Before the sun rose, Slade awoke and began her morning patrol. After the chaos that had erupted during the night, she was tired. Though her mind was sharp, her body needed to awaken. So she grabbed Holan, summoned a spark and galloped around the circumference of The Gash, making sure to stay a good distance away from it. Nobody knew what caused echoes, nor did she think there was any tremendous danger in them. But her instincts told her to stay clear, especially after last night's events.

She established a path to her spark and using imaging, she took control of it. Suddenly, she was in two places at once: She was riding on Holan's back with the damp wind chilling her wings, but she was also an orb of light that defied gravity. Two visions, superimposed onto each other, shared a space in her mind. A third joined the other two when she summoned a second spark. As she galloped across The Gash's perimeter, she sent them to her left and right, closing her eyes so her own vision would not interfere.

She sent the first spark high up into the air until it gave her a zerok's view. She saw herself riding on Holan's back, a dark shape galloping against the morning gloom. The second spark, she sent across the lake, scanning it for signs of anything unusual, diving underwater when she saw movement, inspecting a rock when something looked “off”.

To the average person, imaging was a notoriously difficult art. It took many years for an individual to learn how to hold just one path in their mind. Even then, that is all they would learn, no matter how hard they tried. If one could learn up to five paths, they were considered a master. Slade can hold thirteen paths, albeit with some diminished control over each individual part. So being in three places at once was no challenge for her.

Another spark zipped across the lake toward her from the encampment. She did not know who it belonged to, but she sent hers out to meet it. They stopped next to each other. She made hers do a playful little dance, the other one did not react. Then they both went on their way. As she continued to weave it between the rocks, her other spark scanned the surrounding land. It was a redundant role, considering the scouts that patrolled during the night. Even Madeen, who flew past her spark as a blur of feathers, gave aid.

By the time Slade returned to the encampment, everybody was packing up. She brought Holan to the edge of the marshes and stopped, staring out at them. Somewhere in the distance, The Stillwater's domain began. By all accounts, she should have been killed so many years ago. But it had not taken her nor her brother. She could see her parents floating face down, then dragged beneath the water never to be seen again. Even their blood had been slurped up by the depths. But Slade remained.

I’m here again, Lepin, she thought, this is where we were born.

Lepin...he was gone. They had tried to survive as orphaned wanderers. But they were but bags of bones scraping the alleyways of Tahlkin for food. Slade remembered everything; the promises she had made, his incessant crying, the streaks of blue on his face when he succumbed to the Bane. She wasn’t sure which had killed him first; the starvation or the madness. Either way, she had promised to protect him. She had failed.

Anytime she saw somebody dying from the Bane, she saw her brother's snout. She remembered holding him in her arms, his blood soaking her clothes, bones jabbing her ribs. He had screamed of nightmares, of twisted faces rising from the ground and burrowing into his skin. She could do nothing except watch him die in terror. It was a nightmare she secretly relived every time she saw the signs. Everybody died from it. Everybody except Vincent. Why?

She continued to gaze toward the bogs before frowning and heading back to the encampment. Vincent was up now, complaining as usual, muttering expletives in his local dialect. She noticed that he only switched to Meldohn if he was addressing one of them. But when he muttered to himself, he spoke in the language of “Earth”. He was completely unaware of the change, but Slade was already beginning to learn bits of his language.

***

For the second time in two days, Vincent had to drug himself to get some sleep. When he was awoken the next morning, it was hard to believe that hours before, this place had been a place of terror. The lake that filled the rift looked brackish, yet comparatively serene. A few birds coasted along the surface of the water looking for fish to catch. Other than the harshness in which the rift had been gouged into the land, nothing looked overtly sinister.

“Eat quick,” Menik said, “put on your armor, then get ready to go.”

“Where is it?” Vincent asked.

“On my mount.”

