In the dead of night, the cot shook at its ankles, and the room filled with an ephemeral blue light, but it was the roaring claps of thunder combined with my wretched cough that would eventually wake me from an otherwise restful sleep—comfortable and free of dreams.

I was puzzled at first. It was always strange, waking in a new bed in an unfamiliar place, but it didn't help that I didn't recognize the room. Arriving late as we did, I hadn't gotten a good lay of it, but it was much drabber than I'd first thought. The blankets were threadbare and the mattress thin, but the dust was tightly woven across every surface. No matter. The night's events were a blur, so the discovery didn't come as much of a shock. A tired mind didn't lend itself to keen observation. At the very least, it was good to see we hadn't been taken advantage of.

Removing my covers, I was reminded of my prior haste. I wore the same clothes as the day before, and the ragged bedding had done its damnedest to sop up the mess; it squished and stuck as I rolled, leaving a residue on my skin. It was unpleasant, but I preferred being damp to being drenched.

I left the bed and pushed aside the curtains to see the rain had picked up again in my hibernation, holding the dreary town hostage to its monotonous downpour. Dark as it was, I could've been convinced it was still night, but I was sure I'd slept at least until noon. For the first time in recent memory, my eyes and limbs felt weightless, and the fog had lifted from my head.

Now in dry dress, I picked up my things from the bed and turned to leave, but not before spotting a man in the mirror. It was no one that I knew, a face haggard and drained of its natural color. Having been in the rain for so many consecutive hours had taken its toll. The way my under-eyes hung, black bags of sand, I looked worse than the creatures from the mine. I looked sick.

Down the hall, Cordella was slow to respond to my knocks at the door. Something rustled from within her den, and a low grumble crept out from under her door. When it finally creaked open, she pushed her head through the gap, likely to conceal herself. Judging by the tight black curls sprouting randomly from her mane, this was the first she’d risen.

"Get enough sleep?" I smiled.

"I should be asking you," she said, eyes narrow between their swollen lids. "Are you feeling alright? You’re dreadfully gray."

"I feel fine enough. It’s just the onset of a cold, I’m sure—nothing to fret over."

"If you say so."

"At any rate, I'll be waiting downstairs when you're ready to leave. Feel free to take your time. This is probably our last chance for decent rest."

She nodded and slipped back between the open door while I wandered down and found a seat in the common area, a low stool facing the bar. It wasn't much nicer than the bedroom down here, meek and smelling of mildew, and without the stir of guests, all the more hollow.

"An early riser!" the chipper gentleman greeted. "Good morning. Would you care for anything to drink?"

Early? I thought, ready to tell him no until a scratching on my throat brought about a miserable coughing fit. It was a deep retch, drawing magma from my gut and scalding all in its path. From behind the bar he watched until I finally wheezed, "Water".

He set the brazen cup in my hands as though he'd prepared it since my waking. It faintly sizzled as it touched my lips, restoring life to my raw gullet.

"Might I ask what brings you to Drysdan? We don't see a lot of visitors these days."

Drsydan. That was the first the name graced my ears. "Not a map, that's for certain. It was sheer luck we found this place when we did."

"Ha. I wouldn't ascribe it to fortune," he said blatantly, his upturned lip falling flat. "There've been some troubled times as of late, and our seclusion doesn't help matters.."

"Troubled?" The rain and tumult all but muffled my weakened voice. "Troubled how?"

"Just have a look outside. In case you’re new to these parts, this kind of weather isn’t what we’d call typical. Our crops are swimming, trade routes are washed, and we've lost contact with our closest source of fresh import. We're drowning in this terrible tempest."

"Lost contact? You don't mean Mochada, do you?"

He laid his palms on the bar and leaned in. "Oh, don't tell me that's where you're headed. You're better off turning around. Damn storm will rip you to shreds before you come a step within that cursed swamp, and God knows we don't have the resource to host you here for long. My advice: get what you need to last the trip, and don't stick around too long."

This was bad. If they'd lost contact, what had become of Mochada? If this kept up, would it still be there waiting for us, or were we already too late? "How have all of you managed then? Without them."

"In short? We haven't. Only by the skin of our teeth have we scraped by. We've nothing left but our livestock, and not much feed to keep them fat."

I grimaced. "That's awful. I can only hope this weather clears before long."

"Ha! You’re telling me, but that’s enough griping. What points your compass? Not a lot this side of Circadia worth sightseeing ‘cept maybe moss and the smell of old fish."

