We sit surrounded by people whom days ago I might have tried to kill. Strange as this may seem, it is comforting to know that we are bonded by one experience which we all share, even if it is an experience which could easily have led to certain death. There are six of us now, out of the original twenty-four, and each of us looks more tired than the other in our own way. I think the truth may be that some of these people are on the very brink of death.

"Your people," says Evora. "Do they say more about that boy? Or is that the end of the story?"

"In Craorag, we say that a story only ends with death; that we are nothing but a combination of tale, ink and paper rather than flesh and blood. That being said, very few people know of this boy's story."

Evora shrugs, although disappointment is clear as her face as the first cloud of shadow on an otherwise beautiful sunset. "Very few people know of this boy's story," I repeat, "but I am one."

I see a few eyes come towards me as I begin to speak, something which does not come as a surprise to me. Throughout history, man has bonded over stories. At first it was created when the first men would sit around fires, telling hushed whispers of moments of their hunt to keep the others interested. They feared that if their neighbours were to grow bored of them, they would not wake the next day, and so, much like a princess in a tale or another, they told stories in the hope that it would prolong their death. I am sure that many of these others - even Tigaern, who I can see subtly watching us in the distance - must think of this story, yet unknown to them, as a means of procrastinating their thoughts of their potential deaths when the morrow comes.

"After his run-in with Death Itself, the boy had realized that what frightened him more than possibly anything in the world was to come face to face with Death once again. Though he had seen no cloaked figure and no skeletal shape, he felt a presence, almost like a weight, pulling him further and further into the ground. His feet sank no further than they were meant to, and yet with each step his heart skipped a beat as he was haunted by the possibility that the next step could drag him through the earth itself and into the realm of the dead, from which no man ever escaped.

"The boy became obsessed with this idea, and soon it was as though each day he lived, his shoulders succumbed a bit more under the weight of his life - or rather, of the fact that his life was not eternal. As each moment passed and he grew more and more fearful of what was to come, he passed every moment dreaming of a means by which he could escape his fate."

The sun has begun to set in the sky, painting it so many colours that it is impossible for me to see each one; when one spends their life in the shadows, anything else begins to feel blurry to them, and so these rays of colours and lights have very little distinction in my mind. Elspeth seems to be fascinated with them - I have gathered that she is the type of person to see each wonder as though it is brand new to this world - and many others keep a watchful eye on it. For a moment, I wish that I could see the world as they do, but there are certain prices one must pay in order to achieve greatness.

"Finally, when his thirteenth birthday came, the boy learned of a man who lived deep within the jungles of Craorag. The Old God, they called him, for it was rumoured that he had lived now for a hundred and fifty years and that the gods himself had granted him with the secret to eternal life. That night, as the world around him slept, the boy snuck out of his home, never to return, and set out to seek The Old God himself. For surely, if one man could find a way to live forever, he could pass his wisdom on to another, younger man, and this notion was enough to propel the boy passed horrors he could not have imagined.

"As each day passed he found himself going deeper and deeper into the jungle, with nothing but an albatross to keep him company. This albatross, though a majestic beast in the skies, had, on the first day, decided to land on his shoulders, and from that day it had hunted for him and shown him to water, guiding him in a direction which the boy hoped was the lair of the man. And when the panthers, jaguars, and other such creatures which lived within the jungles of Craorag came to hunt the boy, they saw the albatross and they turned over for reasons that the boy could not understand.

"After three long weeks of trekking through the jungle and sleeping only for a few hours a night, the boy, exhausted, finally reached a cabin dead in the centre of the jungle, made entirely of wood and far less grand than he had dreamed. As he stepped towards it, the albatross on his shoulder began to panic, letting out shrieks the boy had not known that the beast could produce. This sound was so frightened - so full of panic - that the boy wondered if perhaps The Old God was not a monster himself, and that he might have done all this travelling for no reason at all. And a man came out of the cabin, a bow in his hand with an arrow loaded ever so slightly, and now fear grew both within the boy and within the albatross."

"Please tell me that the bird doesn't die," says Elspeth. "I can't handle a sad story right now."

"A true storyteller does not reveal the ending of their story," I tell her, watching as she retreats ever so slightly. The thing with humans which is most amusing, it seems, is that no matter its veracity, once an idea comes to our mind, it is impossible for us to shake it. "When he left his house, the old man walked towards the boy, each step set with such determination that it felt as though the man was moving the world towards him rather than merely walking. As he approached, the albatross flew into the sky, shrieking now so loudly that it felt impossible to hear anything but this deathly noise. And yet each word said by one, the other could hear better than they ever had. It was clear to both that the air around them sparkled and cracked with magic much as it does with electricity before a thunderstorm.

"'How do I live forever? asked the boy, whose voice was shaking with a mix of fear and apprehension which he had never felt before.

"'To live forever,' said the man, 'one must not die. To become immortal, one must cast aside what it is that stems the very roots of their mortality.'

"'And how do I do that?' he asked.

"'Shoot the bird.'

"In that moment, the albatross seemed to shift shapes at the speed of light, and yet every image it showed remained engraved in the boy's mind. His mother; his father; his friends; the simple life he had lived back in his home; each image that had made him who he was seemed to be reflected within the albatross. But the very last image he saw, just as he was about to decide that perhaps he did not need to run from Death after all, was of the day where Death had almost come to claim him as its own, and upon seeing that image the boy decided that he had to hide after all. So he took the bow, loaded the arrow, and sent it flying into the bird."

Elspeth lets out a noise not unlike that which I imagine the albatross may have made when the arrow pierced its neck, and for a moment I think she might fait until I see Cyprus put a hand on her shoulder. This seems to have snapped everyone from the trance of the story, and fear begins to creep back into their hearts much like darkness always creeps into the light and light into darkness. Eyes flip back towards me, waiting for me to continue.

"'I have never held a bow or an arrow in my life', said the boy. 'How is it that I managed to shoot it perfectly?'

"'The albatross was never real, my son,' is the man's reply. 'It was a part of your mind - a projection of your life. All you ever needed to do was choose to let it go with both the good things and the bad. It was impossible for you to miss.'

"And so the boy dropped the arrow as he realized that his life was now his own, freed by the knowledge that nevermore would he have to feel Death and its icy grips waiting just a few feet below for him to buckle under the weight of his life."

"But did the boy truly live forever?" asks Evora. "Or was it all a hoax?"

The sun has now set. The world is coated in shadows bit by bit, and it seems as though my fellow mages have forgotten the threats that lurk in tonight, waiting only for the sun to rise and expose them. When the morrow comes and we find ourselves face to face with this mythical Death, which is said to await us all, some of us will be his; this is a fact which is far from being lost on me.

"That, I must admit, I do not know."