As the skyline brightened, Vincent watched as the soldiers quickly prepared the caravan for the trek through the marshes. They wrapped the wagons' wheels with bundles of zerok feathers and tied large, baggy, multilayered burlap “socks” around the hooves of every landrider, stuffing the layers with a cotton-like material. Slade stood at the threshold of the marshes, staring at them. When she noticed he was watching her, she said nothing and went back to work preparing Holan for the journey.

“So that's the Stillwater?” Vincent asked, nodding toward the glimmering bodies of water only about a hundred yards away.

“No,” Menik answered, “The Stillwater is usually further in. But I would not touch those waters.”

“Well...I think we should get the hell out of here. I'm not superstitious or anything, but I really don't want to spend too much time near a haunted lake. Wait...what do you mean 'usually'? It moves?”

“Where these marshes end and The Stillwater begins, changes friend. We’ll have to tread carefully.”

The expedition headed toward the shimmering waters in the distance. Though nobody said anything, there was tension in the air. Everybody kept staring out at the marshes and gripping their saddles. There were a few murmurs between the riders, but the conversations were mute and superficial. Everybody except for Vincent seemed to be approaching the marshes with a certain amount of dread, as though their waters could be more terrifying than the freak show that happened the night before. Sperloc had spoken of waters that wouldn’t “let you go” once you submerged a hand in them.

“These are not them,” Slade whispered as they passed the first of many small puddles. The wet ground squelched beneath the landriders’ mighty feet. “We will not reach it until noon.” Vincent wasn’t sure if she was talking to them or herself. She seemed a bit distracted.

As the sun rose into the sky, the clouds began to clear, allowing the rays to pass through and heat the marsh. Vortexes of blue flies whirled around increasingly stagnant ponds. Schools of fish darted back and forth between reeds of thick grass. Murky shapes slithered and ducked as the expedition passed them by. Blue and yellow flowers gathered together in floating clusters, occasionally flanked by large orange blooms. It was not a marsh as he knew it. There was plenty of solid land to walk on, it was just very wet. When Vincent heard of The Stillwater, he imagined something more sinister, an eerie swampland with dead colorless trees, waters filled with monstrosities that would devour him whole. Yet what he saw so far was actually quite serene.

There were tall plants with clear orbs on their blooms instead of petals, large-leafed specimens with vibrant blue veins in their leaves, bushes that yielded clusters of sky-blue berries that hung like chandeliers above the water. It was not a place he would associate with terror. So far, the worst thing about the marshes leading up to the Stillwater was the heat and humidity. As the sun rose higher into the sky, it quickly turned the wetlands into a damn steam room. This was going to suck. He was wearing padded armor. He was going to be cooked alive.

The La'ark kept stopping and looking around with a scowl on her face. In her hand she held a stick long enough to reach the ground. Occasionally, a pond would catch her interest, then either she or one of her subordinates would carefully approach it and prod it with a stick. When she didn’t find what she was looking for, she would gesture to the escort to continue onward. She repeated this several times, halting the progression to an agonizing pace.

“The hell is she doing?” Vincent whispered.

“We are close,” Sperloc grumbled, “The La'ark has traveled through The Stillwater many times. She knows its waters better than anybody in Meldohv. So, she is testing them.”

Vincent looked around at the others to read their faces. The shandan maintained their composure. The La'ark brought the expedition to a sudden halt.

“She found it,” Sperloc said.

She ordered somebody to approach a small body of water, no more than ten feet across. There was nothing different about this pond that separated it from the rest, as far as Vincent could initially tell. Yet the soldier approached it cautiously, as if it were a sleeping beast. He took the stick he was holding, and he dipped the tip beneath the surface. He gave it several tugs, then he let the stick go. Though the edge of the pond should have been inches deep at most and even though the stick was taller than the soldier was, its entire length disappeared into the water. Vincent felt his stomach sinking with the stick. Satisfied at what he saw, the soldier nodded at The La'ark. She turned toward them.

“Beyond this threshold, The Stillwater begins,” she said, projecting her voice for everybody to hear. “If you are low on drinking water, replenish it now. If you are hungry, eat now. Once we pass this threshold, there must be no speech, only hand signals. But most importantly, under no circumstance must you, or your mount, touch the water. Even the tiniest puddle can become a trap. If you touch the water, you will lose that limb. If you fall into it, you are dead.”

