"Stop." said the voice of Nii.

Turning, Beet asked, "Why?"

"The passage ends."

So it did.  Before them loomed a gnarled wall, almost as if it were the trunk of a tree.  The small blue light glinted on bark.  Suddenly, the ambient light intensified and the wall was revealed to be a pair of immensely thick roots.  The two columns parted to form a doorway through which the faerie beckoned.

"Welcome to my home", she said.

As the party passed beneath the portal they were surrounded by pitch darkness.  When the last of the Pimi-Mele entered the nightly room the wall resealed itself behind them and even the scintillating tunnel light was hidden.  For a moment they feared being trapped beneath the earth, but an instant later their whole world changed.

Sight was the first sense to be overwhelmed.  An intense light filled the room, though room was a weak description of the place.  There were no walls around them, no ceiling above.  Below was a vast expanse of ever changing coloured light.  A thin mist was all that seemed to support them, yet they did not fall.

As their eyes grew tolerant of the illumination, they began to hear a faint sound.  The more they strained, the more they could discern.  People talking.  Children laughing.  Women and warriors crying.  The sound of death and hope.  Their ears beheld a myriad of sounds all around them as though a thousand people with a thousand experiences had something to whisper.

Smoke.  The smell of burning timber drifted past them.  Beet remembered his island home and how often he would listen to the night birds while the elders tended the village fire.  A sickening smell interrupted the reverie, the smell of burning flesh.  Beet and all others looked around but could not see the source.  More scents drifted close.  Dry grass.  Brittle branches.  A sandy wind.  Then death.  Only once before had Beet smelled that odour, but it was from an animal.  This originated unmistakably from the bodies of people.  Many had fallen.

Finally, the group noticed that something was approaching them.  A host of armed soldiers.  Each carried a strange contraption on their shoulders.  The sound of their march grew and the smell of their armour and sweat met the company.  A hut appeared before them.  Within was a family of four, two parents and two young boys.  All seemed terribly starved.  Then the soldiers descended upon them.  Snow filled the air, blinding them.  Cold winds tore at the flesh and abused the ears with cries of the wind that had seen the world’s horrors.  When the air cleared enough they saw the landscape changed.  The hut remained, but it was covered thickly in snow.  It had been long abandoned.  Fallen trees and broken farm equipment marked the passage of the army they had seen.  Before them lay four grim mounds in the snow, two long, two short.  Fear gripped them.

"What world is this?" cried Beet.

A faint blue light coalesced above the snowy graves.  The faerie made herself visible to all.  Her eyes showed that she bore a great burden.  Under a broken voice, she said, "Let me tell you my story and perhaps you will better understand."