Laertes frowns. The pressure of sickness in his throat threatens to overwhelm him--it feels as though the floor has collapsed beneath him, and he's falling. "He told me that these meetings were remembrances," he says. "That ... that they were speaking of the lives and works of those musicians. Ensuring that their voices lived on. I offered to learn their songs, as well, and he was quick enough to bring me music--"

And then he had told Laertes of how Gaheris had butchered his mother while she lay abed with Lamorak, and spoken of all the men he'd killed and forgotten.

"--he asks Asmodean to tell him of what he did to them," Laertes realizes.