Straton’s people in the raid on the Stepsons’ old barracks. The two of them, with Harran’s little dog Tyr, and Ischade as guide on the road, had gone down and begged his life of hell’s dark Queen, and (rather to their surprise) had gotten it.
The arrangement was peculiar. Harran (playing the barber even past death) had picked up the wounded soul of a mind-dead body, so that his own soul had somewhere to live again. The Queen had let them all out of hell on condition that from now on they should divide Harran’s hell-sentence among them, and take death in shifts. Tyr was in hell presently, enjoying herself a great deal, to judge by the vague impressions Siveni occasionally received. Hell’s Queen had made a pet of her. But how the rest of the arrangement would function now -even if it was still intact-Siveni had no idea. Hell’s gate was closed. The magics that had made Ischade free of the place were severely curtailed since the loss of the Globes of Power.
And heaven’s gate, it seemed, was closed, too; the Ilsig gods were locked away from the world by Stonnbringer’s sudden terrible assertion of power. Originally,
Siveni’s plan and Mriga’s had been to take Harran straight back to heaven with them, to her tall, fair temple-house in the country beyond the world’s time. But they had dallied too long in the mortal world, while Harran got his bearings and got used to his new body… and then one night had awakened to find that heaven’s gate was shut on them, and no way back. They were marooned….