook his head. “I jus’ cleaned those wind’rs—jus’ last year.”
He’d made his way halfway across the creaky tavern floor when Caleb LongShadow, peering intently to the window, raised a hand. “Hold on there, Beric.”
The innkeeper stopped, looking on in a puzzle as Caleb set down his stein and unfolded himself from the stool where he’d sat pondering whatever perplexity he was wont to study over. Caleb’s open long-coat fell into place mid-shank of his woodsmen’s boots, and it flowed with his purposeful stride to the window, his movement somehow reminiscent of a breeze through the leaves.
The jay ceased its animated attack on the pane of glass and turned its head sideways, training an eye on the approaching woods-sooth. Caleb pulled a chair up to the window and settled down, and the bird again began to chirp, hopping from one side of the ledge to the other and occasionally pecking or tapping at the glass with its beak.
Caleb sat with his chin planted in one hand, nodding from time to time, and after a lengthy listening he shook his head, pressing a breath out through pursed lips. “Those are grievous tidings indeed!”
The bird screeched and flapped its wings in apparent agreement, and Caleb turned to the innkeeper,
“Beric, best get word out to Jeeter and Durstan. We’ve a summons to attend to.”
Remus Haegerscorn: WorxWood
The rough-hewn timber frame of the hoist creaked and moaned as Ilian and Shara strained against the harness, and the chain clanked and clattered where it wound tight over the series of pulleys. The massive section of tree, still wet with sap and weighing too much and more, swayed in the chain sling with the ponderous gravity of a boulder balanced atop an eroded pedestal. Jeeter’s lips were drawn around teeth jutting in curious misalignment, and as the massive piece clanked upward he edged further backward, unconsciously reaching out to tug Durstan along. Remus coaxed the carriage horses gently, jockeying the trunk into position, and when properly set he centered the massive double-spur bit of the lathe’s headstock on the trunk’s axis, and likewise slid the tailstock into position and locked it down. He spun the hand wheel in, pinning the piece between pincers, and when satisfied he cinched it all down, released the hoist mechanism and patted the horses away.
Jeeter marveled at the heft of the lathe, wondering at a device that looked capable of reducing a mountain down to a hummock. Durstan had been chewing his lower lip for some time, and he shifted a quizzical gaze to Remus. “Why needs be we brung ya the whole durn trunk, when yer jus’ bound ta pare it almost all away?”
Jeeter horked and spat in the shavings. “Tryin’ ta ‘splain somethin’ t’ you is like hoistin’ a rusty bucket up from the well—water drains out jus’ as fast as it fills up. The answer is plain enuff, ya dimbulb, it’s simply a’cause… Well, it’s…”
Jeeter blinked several times, and looked sideways to Remus. “Why don’t you ‘splain ta this plain fool the how and why of it? I’m growin’ tired a’ repeatin’ myself.”
Remus smiled gently, and pointed to where the tailstock spur dug into the core of the tree, at the point where all the hundreds of spreading rings had banded down to a single point. “There—that is the pith of the tree, do you see? It’s the very core of its being, surrounded by dark heartwood and then softer sapwood. While the pith is not considered desirable when harvesting a tree for construction, our purpose here is quite different, and the core of this tree is essential to it. We seek the essence of the tree—that which has borne witness to grievous circumstances—and the process of turning away its outer armor is critical to manifesting its elemental strength, and some hint of its story. Any misstep and we are left with nothing but a reduced carcass, but when performed properly we will have coaxed the remaining spirit of the tree into revealing something of its plight, and we’ll be left with a distillation that might be returned to the site of the offense and renewed.”
Jeeter looked smugly to Durstan and nodded, as if he had just been validated, and Durstan pressed a finger against the bark of the tree. “Pifth?” he murmured.
Remus placed his palm on the cross-section of trunk and nodded to himself. “The wood is still quite wet—we should stream some fine tailings.” He hefted a large steel gouge and shooed the two young men to one side. The tool was a heavy, fluted shaft held fast in a long hardwood handle, and the light played off it in such a manner as to first lend it the appearance of gleaming platinum and then polished steel or even burnished bronze. Remus gave one more tug on the wheel of the tailstock and locked it down final, then pulled a visor down over his eyes and his great bush of a beard.
