“Frank, hunched against a bastard wind knifing in off the Irish Sea, isn’t sure at first where the sound is coming from. It’s barely light and a soft insistent hiss sits below the whining gale, like white-noise feedback at song’s end. He leans a little closer and realises the source is sand rattling against the charred skin stretched tom-tom tight across the dead man’s face.”

“It's--my God--like you stretched a tarp across a stadium to turn it into a giant tom-tom and crashed a 747 into it.”

“Outside, the north wind, coming and passing, swelling and dying, lifts the frozen sand drives it a-rattle against the lidless windows and we may dear sit stroking the cat stroking the cat and smiling sleepily, prrrr.”

“Hey, it’s a party already,” Trez called out as he and iAm arrived. “Oh, nice tux. Isn’t that Tom Ford?”“Or was it Dick Chrysler,” Rhage interjected. “Harry GM—wait, that sounds dirty….”

“The first impression scares the shit out of me, but it’s breathtaking, too, like when you push off a cliff and feel the wind against your face. At that point, you’re not thinking of anything but free fall.”

“Eldest, that's what I am. Mark my words, my friends: Tom was here before the river and the trees; Tom remembers the first raindrop and the first acorn. He made paths before the Big People, and saw the Little People arriving. He was here before the Kings and the graves and the Barrow-wights. When the Elves passed westward, Tom was here already, before the seas were bent. He knew the dark under the stars when it was fearless - before the Dark Lord came from Outside.”