“We’re just passing through. Hoping to meet an old friend in Mochada.”

“Hmm. Well, you don’t seem too thrilled about it. Let me guess—her idea?”

I laughed as he prodded me with his forearm. “How could you tell?”

His lips spread slyly. “I've seen enough of you lot blow through to know a thing or two. Hell, I know the ropes myself. Whether it's a new paramore or an old flame, we do what we can to keep it lit, eh?” He patted me hard on the shoulder with a sincere expression. I stopped sipping from my water.

“You understand we paid for two rooms?”

He tilted his head and scrunched his eyes before pulling out his ledger. “Well, I’ll be! Old flame it is.”

Soon after the awkward silence that ensued, I heard the creak of Cordella's boots on the steps. "Ready to go?" she asked. She may have been, but I hadn't the desire. Nothing but days of rain ahead of us, and I was starting to feel the ache of illness. "Kaiser?" She tapped her foot impatiently. That was the Cordella I remembered.

With another nod to the man, I rose from my stool, and after paying for the rooms, we walked into the moribund village. Its many houses wept from the heavenly salvo, starved of the sunlight needed to dry their wooden bones. Were it to rain for much longer they would surely be swallowed by the watery silt that lapped against their foundations. Wading through it, we found the stable still afloat for the time being. Our horse was its sole and likely final occupant, unsurprising given what I was told by the innkeeper.

"Hey, pal, what's wrong?" I comforted from afar. He whined and fidget against the side of the stall, but before I could any closer, I was knocked square on my ass by a pair of bolting shadows. They'd swept from behind him and tripped me as they sped off, something lagging in the rush of wind as they ran.

I hadn't even reacted to what happened before Cordella snapped her jaws. “Fucking thieves!" She quickly knelt to my side and gave me a hand up. "Come on Kaiser, I think I saw where they went."

The bloodthirsty hound was reared and ready to begin the hunt, just awaiting my command.

"No. Leave them."

"What?!" she growled as I tugged back the lead.

"It's fine. They just needed food."

“We need food. What are you thinking letting them get away with it?”

I ignored her incredulity and checked the contents of the saddle bag. Luckily, I found most of what had been there before. They hadn't been given the time to steal anything but some of our already spoiled goods.

"Curses. My favorite blanket! All of that wet bread we had and they had to steal my goddamned blanket. Food my ass."

"We'll get you another."

Now she stopped, her concern deepening. "What’s going on with you? They could have made off with half our supplies if you let them. Why are you so nonchalant?"

Despite my effort to keep the newfound information off my mind, I was caught up in worry, and as always, Cordella noticed immediately. "I'm just worried about bigger things."

"And what specifically takes precedence over our food and blankets?"

"I don't think this village has long."

"What? How could say that?"

"Before you came down, I spoke with the owner of the lodge. The storm had flooded the town's crops, and he said they don't have the reserves to wait it out. And at the mention of Mochada, he told me they'd up and halted their trade routes." I let the news seep in, work its way through the cracks before I proposed the most obvious of explanations: "You don't think..."

"Think what?" she asked, but she knew what I was suggesting. "We stopped one night, Kaiser. I'm sure it's still standing. We just need to get there."

"And do what? Stop the rain? The way he speaks of it, it's been going for weeks straight if not longer. Finding this old man isn't going to stop a natural disaster."

"Well, maybe it could." Having spoken rhetorically, I didn't expect an answer, especially one so nonsensical. "Do you remember in the mines? The way the wind crawled under our skin—and those bizarre crystals. But they both vanished with the creature's death. What if this storm is connected to the appearance of another arch?"

I was ready to dispute, but ever since I started roaming the earth with Cordella, the outlandish had started to seem less so. The archs were freaks of nature, colossal creatures that could seemingly bend the earth with their physical strength. Was it impossible for them to bend ether too? I was none too fond of that. The potential for the all-powerful was but a lead cask on the pile of lofty demands placed squarely on our backs; however, it could mean salvation for the sinking city if they could only last so long.

"If there’s even the slimmest chance that you’re right, then we can't afford to stay here any longer than we have. We collect the barest essentials, and then we head on to Mochada."

Cordella quietly agreed though I got the sense that she wasn't telling me something. She wore her bravest face, but I saw the cracks in the mask. It was a lot for her to take too.

I didn't bother asking for now and instead got back on the horse, shaking the sludge from my boots as they slid into the stirrups. "Food, directions, off we go. Any objection?"