He looked to Jeeter and pointed to the stove, and Jeeter tugged on heavy leather gloves before swinging the stove door open and hefting several more shovelfuls of coal into the glowing maelstrom within. Remus threw some valves open and with a great whoosh and a progression of building chugs the steam engine began to turn the lathe. A rising whir filled the air as the massive section of trunk began to rotate between the two deeply-sunk end-bits. Slowly Remus dialed it up, lending the appearance of a log gaining speed rolling down a steep slope, and the trunk’s form turned into a blur of motion, with shadow images marking the high and low irregularities. Faster and faster Remus spun it up, until the huge lathe began to shudder out-of-balance, setting the tins and jars on the shelves to tinkling and rattling and the very floor under Jeeters’ feet to vibrating, and Remus quickly dialed the speed back down until the shaking ceased. He then eased a heavy tool-rest in closer until it was just outside the rotation of the trunk, and locked it down. The woodturner planted the open-fluted tip of his tool on the rest at just the right angle and braced the long handle against his rounded belly while planting both feet, and he shifted his weight forward, slowly, carefully, until a coarse chatter filled the air as the first bits of bark and then sapwood began to fly.
As the work progressed Remus shifted his hips and his shoulders, making multiple passes up and down the length of the trunk, and the harsh chattering gave way to a constant hum as all the bark was sheared away and the shape turned true. Remus pivoted to the grinder to dress the gouges’ tip, and he nodded and stepped back to his work, sliding the tool rest in colder. “Now she’ll begin to tell her story,” he murmured to himself.
The shavings began to fly in earnest; long coiling streams of wood that lifted in an arc from the sliding tip of Remus’ gouge like a coil of rope that constantly came apart as it spun off its spool. Durstan’s jaw hung slack, and Jeeter extended his open palm, allowing the arc of shavings to fill and overflow it.
“Stand back!” bellowed Remus, waving a meaty hand. “You’ll spoil the continuity, and we’ll be left with nothing for our efforts!”
Jeeter scampered backward, and with Remus’ dark apron and wild bale of hair covered with curled shavings that looked disturbingly like earth worms churning freshly tilled soil, he turned back to his work.
The coils of wood peeled away in huge quantities, mounding on the floor in piles surely too large to have come from any single tree, and as the trunk was reduced in size its shavings turned a darker color when the gouge peeled away the last of the sapwood and took to the tree’s heartwood. Jeeter abruptly caught his breath—the feeling of a presence washed over him, the intuition of an embodied aura, and he shivered as a chill coursed through from toes to fingertips. The trailing arc hung mid-air just a moment too long, as if held in suspension and struggling to take shape—a phantasm seeking to reveal itself under the streaming flow from the tip of Remus’ tool.
The revelation was dark and somehow brooding, taking the vague form of a man. A cloaked man, it would seem, with its face mostly shielded from view under a brimmed cowl. Below the brim and the faceless void sloped wide shoulders, and as Remus tilted his gouge to redirect the flow the wet shavings seemed to better stick and mold themselves to the shifting divination. Details came into sharper focus.
Its hands were clasped before its chest, holding something. An object of medium size, globular in shape, and seeming to be pocked with cavities. Almost like the thumb sockets of a bowler ball. Or no…. rather a, a…
“It’s a skull!!” shrieked Jeeter, jumping backward into Durstan and taking the both of them down into the piles of wet shavings. “A what?!!!” his friend screeched, and Jeeter struggled to wriggle himself out of Durstans’ grip—a bear hug that forced the breath from his lungs. Durstan might be neither bright nor especially large, but he surely made up for it in muscle.
Jeeter finally got himself separated and rolled up onto his knees, gasping and wheezing, only to see the lathe spinning down, with Remus trailing his fingers along a slender shaft that was all that remained of the once massive trunk. And much like the greater mass of the tree, the haunting vision produced by its tailings was lost. Remus slid back the tailstock and released the narrow shaft, breaking off either pared end and shaving the nubs smooth with a chisel, and he held it up to his eye to sight down its length.
“It’ll warp some as it dries,” he said, holding it out to Jeeter, “but this is what Caleb will be needing.” He raised his brow meaningfully. “Along with a telling of what you just saw from it.”
Remus was looking at him closely, and Jeeter gulped and nodded once. He climbed shakily to his feet and reached out a trembling hand for the stave.
Caleb LongShadow: Woods-Seer
Jeeter’s toe caught on a root hidden in the layer of decaying leaves and pine needles, and he stumbled forward into Durstan. As always, his friend seemed as planted as a hardwood with its roots sunk deep. Durstan turned and planted a palm on Jeeter’s chest and shoved hard, and Jeeter found himself testing the sponginess of the matted forest floor with the base of his spine. He scrambled to his feet, cursing and rubbing at his tailbone.