“Keep your eyes and your ears alert,” she continued, staring at each of them. “All the ponds past this threshold are silent and still. This is what we want. If you see any move, if you see even the slightest ripple, you stop immediately. Wait for the water to stop moving before you continue. We do not want it to become 'aware' of our passage.”

She seemed to imply the marsh was capable of some sort of sentience. Menik tried to hand Vincent a canteen, but he kept staring at the spot where the stick disappeared.

“What is the matter with you?” Sperloc asked, “your snout is drained.”

“What?” Vincent said.

“It means you are scared,” Menik said, “here...drink. You’re going to need it.”

Vincent looked at Sperloc, then at Menick, took the canteen and stared back at the pond. “I have thalassophobia,” he muttered and took a drink.

“Tha...thalass...” Menik stumbled over the pronunciation.

“I'm...terrified of deep water. Always have been.”

“You came to the wrong place then,” Sperloc grumbled, “nobody knows how deep each pond is. Nothing comes back out of them. Even a puddle as wide as the palm of my hand will devour a stick like that.”

When they were ready, The La'ark's mount moved forward, and they followed. A light breeze tickled the nape of Vincent's neck, lifting his mane in front of his face. Birds chirped in the distance and the life of the marsh splashed in distant bogs. Yet when Menik's beast passed the pond, all of that stopped. The wind simply ceased to exist, the birds stopped chirping. In its place was a silence so deafening, it made Vincent flinch.

“Wha–” His own voice sounded harsh in a world devoid of sound. The marsh seemed to absorb his utterance from the very air itself. He was left swallowing in a vain effort to pop his ears. But still, the silence remained unbroken, save for the wet sound of landriders trampling the grass underfoot. Other than the staggering stillness of the marsh, he could discern no change in the environment itself. The plants were still lush, the flowers were still vibrant and colorful, it was only the water itself that seemed...off.

To his right was the pond the soldier had tested. The water that filled it had an unnerving stillness to it. Absent were the small eddies and tiny ripples associated with even the loneliest bodies of water. The pond's surface was as smooth as polished glass. Vincent looked to his left and right and noticed more bodies of water with the exact same solitude to them. It was as though the marsh itself were trapped in some sort of stasis.

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The expedition communicated with a combination of wing and hand gestures as they navigated around these silent sloughs, cautiously scrutinizing every step their landriders took. They carefully maneuvered the wagons, whose feather-covered wheels were now mudlogged. They took extreme measures to put as much distance between them and the shores that flanked their path.

Upon closer inspection of the motionless water and the plants that bordered it, Vincent noticed something peculiar. Many of the plants bordering the ponds had many broken and withered stems on the sides that faced the water. Those that were not broken and withered were bent at severe angles, with their ends trapped beneath the water's surface, as if The Stillwater itself was trying to slurp the grass like noodles into its impenetrable depths.

The escort proceeded as if they took part of a funeral procession, as though every step carried with it the promise of death. The silence was disorienting, and the stillness of the water was uncanny. But other than the blaring heat, it could almost be peaceful. That was until Vincent took a glimpse into one of the ponds. Light refused to penetrate more than a few inches below the surface, then it simply yielded to darkness, as though the water itself had bored a hole into bottomless depths. He felt a trill of panic in his chest and looked away. He clung to the saddle and wanted to lean in as close to it as possible. The water called to him.

They trudged further into the domain of The Stillwater as the sun bore down on their backs. The breeze that had kept Vincent to tolerable levels, was now completely absent. His eyes stung with perspiration and the grime of the marsh clung to his skin. Ponds glimmered in the distance like a thousand shards of broken glass, mirrors blinding him with the sun's reflected light. He took refuge under his own wings, sheltering his head from the sweltering radiance. But it did very little good, as the humidity of the bog was a good conductor of heat. He was choking on it. He was being snuffed out. The sauna stifled his thoughts, leaving him yearning for just a gust of wind.