"I suppose not, but don't think I'm forgetting about my blanket. If we see those snakes again, they won't get the chance to regret it. One flick of my finger and they'll lose all of the hair on their scaly head. Bald bastards will never steal again."

I laughed, even if I knew she was deathly serious. I had to make light of what I could. What I thought would serve as a nice distraction was instead the opposite: an urgent reminder of what hung in the balance and of how thin the thread that held it. Our hunt for the first arch had lacked the same gravity as this, and the state of this hamlet exemplified that.

We couldn't stay put long, and our old friend would have it no other way. Just as we'd been reinvigorated, so too had the rain sped back to its prior fervor, and, never the stranger, we rejoined it in the open plains. It was a quick reversal to a night's recovery, every dry inch drenched once more and leaving naught but our night's rest untouched. This time, we were forced to bear it. We couldn't stop again, even if the storm had other plans for us.

As we pushed on, it pushed back with full force, allowing us to progress only as slowly as it had before. Within hours, we'd delved no deeper than our ankles, and already we were dragging. Our horse's hooves stuck to the mire ever since we breached it; at any moment the clay soil threatened to take hold and never let us go. What started then as a stride had slowed first to a saunter, then a stroll.

I was starting to give credence to Cordella's theory. We were swimming against an invisible undertow—every worldly force fought to convince us to turn the other way while still, other forces urged us on. The rain came down harder every mile beyond Dyrsdan, and the crash of thunder didn't take long to join the cacophony. Thankfully, there was an upside to our change in scenery. While dirt turned to mud and clay, the grass became thick with reed and wood. Whatever happened, wherever we stopped, we would at least be dry through the night.

But before night came, we had an entire day of this ahead of us. Fortunately, I wasn't without ways to distract myself.

I cleared my throat and spat the mucous, groaning at the sight. "So, I have to visualize my energy?" She affirmed silently, but she didn't turn her head. Evidently, she was busy concentrating on her task. I'd have to do this on my own, and if all I had to do was seek and subjugate my inner strength, I knew where to start.

I'd been there once before and so retraced my steps: I shut my eyes, turned off the light, and with the rain as my barrier, tuned out the rest of the world beyond it. One breath in, one breath out. I didn't know what energy felt like, but I knew the rush when it surged through my hands, and it only slowed when everything else did.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

In, and out.

It ran through my veins, I knew. I'd felt it before, in a state of relaxation. That was the same quiet place I sought.

In, and out

Whatever it was, and whatever form it took, it had been there for as long as I had. All I needed was to condense it, to visualize the flow like I did my spells.

In, and...

I choked on the last breath, squandering it and whatever focus I had accumulated. That was the problem. How the hell could I focus when I bobbed on the back of a horse—when a headache pinched my temples and I couldn't damn well breathe through one half of my nose. There was no 'brook' but the one running down my neck. It was all wrong. The sounds of rain were less inviting, the rhyme was gone, and the cadence a half-step diminished...it was erratic. Grating. I'd come closer on a whim than I did on a mission. Without intention, it sat in the open, unguarded, but now that I clawed for it, it alluded me.

While my effort bore no fruit, it did occupy enough time until the next snag. Our horse stopped hard, throwing mud and rearing back until one of our looser satchels rolled off..

"Uh oh. Kaiser?"

It only took a light yank to pull me from my trance, though I didn't immediately see the problem. Standing water sat in our path. A shallow, but far-reaching mere formed as the land's natural crest had filled with run-off. We could probably wade through were one out of the three of us not present, but none could be left behind, and we didn't know how much deeper it may be in the center. Instead, we traveled the circumference in search of the edge or a way across, whichever first.

Half an hour of this, the horse stopped again, and we ran the same route clockwise until Cordella stole me from my meditation. "Dammit! I can't find a way around it. The whole plain is completely submerged, and if we travel too far to either side, we'll lose our bearings."

"Then what do you suppose we do about it?" I asked, cross about my own task's incompletion.

"You won't like this, but I think we have to consider going back to Drysdan."

She was right. I didn't like it. "You know we don't have that option."

"I know, I know, but..."

"But what?"

"Look at us! We're like two wet rags out here. You sound a mess, our horse can't pick up his own feet, and the sky is alight; we're a damn lightning rod in an open marsh!"

"Then what do you think Mochada looks like? If we're standing in a foot of water now, then Mochada has to be floating. We can't wait."