“Whatcher doin’ shovin’ me around like that, ya dunderhead?! This ain’t no play-time at the schoolyard!”
Durstan’s wild grin darkened. “You started it, now din’t ya? Tried ta knock me down!”
Jeeter thrust out his chest and stepped forward, but before he could verbally launch into his clueless cohort he picked up on the stern gaze directed his way by Caleb. The air let out of his posture.
“Err, ya ding-dang melon-head,” he mumbled, shuffling past Durstan’s stony pose, “—he closes his eyes an’ then wonders why he cain’t see…”
Caleb had resumed his long stride, and Jeeter double-stepped to catch up. “How much farther we gots ta go, there, Caleb?” he queried, hop-skipping sideways in an awkward gait and peering hopefully up at the Seer.
Caleb paused and glanced to either side. You can see that the lower-elevation softwoods are thinning out now, yes? We’re coming into the zone of the Mountain Ironwood, and by my reckoning the affected grove is not so far. And listen—” he stopped.
Jeeter tilted his head one way, and then another. He frowned. “What? I don’t hear nuthin’.”
“Exactly,” said Caleb. “Why do we hear no sounds of the forest—no insects buzzing or birds chirping or critters scurrying through the brush?”
“Uh, ‘cause our noisy traipsin’ is scarin’ ‘em off?” Jeeter glared pointedly at Durstan, who didn’t notice.
“That’s part of it, perhaps.” said Caleb. “But that’s not all of it.”
“I hear somethin’,” said Durstan. “Or, more like, I feel it.”
Caleb raised his brow appreciatively. “Very good, Durstan. I feel it also—just barely—in the soles of my feet. A low amplitude vibration,” he thumped his stave on the ground, “as if a distant herd of leviathans tramples the earth.”
Jeeter scowled. “I don’t hear nothin’.”
Durstan frowned. “Levi… lethivians?”
Caleb turned and resumed his stride, and in short time Jeeter had to admit that he could also feel the vibrations—increasingly so with every passing yards-length. He peered at the stave Caleb had slung across his back. “I still don’t understan’,” he murmured. “We’re goin’ after some bad folk jus’ fer cuttin’ down a tree?”
Caleb shook his head grimly. “Not just a tree, my friend; we are speaking of the decimation of an entire forest. And not just any forest. This was virgin forest, legacy hardwood that had never been harvested—not by anyone’s record. Old-growth, with the history of the land held in its roots. There remains far too little of that nowadays, here in the Eastern Realm.”
Jeeter frowned. “But if this no-account had rights t’ the land, couldn’t he do pretty much whatever he had a mind to with it?”
Caleb nodded sadly. “That is, for the most part, true. But there are two issues that set this instance apart from any more common misdeed based in nothing but greed. The first and lesser point is that the land which hosted the forest was not owned by any individual, but in times long past had been deeded over to everyone and to no one, with the stipulation that it be permanently inhabited by no creature wielding language or tools, and that the only wood ever harvested from it would be that which had fallen from natural cause.”
Durstan nodded. “Sounds fair enuff ta me. Tain’t much land left that don’t bear the scars of a two-man timber-saw.”
“Aye,” said Caleb. “None at all, now, I’d venture. But beyond the urgency of that broken pact looms a considerably more dangerous prospect—one that would appear to involve the Black Mage.”
Jeeter jerked to a halt with his jaw hanging, and when Caleb didn’t pause he scampered forward to block the seer’s path. “Caleb LongShadow,” he whispered, wringing his hands, “you knows you’s not s’posed to say, ah… you knows it’s bad t’ say that name out loud!”
Caleb chuckled ruefully. “That is myth, Jeeter; there’s no harm in speaking of the Black Mage.” Jeeter cringed, clamping his hands over both ears. “The grave danger,” continued Caleb, “is of the Mage itself.” He stepped past, and Jeeter scrambled to catch up.
“B-but…,” he stuttered, “the… the B-Black M-M-Mage is long dead—ain’t it? Fer censtrarys… uh… fer cent-sterarys… ah… fer hunerds a years now?” Jeeter had forced the cursed name of the mage out past thinly stretched lips, and he felt ill to his stomach for it.
Caleb nodded grimly. “True enough—or so we’d thought. But the legend has lived on, as have rumors of resurgence.”
“Rumors o’ re-what?” piped in Durstan.
For once, Jeeter ignored his friend’s fool-headed question. He clutched at Caleb’s sleeve. “Whaddya mean, Caleb? What we’re doin’here don’t have nothin’ to do with the B-Black Mage, does it? Cause there ain’t no Mage ta worry over, right?”