As they penetrated the stillness of the marsh, the dread of the escort infected him, combining with his primal dread of deep water. One pit into nothingness appeared after the other and the longer he looked at them, the stillness of the water seemed...just plain wrong. It had no energy to flow, to ripple, to splash or evaporate. If water could die, this is what it would look like. He was staring at its silent corpse.

The persistent silence began to eat away at his nerves. It made him more paranoid and twitchy. The marsh was holding its breath, waiting for something to happen. It left him with a constant ring in his ears, a consistent, merciless screaming tinnitus which seemed to grow louder by the second. Never before in his life had a desolate silence been so loud and deafening.

He could hear his heart thumping inside his chest, the saliva of his mouth sloshing between his tongue and cheeks, the click of his bones as he wiped away the sweat from his brow. Every noise became harsher, grating at his nerves until he wanted to snap. The trudging of the landriders sounded like desecrated corpses, the turning wagon wheels were a fiery locomotive. His panting sounded like the gasping of the stormspawn. When Menik turned around and shoved a canteen into his lap, he almost yelped. He took it, quenched his thirst. It took a lot of willpower not to empty it.

The expedition was passing a rather large pool of water. In the distance, something splashed into it. Everybody immediately froze at the sound. He turned his head in time to see a single ripple traveling across the glossy surface of the pond. It was alone and it moved slowly, a single arc scanning the water. When it touched the surface, there was no rebound. The pond resumed its frozen poise. There was a series of silent gestures between The La'ark and the shandan.

“She is wondering if anybody happened to see what caused that ripple. Did you see anything?” Menik whispered, apparently translating the sign language.

“No,” Vincent whispered. He was trying his best not to look at it and imagine plunging into that darkness.

“Neither did I.”

Menik communicated his answer back to Akhil, who in turn, communicated it to The La'ark. Judging from her expression, she did not like it one bit. But she gave the order to proceed with extra caution. Vincent's mind conjured the image of a large beast lurking just below the surface. If only he could just see past the reflections of the water. But the pond denied his sight unless he was looking almost straight down at it, reflecting only the shore and sky with almost as much efficiency as a mirror.

The expedition traveled further into The Stillwater without any disturbances for a while until The La'ark brought them to another stop. Vincent didn’t know why until he saw a second ripple coming toward them, traveling along a figure-8 shaped body. Again, nobody saw the source of the ripple, just a rolling undulation that rose several inches into the air and disappeared into the mud when it hit the shore.

Perhaps it was Vincent's growing paranoia, but after this disturbance, the motionless pools became more frequent and the amount of land that a landrider was capable of traveling seemed to decrease. The paths between ponds became narrower and infrequent, forcing them to travel single file. Several times, The La'ark had to stop and force the escort to backtrack because she encountered an impassable lake. Every now and then, a zerok flying above them would beam suggestions, providing alternate routes.

A third splash occurred in a small pond while Vincent was looking at it. The water had been completely still. Then for no reason, it sputtered violently, spraying droplets up into the air as if a large invisible boulder had been tossed into the middle. The shore sloshed several times before the water slowed down to its former stasis. A single ripple, shared among several adjacent ponds, traveled along their waters despite being separated by land, as if the other ponds had experienced the disturbance. When it disappeared into their shores, it would reappear unbroken among pools further off. From there, it traveled into the distance until it could no longer be seen.

This caused Vincent to call the integrity of the land into question, as if they were simply walking on a network of bridges that spanned a hidden underwater abyss. In his mind’s eye, he saw a bottomless void below the crust upon which the expedition walked, a circular chasm that would entrap them forever. The heat neutralized his phobia to an extent, but the terror in his gut felt like a boulder and made him sway with vertigo.