"Well we can't win either," she said, a crack in her voice. "Do you feel ready? Do you think your last two hours of training were enough? If you can say yes, and I mean honestly say it, then we'll swim right through. Otherwise, we're turning back."

I tried to fight her, but a rasp in my throat tore a hole and I gasped for air to fill it.

"That's what I thought."

The better part of a day wasted, we headed for better weather—relative, of course. Sure enough, like turning back the hands and inverting the sands, we watched the process in reverse. The ground firmed, the sky lightened, if only to a paler gray, and the thunder calmed to a distant growl. It was like passing through a wall the way the weather dampened.

All told, we made progress away from our destination faster than towards, but it wouldn't be enough to escape nightfall. It had long nipped at our ankles, and our brave rouncey had strained for too long, stiffening like a saw horse with every crossed leg. In another painstaking decision, we'd stopped to pitch camp an hour outside of town.

We'd fallen short twice within the day. I wanted to be angry, to have the force of will to turn around and march on again, but I was starting to feel meager. The chill of the rain had penetrated deeper than just the skin, and my muscles weakened as they soaked it in. I didn’t have the strength to be upset, so I tried instead to appreciate what we still had.

We were dry. Well, drying. The elms remained at this side of the bog, and there was naught but a drizzle atop their green canopy. Against all odds, we'd even started a fire; ether proved more reliable than a stone ever could. For once, we could experience our food hot and soggy rather than just the latter, and the dew on our skin began to feel more like sweat than glacial melt. Small distinctions, but we chased small victories.

My partner sat across from me with her legs outstretched, letting the flame wick away the sky’s sorrow.

“What do you think of the name Escalus? Is it suitable?”

“Suitable for what?” I asked, my eyebrows raised, but my voice straining. Every utterance was a monumental task, drawing another series of coughs from my already raw throat.

“For whom, not what. Your horse! I can’t help but get attached after all this time, only serves we should have something to call him.”

“Him?”

Her eyes widened at my candid response, peering back at the animal in question. "Oh, ha ha. I'm serious. I've been brainstorming since we left Chenglei!"

"Whatever you say, Corda. Escalus it is."

She nodded triumphantly for only a moment. “Wait, when I did give you permission to call me that?”

“When you decided to name my horse,” I said with a laugh that turned into a splitting croak.

“Serves you right!” she snickered back but quickly dropped her smile when my coughing persisted. “God. Are you okay, Kaiser? Your face is completely flushed. How is your head?”

I popped the cork off of our waterskin and took a swill. Whatever afflicted me had certainly progressed—I could hardly open my mouth without hacking, and my head throbbed, but, for as bad I sounded, I was otherwise fine. No sweating, my nose was dry, and the water soothed the burning well enough. “It’s nothing unbearable. I just need to sleep.”

“Sure you do. Give me that,” she demanded, pointing at the leather. She then ripped a scrap from the blanket wrapped around her and soaked it in water. “There. Put that on your head.”

It was ice cold despite having been warm in the flask. Honestly, I didn’t need it. It was just a tickle in the throat after all, but seeing her concern over me, I could at least humor her. I leaned onto the bedroll, still neatly tied, and placed it under my neck. The rag stung a little against my forehead, but it did a fine job of flushing the excess heat.

“Before you go to sleep, you need to get rid of your tunic.”

I opened one eye at her. “You can’t be serious.”

“I know, I know. It’s counterintuitive, but you need to dry off or it’ll only get worse. Trust me, by morning you’ll be happy to have one dry article.”

Knowing she wouldn’t back down, I sat up and tugged at my shirt, all the while squishing like a sponge before I discarded it by the fire. When I looked at Cordella, I realized her eyes were still glued to me. I followed them down to my torso, scabbed and turned every shade of black and blue.

She bit her lip softly. “I didn’t realize it was so bad.”

“You’re worrying too much, Cordella. That’s for me to do, not for you.”

“Say that all you like, but it won’t stop me. You look an absolute mess! I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Oh, please. Sparring matches have left me worse off than this—‘Big Pete’ wasn’t so-called after his belly, I’ll tell you that.”

“Peter burned you at the stake did he?”

“In a manner of speaking, yes.”

She wore a fragile smirk. “Fine. If you say you’re alright, I’ll stop pestering about it. But please, get some sleep. I don’t want you rasping in my ear all day again tomorrow.”

“I promise. I'm feeling better already.”