“Yes. Well, no. I mean, I don’t know. We approach Resolution Forest—or the remains of it—and that was the site of the final suppression of the Black Mage. There may have been only mage one by then; the accounts differ on that point. In any case, one or more of the last of the stygian sorcerers had taken refuge in the Forest, and that is where the Whites Knights of Calearn, aided by the magic of the white sorcerer Wirlis, tracked, and encircled, and finally, at huge cost, destroyed whatever remained of the nether Mage.”
“Res’lution Forest?” whispered Jeeter. “That’s where we’s goin’? Where the ground were soaked through wit’ blood and scattered wit’ bone? Where jus’ two o’ the comp’ny o’ Knights made it out alive, an’ even then lived hardly long enuff ta tell their tale?”
Caleb nodded grimly. “That’s where we’re going.”
Jeeter once again found himself planted in place, his feet wanting to slide backwards as if their path forward was a steep, muddy upslope. But in reality it was a very modest grade, and actually descending for the moment. Caleb strode purposely onward, with Durstan in tow and urgently gesturing for his friend to follow, and Jeeter gulped down what he dearly prayed was not one of his few remaining breaths and hustled to catch up.
The first clue beyond the odd vibration was a permeating stench, making Jeeter want to scrub at his nose and even consider a bath. It was not the stink of rotting carrion or of an open latrine trench, nor was it in fact any malodor that he could name. It did carry a strong suggestion of decay, though, and of great age. It festered with the cloying scent of someone who had teetered far too long at the brink of demise, whose cloudy eyes and wracked joints and bloody, toothless gums were good for nothing but pain and malaise.
There was also the sense of a blighted ruination, looming ever closer. The shadows became less deep even though no shafts of light cut through the forest canopy, and then the meandering game trail turned a corner and abruptly opened onto a very changed world. Jeeter trudged a few steps further and stumbled to a halt, not even noticing when Durstan bumped up behind.
The trees were gone, entirely; razed by what could be nothing but an instrument of depravity, with nothing remaining other than an occasional uprooted stump and a huge mound of ash and deep-glowing charcoal that smoldered in the center of the spreading atrocity. But perhaps even more astounding was the scattering of monstrous contraptions that lumbered over the churned soil, with plumes of black smoke roiling from their stacks; trundling track drives with rolling gouges that scooped loads of earth and stone and dumped them atop what would seem to be vibrating screens. Loose dirt and smaller debris fell through the sieves, and creatures that appeared to be over-sized and misshapen simians (if one did not look too closely) crouched around each screen platform, snatching larger rocks and roots and clods of dirt and flinging them away. While Jeeter watched dumbfounded one of the beasts snatched an item from the screen and began to chatter excitedly, and it scampered away to place whatever it had found in the hamper at the rear of the lumbering apparatus.
Jeeter’s mouth gaped. “What… are those? And what are they doing?”
Caleb’s gaze had fallen to the tilled soil. “They’re contrived and driven by the Dark Arts; that’s all we can be certain of. As to their purpose…” He knelt to sift through the loose soil, and he picked out a modest fragment of what looked like dark shale. He stood with it in his open palm, and a voice suddenly came from behind; a menacing rumble that even so seemed somehow lacking in substance. Jeeter squawked and spun in place.
“I see that you have found a sampling of what we labor here to recover,” it intoned darkly, further loosening the sockets of Jeeter’s knees. “It belongs to me in more ways than you might imagine—I would request that you relinquish it now.”
A shadow had fallen over the scene, though the sun still rode high in a cloudless sky, and the being that had somehow emerged unnoticed from the forest was vaguely man-like in stature, though half-again too large. He, or it, was clothed, or draped or however it should be phrased, in what appeared to be an absorptive shroud that allowed no light to reflect from its surface. A textured shadow; it seemed to Jeeter that he looked into the abyss of a nightmare, his darker fears exposed and enveloping him so completely that not even a breath of air might penetrate.
It was difficult to look upon, literally; Jeeter found that he could see next to nothing when staring directly at it. He had to look to either side to capture it vaguely in his periphery. Everything about the vision was wrong, and seeming to shift in and out of wavering focus. A brimmed cowl—which at certain moments appeared more of a carapace—shielded its head, and beneath that a shadowy void revealed nothing other than the suggestion of eyes that held a great and mesmerizing power in their almond glow. Jeeter’s heart was banging at his ribcage; he thought it likely to his benefit that he was unable to look directly into those cold glowing eyes.
