takes several hours from the time of your death on Earth until you wake in the Hall of Wandering Souls. It was meant to be a place of peace and welcoming for Humans until Judoc and his minions took it over, somehow. Their commitment to Anithistor has a mysterious history that I haven't quite figured out, myself, but I know they came during the war, about the time you were born.”
“What about Humans?” Silas asked. “Why can they not reproduce, but the Stühocs can?”
“Because the Stühocs came here by their own choice,” Silandrin said. “The Humans did not.”
Silas raised an eyebrow at this. His heart began to beat harder in anticipation of what he was about to hear. One of his grandfather’s goals in his life in Marenon was to find out why Humans were there at all, and the Gatekeeper was about to tell him.
Silandrin looked down at his hands in shame. “You and all the other Humans are here because of my curiosity,” he said. “Part of me wishes I had never made the Blue Gate. When I made it, I had no idea I would be stepping into your world on Earth. When I got there, I lived among your people, and studied them. I knew that the Humans could help Marenon, but I could find few that were willing to come back with me. Most in your world thought of me as a lunatic. That’s when I made the treacherous mistake.” He sighed, and then continued. “I sent out my servants, or phantoms if you will. In your world they are invisible, but I sent them with the task to gather in all those who could help Marenon. They were directed to do this until they judged their work to be finished. The purpose was to mark these people so that when they died on Earth, they could live again in Marenon. But the touch had an unintended effect. When the phantoms chose people, they were giving them a mark of death. Every person that was touched soon died before his or her appointed time. Humans began coming in by the hundreds, and through the years became a large part of Marenon’s population, though they could never reproduce. My phantoms also didn’t always select good people. Some were vile criminals, who only thought of themselves. It was a terrible mistake that I could not undo. I have been responsible for placing the mark of death on so many people from your world. It was never meant to happen that way.”
Silas sat silently. He couldn’t believe that all of the Humans were there by an accident. The Gatekeeper had been thoughtless and played with the lives of people who needed to be left alone.
Silandrin turned a tearful eye toward Inga. “Because of me, you died so young. If it were not for my actions, you would have lived. You might still be alive with your family.”
Inga bent her head low, not knowing what to say. What was there to say? He had killed her and abandoned her. The wrongs he had committed against her were nearly unforgivable.
“Why didn’t you stop your phantoms?” Silas said. “Why didn’t you just call them back?”
“I couldn’t,” Silandrin answered. “Once given a task, the phantoms work until that task is complete. I sent them with the purpose of gathering those that could help Marenon, and they continued to gather people by the hundreds, for thousands of years. That is, until Kaden killed you. You were the last person to step out of the Hall of Wandering Souls.”
“There were people in line behind me,” Silas said.
The Gatekeeper shook his head. “None of the Humans behind you ever stepped foot into Marenon. You were the last to come through the Hall, and since then, the phantoms have stopped gathering. I suppose when you died, they considered you all the help Marenon needed from the Humans.”
“What about the Erellen Prophecy about me?” Silas asked. “When did that come into play?”
“It’s not truly an Erellen prophecy,” Silandrin said. “It was my own prophecy.” He took another sip of his tea, gathering his thoughts. “One night after trying to figure out how to fix the problem I had caused, I fell asleep and had a dream. It was a very vivid dream, not like a normal one. These dreams had come to me in the past, and had given me glimpses of what was to come, but this one seemed much graver. This dream told of a