“You better mean that. Goodnight, Kaiser. Here’s to better weather.”

----------------------------------------

Sleep was a discerning benefactress; she paid nothing to beggars or supplicants, but she was quick and sudden in the night for all of those whose minds she didn’t possess. This once, I was among the first chosen, and cradled in her arms, I slipped away. However, as with all good things, it was a transient affair. Mere moments after packing my eyes with sand, someone’s creeping voice called for me.

“Kaiser,” it beckoned, burrowing in but not enough to reach me. I was at the surface, but there was water enough to warp the words. I didn’t stir until it called again, louder—a little clearer this time—enough at least to break the illusion. My hands wandered to my eyes to rub away the grit that glued them shut, but even when they opened, partially, mind you, they weren’t much use out there. We were on the neutral ground between dusk and dawn, and neither of their light found us there. The campfire too was down to cinders.

I considered closing my eyes again, already halfway there when my ears picked up on what my eyes couldn’t. A voice. Two of them, and neither Cordella's. Through patience, my eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness of night. By now, I was still slow-moving, groggy until she rang out again.

“Kaiser!”

This one shook me from stupor. My head jerked, my hands pressed hard into the soil, and the rest of me...the rest of me froze.

“It’s not worth it,” a man pleaded. “We should just get out of here. They don’t even have anything on them!”

“Keep your damn voice down and grab the rest of it. We’ll sell off the horse and pick through the rest later.”

“We—we can’t just leave them like this.”

“Who the hell is going to care if we do? They’re already as good as dead. Besides, none of this would have happened if you hadn’t woken her you half-wit. Now shut up before you wake the other.”

A third, weak voice crawled from across what was once the firepit, but it was too weak to form words. “Kai—”

“Damn it, can’t you do anything right? Kill her!”

Adrenaline surged, shattering my shackles as my legs bolted beneath me and blind hands scoured my waist. They found there a thirsting blade, lunging out into the dark before I could give it the command. The two of them were none the wiser, dropped like weeds to a silent slash, and beyond a thud, they didn’t make another sound.

Hovering over the ground, I felt the lingering heat of the campfire and dug my fingers into the coals. With the gift of ether, it roared back to life and cast its glow in exchange.

“Cordella! Are you...” The words sank into my heart when I found her there. Crimson. A campsite smeared with it, and she lay in the center.

It soaked through, staining my tunic as it dripped from my hands to my feet. I felt no resistance as I lifted from under her arms, hoping to jolt her awake but only causing her more pain. “Agh—Kaiser. Don’t.”

I lifted my head at the sound of her voice, hope in the corner of my eyes until they locked with hers. It was unrequited. She held my gaze, but she didn’t see. There was no pain in her expression, but only because she couldn’t bear one. All that was left was the glow in her eyes, and I watched it fade.

“No—no, no, no,” I whimpered, shaking her by the shoulders. “Get up. Please, Cordella, please get up!”

“Get up!” I shouted, again and again until it hurt.

“Wake up!” Until the shout rang in my ears, and my head grew light.

“Snap out of it!”

Then it shifted. In less time than it took to blink, the campsite inverted. The dancing red glow turned a cold blue, flat across a glistening wet lawn. The blood was gone, the horse calmed, and I, rather than laying atop Cordella, laid under her.

“Kaiser? Can you hear me?” Her voice trailed off.

Somehow we had switched; everything had. My hands were now removed from her back, but hers were clasped tight against my shoulders as she shook. There were no wounds, no dirt—nothing on her face but worry.

What just happened?

I mumbled, not words, but something to reaffirm my place in this new reality, and as the spinning slowed, I learned the answer, but I couldn’t quite convince myself of it. It was too real; magnitudes worse than the first time, and hundreds of miles removed.

“Finally! Are you alright? Can you breathe?”

“I think so.”

“What in god’s name possessed you? I’ve been screaming bloody murder for close to five minutes trying to open your eyes.”

"A wraith," I answered numbly.

She shook her head profusely. “That was no damned wraith,” she said as her hand lifted from my forehead. “You have a fever! I knew we should have gotten you back!”

She was preoccupied with how my body fared against the illness, but in contrast, it was my mind struggling and losing the battle. In one moment, she lay dead in my arms, and in the next, she was filled again with the warmth that I had watched seep from her wounds. Now, I couldn't tear myself from her eyes. To see them so full after being empty...

“Is that...?" she commented, catching on her fingertip a stray drop from my cheek.

“Rain.”