Caleb closed his fingers over the object and slipped the hand into a pocket, shrugging his shoulders as if he had no other choice in the matter. Jeeter thought that he must be imagining the scene; he couldn’t believe that the Seer appeared calm and composed— personally, he would have been halfway home if his legs hadn’t turned to water above lead anchors for feet. The vision elicited a strangely dark, compelling urgency in Jeeter’s chest; terror laced with desire, horror imbued with excitement. His eyes stung fiercely but he was unable to shut or even blink them.
“What has happened here?” asked Caleb mildly. “One of the Realm’s greatest treasures has been forever lost with the destruction of these ancient woodlands.”
The vision seemed to shimmer; perhaps surprised at the absence of fear demonstrated by this most presumptuous woods-sooth?
“The forest was of no consequence,” it rumbled, “when weighed against what lay hidden within. Surely even a base mortal such as yourself might intuit the magnitude of what he bears witness to? This marks the first perfect balance between the countering forces—the lull of darkness and the salve of light—since that day three centuries past when Blacke Sorcerer Alon Malagar was immolated. But what you would have no way of knowing is that Malagar’s demise was purposeful, his own choice, and that over the span since that moment Malagar has labored, in the formless Realm of the Dark Lord, to more effectively reshape himself in preparation for an ever greater rising—on this very day.”
Another chill rattled Jeeter as he realized that, unlike his perceptive problems regarding this denizen of the nether-world, he had no difficulty whatsoever looking directly upon the ape-like creatures. The huge tilling contraptions had chugged to a standstill and the shrieking, howling beasts had climbed down and were now converging like a band of toughs intent upon a good beating. His heart nearly seized when he got a good look at their glowing red eyes and the fangs protruding over their hairy muzzles. He tugged at Caleb but the sooth didn’t seem to notice.
“A greater rising, you say?” mused Caleb, shaking his head. “That is not normally accomplished by wasting the land. Has it not gone well for you so far?”
“Foolish human,” its chortle was like a receding thunderstorm. “You seek to goad me into revealing any smidgeon of knowledge that might be turned against my purpose? That is not an issue, for it no longer matters what you do or do not know, and if you hope that the small fragment of bone that you’ve secreted away will make a difference, let me assure you that it will not. I have already recovered more than enough of my mortal remains to fuel my new ascendance. There was only one critical finding,” he held up a blackened skull with open, mocking eye-sockets, “and I have possessed that for some time now. I have only continued the search to keep my nasty-tempered minions busy while awaiting the moment of actualization.”
Jeeter was certain that he’d seen something move within the empty skull, but how could he imagine to see a shadow within a void?
The beasts had now gathered around full-circle, and they darted in and out, teasingly, singly or in groups, grunting and screeching and thumping their fists on their chests and on one another. Jeeter’s knees folded under his quavering weight but Durstan caught him from behind and stood him up on wobbly legs. Caleb reached into an inner pocket and withdrew a leather pouch, emptying the contents into one hand, and he spun in place, sending out a glittery arc in a circle around their position. The nether beast roared, and Jeeter clamped his hands over both ears and squinted through tearing eyes.
Suddenly they were surrounded by a circle of pale chimera, appearing as shadows on a reversed negative, and as the revenants swept outward the apelike creatures screeched and leapt away, catching at and running over one another in their haste to disappear into the falling darkness of the forest.
“You presume that by utilizing meager remnants of Wirlis’ fair sorcery you will deter Alon Malagar from his resurrection?” snarled the apparition. “Think again, fool. You’ve come here with the apparent intent of warding off my resurrection, here to the apex of the Dark Arts, but the irony is that you have instead facilitated my quest.” He bellowed out a laugh, and Jeeter grimaced at the thunderous aural barrage that literally pressed him backward.
“You see, foolish man, you are the last piece of the puzzle. My rebirth requires a death from the ranks of the Light, and as the Augury has foretold, you have come to be offered to the Dark Lord as my sacrifice, that I might again willfully herald his baleful prophesy!”
He swept his arms wide, sweeping a closing blanket of darkness over the scene, and Jeeter gagged on the worsening stench. He pulled a kerchief from a pocket and pressed it over his mouth and nose, and struggled to force his disconnected feet to run.
“Jeeter!” bellowed Durstan, and Jeeter darted his gaze to his friend, but Durstan was not looking at him, he was instead gawping at his own feet, his face contorted into a mask of sheer horror. Jeeter looked down, and with a vile, burning knot rising in his throat he rea