There was more sputtering, an angry spewing of water from a pond next to Tuls. In fact, it wasn’t even a pond, but rather a puddle small enough for a child to step over. What startled Vincent was how hidden it had been. If it had not splashed, it would have remained unseen among the tall grass that flanked it. They encountered more of these hidden traps as they proceeded. Thick vines joined the usual vegetation, crawling along the ground like hundreds of roots. They grew denser as the escort proceeded along their path. In some places, they choked out the shrubbery and bushes until they were the only thing which covered the landscape.

A pool hid under a network of these growths and Akhil's landrider almost fell into it when it stepped on them. His mount's foot touched the edge of the water. When it pulled away, the water tore off a chunk of its sock. So that was what they were for: sacrificial material. The feathers on the wagon wheels and the socks on the landriders served to provide a barrier to protect them from Stillwater's grip, designed specifically to break away if any made contact.

Deciding it was too dangerous to travel on such land, The La'ark consulted the zerok flying above and ordered the biggest backtracking yet. It screwed up the order of their procession and Vincent began to curse under his breath. He was tired, sweaty, his skin itched, his eyes stung, his back ached, and he wanted to get the hell out of this death trap. To make matters worse, though several hours had passed, the sun seemed to stay where it had been when they had entered the marsh as if they were trapped in a perpetual state of noon.

Everywhere he looked, these waters called to him, beckoning him like sirens. The ringing tinnitus in his ears were their cry. He could not stand it, he could not stand the pain of his skull trying to reject the constant screech. He purposefully scratched his ears to counteract the noise, but the gesture was as harsh as a sandstorm in the silence.

Get it over with, he mouthed, as if the lakes could read his lips. Stop toying with us.

They stretched for miles and miles, without end. Yet the open silence made him feel claustrophobic and trapped. He wanted to scream, he wanted to swear.

They found a narrow path that stretched between the two largest lakes they had encountered yet. Each was big enough to span several acres. Like the lesser pools that surrounded them, the solidness of their reflections denied insight into their depths unless one got close enough. They reflected the sky above with such clarity, that Vincent felt the tangibility of the land being questioned. Which one was real, and which one was the reflection? All he saw was glass, not water, just glass, two large mirrors aimed at the sky.

In the middle of the lake to his right was a small island, no more than perhaps fifteen to twenty feet across. Unlike the wet soil on which they tread, the dirt of this island was impossibly dry and barren. A lone tree, gnarled and dead, grew from the top of the island like a skeleton. Its pitiful withered form was somehow the most daunting feature of the marsh. Its features were almost lost in the ambiance of the reflected sky, so it was difficult to see. As he looked away, he stopped and tapped Menik on the shoulder.

“What is it?” he whispered.

“I thought I saw something move under that tree.”

Menik glanced at where he was pointing for a few seconds, then he motioned for him to be quiet. Vincent was about to protest when Menik cut him off. He made a series of gestures indicating that they had all eyes on their surroundings. In other words, shut up. If something happens, we'll see it.

Twigs snapped and somebody up ahead let out a cry of surprise as their landrider jerked to a sudden stop. The ground in front of it had been seemingly free of any water the moment before. But from one step to the next, a puddle appeared under the mount's foot, and she had stepped into it. The beast sank all the way to her knee. A ripple spread through both lakes, originating from the point where the beast's leg broke through the surface, even though they were not connected. She tried to pull it out, but she only pulled herself toward the ground. That was when it began to panic. The rider tried to calm her down, but it was useless.

The landrider kicked at the ground in a desperate attempt to free herself, digging ruts into the mud. Several people motioned for the rider to dismount the beast, but he wasn’t paying attention. In several deft motions, Jeris leapt from his mount, and onto the landrider's back. He grabbed the rider, pulled him off the thrashing beast and tackled him to the ground. He clasped a hand around the rider’s mouth. Meanwhile, the animal continued to flail, its massive form sending quakes through the ground. With every thrashing, she pulled herself further and further into the bottomless puddle. Her helpless bellowing rang out over the silent marsh until her head got too close to the surface and she pulled herself under. Her cries were cut off.

She began to kick the air with her hind legs. Tuls' landrider, Mola, who'd been too close, was struck in the flank. She reared up, dumping the relos off her back. Swearing, he scrambled away from the rampaging beast. Those in proximity tried to clear a circle around her. But they were trapped on both sides by the lakes. A bolt flew through the air and disappeared into the water where the beast's head was located. The landrider had a small seizure, then it went limp. Vincent turned his head just in time to see Slade lowering a crossbow, her face expressionless.

Tuls, still winded from the impact, stumbled toward his mount. But he abruptly jerked to a stop and fell down. He tried to get back up and move, but he fell again. Vincent immediately saw why, the tip of his tail had touched the lake and dipped below the surface. Tuls must have realized this too because he gripped the dirt to stop himself from being pulled in. The La'ark dismounted her landrider, knelt in front of him and spoke quietly. Tuls nodded, beads of sweat rolled down his snout. Akhil grabbed his tail and tried to pull, but it would not budge. He tried to pull it again, but still, it would not move one bit. All he was doing was causing Tuls pain.

“Stop moving,” The La'ark whispered, “every movement you make gives The Stillwater more purchase.”

She was right. Every movement the Tuls made ended up moving the tail, which in turn, gave the water more flesh to claim, since the only direction it could move was inward. Every effort he made to break free would only ensure he would give more of himself to the lake. Jeris and Madrian gripped both of his hands and pulled away from the shore until his tail was pulled taut.

“You know what needs to happen?” The La’ark asked.

“Yes.” Tuls whispered.

“I am sorry you must be awake for this.”

Dread formed in the relos' eyes. “Bind my mouth...” he said. There was pain in his voice. “Make it quick.”

Akhil cut a strap of leather and began to wrap it tight around Tuls' mouth, binding it shut. It wasn’t until Madrian began to tighten a tourniquet around the tail when Vincent realized what was about to happen. He didn’t want to watch it. Already, Tuls showed signs of pain from how tight the tourniquet was being tied. He flinched with every knot and his eyes began to water from the agony of it.

“Get Reashos' blade,” The La'ark whispered, “its fireglass is sharper.”

But Slade had apparently read her mind because she was already there, holding Calimere's Light in her hand. She knelt down in front of Tuls.

“Stand,” she whispered, “I can cut closer to the water. It may grow back.”

Tuls nodded and he was helped back up. They made sure as much tension as possible was put on the tail to prevent more of it from sinking into the water. Oris and Akhil held him in their grip, ready to catch him should he collapse and ready to restrain him should he fight. His tail formed a straight line from the water to his back, as if it were on the verge of snapping. Slade walked over to it and flashed her ebony blade to life.

“After I make the cut, lay him down and hold him,” she whispered, “I will need to cauterize the wound.”

A black fluid poured forth from the handle and covered her arms. Vincent looked away when she brought the blade up into the air. There was a wet thud as the sword hit the ground. Tuls lunged forward into the arms of shandan, clawing at their backs. He huffed through his bindings like a rabid animal and dug his feet into the ground. They didn’t give him any time to recover. Akhil and Oris forced him to the dirt and pinned him down. Slade brought forth the heat of Calimere's Light and grabbed the bloody stump. She pressed the reddened steel against it and Vincent heard a sound similar to hamburgers sizzling on a grill.

If Tuls had his bindings removed, he would have screamed. Instead, he thrashed underneath the twins until he skirted the edge of unconsciousness. Slade kept the blade on his stump for a few more seconds before retracting it. The smell of burnt flesh rose to Vincent's nose, making him gag. A healer was at Tuls’ side, spreading an ointment on his wound before wrapping it with a bandage.

It looked like it took every ounce of energy Tuls had to stop himself from crying out. Akhil let go of him while Oris patted him on the shoulder and helped him up. Tears were streaming down the relos' snout and he could barely walk with all the trembling and wheezing. Vincent had a newfound respect for the relos. Without saying a word, Akhil ordered the soldier whose landrider had been killed, to take control of Mola. Tuls, who was in no condition to steer her, sat behind him. They continued onward, into the Stillwater's jaws.