Brenys opened the door to my bedroom as if this was her house and she was just allowing me to visit. The old seamstress could be infuriating, but I knew she meant well, and she was genuinely fond of my wife, if not me. I couldn’t see her face, only the frizzy halo of her graying hair.

Beyond the door was a room that had more of Esmelda in it than me. I’d made the entire keep by hand, placing every stone, but I hadn’t filled it with furniture. This wasn’t one of my workrooms, so the bed, the vanity, the wardrobe; all of it had been crafted by a Perrinson and his apprentices.

The curtains, the carpet, the furniture, even the washing bowls, had been gifts from the lillit craftspeople of Williamsburg. They revered me because of who I was and what I had done, but they loved my wife, who had taken an active role in the social life of the town. She knew half the populace by name.

Esmelda looked tired. Of course she did. There were shadows under her eyes, and her hair was a matted mess, but she was glowing. She was beautiful, and when she smiled at me, a weight lifted off of my chest that I hadn’t realized I’d been carrying. There were other people in the room, the women who had helped with the delivery, but I couldn’t see them. They were just foggy shapes and muted voices around the single point of clarity that had become my new reality.

“You look terrible,” she said. “Who let you grow out your hair like that?”

I ran my hand over my scalp, pulling my bangs back out of my eyes. “I have great hair,” I said. “You know I have great hair.” My hand came away wet, almost dripping. Had I been sweating that much?

“What are you talking about hair for?” she asked, her gray gaze calm, playful, and somewhat smug. “Your son is here. Don’t you want to meet him?”

Leto was in her arms, and when I crossed the room, she lifted him up so I could take him into mine. He was somehow small and huge at the same time, with dark eyes that looked up into mine and blinked, full of an impossible, unearned trust. I didn’t deserve this. I would never deserve it.

Newborns can’t really focus properly, so I wondered what he saw. What would he think of my eyes when he could see them, slitted and bright? I guess he would think it was normal for people to have eyes like that. His were more like mine from before my encounter with Beleth than they were like Esmelda’s. And he had red hair. I remembered seeing pictures of myself as a toddler. I’d started out life as a full-fledged ginger, but it had darkened to brown as I’d gotten older. Would his do the same?

He was only about five pounds, and more slender than I thought a baby should be, but the midwives assured us he looked healthy. He was half-lillit, after all, and though he’d arrived early, there was no cause for alarm.

I sat down on the bed beside Esmelda, cradling our son in both my arms, and she leaned into me.

“See,” she said, “you’re not the only one who can make things.”

"I guess I’m not.”

There was water on the floor. Why was there water in our bedroom?

“Esmelda,” I said, “do you think Mizu really cares about what happens to us?”

“Of course she does. She brought us together, didn’t she?” My little wife had already closed her eyes, and her voice was growing softer, her words slurring slightly. The door to our room shut, and we were alone. Where had everyone gone? Not that I was complaining, it just seemed odd that the midwives should disappear so quickly. Wasn’t there more for them to do?

“Kevin is going to come for me,” I said. “I don’t think he’s going to forgive me for what I did. If he comes, or if I have to go, I need to know that you’re both safe. This keep isn’t enough. It’s too obvious. There needs to be another place. Somewhere secret. Somewhere far from here, where no one knows who you are.”

Esmelda didn’t answer. She was already asleep. Why was I saying that, anyway? We'd already had a conversation like that, and Kevin had come, hadn't he? It was difficult to think clearly. Had I just died? If I had died, I should wake up in a field, not walking into our bedroom.

The water was rising. It had almost gotten to the level of the bed, but I couldn’t stand. I was sinking into the mattress, too heavy to move. My armor was weighing me down.

“Esmelda,” I said, my voice hoarse. “We have to go. It isn’t safe here.” My baby lifted one chubby hand toward my face, but he was getting farther away. My arms were stretching out until they weren’t my arms anymore. They were a river, and my son was drifting on the current.

I tried to move again, but I could barely turn my head. Esmelda wasn’t beside me anymore. There was another woman. She had impossibly white skin, and neon blue hair, and eyes like sapphires. The water rose past her, but she didn’t seem bothered by it at all. Then it was over my head too.

********

I was on my hands and knees, vomiting up brackish brown liquid onto a platform of mycelium, and I had no idea how I’d gotten there. Stormbringer was on the ground beside me, and so were my coin pack and all my extra pouches. Esmelda's comb was by itself, as if it had been deliberately set apart from the rest of my equipment. I picked it up and held it to my chest.

My throat burned, my chest ached, and an acrid mixture of swamp water and stomach acid coated my mouth. Everything was shaking.

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I looked up, and there was the woman. She was standing easily on top of the placid water, clad in a white and blue dress with a sash of solid mist tied tightly around her waist. Her face was youthful, immaculate, and sad. Mizu. Why was Mizu sad?

Then she was gone. Had that been a dream, a glimpse into an alternate timeline, the future? My son hadn't been born yet. The lake monster hadn't eaten me. Mizu had intervened. She could do that?

I was too wrung out to be angry that she had never done so before. There had been plenty of occasions where a little divine backup would have gone a long way. Maybe the nature of Bedlam made it easier for her to act on a hero's behalf. There was no veil here for her to worry about ripping. I grabbed my pouches, heedless of my proximity to the lake. If the atreanum was gone, all of this had been for nothing.

The coins were still there, frozen drops of void. I gathered my things and hiked back into the swamps as fast as my weary legs would carry me,

Ding.

Ding.

Ding.

I stopped. The sounds of the swamp, zombie moans and frog calls, had returned, assuring me I was out of range of the kulu. Leaning against a brown, fibrous mushroom stalk, I checked my notifications. Had the goddess left me a message?

Journal Quests Notifications Materials Crafting

Error report received and forwarded to the Hierarchy. Congratulations! The local adjustor has unlocked your Survivor achievement tree. Assessment still pending.

Achievement: Survivor (3)

Surviving for six consecutive months suggests you are not a complete waste of investment. As you have already received the attribute adjustment associated with this rank, no changes to your base physiology are necessary at this time.

Achievement: Survivor (4)

Well done! Two years? It's almost like you don't want to die anymore. As you have already received the attribute adjustment associated with this rank, no changes to your base physiology are necessary at this time.

Achievement: Survivor (5)

William, I apologize for the frivolity of the previous notifications. They are generated automatically by the System. Your case has been exceptional in more ways than one, and not all exceptions are positive. There is some debate as to whether being trapped in a Harmonic Anomaly for ten years qualifies as "surviving" as it is defined under the regulations of your assigned class. However, I have overridden those objections in your favor. Your base physiology will be adjusted accordingly.

There is a limit to the information I can share with you under the terms of your assessment. Even stating that much strains those limits. I can give you only the standardized mollifications and hope they are enough to keep you on the flashgr;gakjhg[ouvh. The road is treacherous and long. Do not despair. ;slakvhr;ouga;j5n4fubvs[ofna4poff. The path of righteousness is its own reward.

Be well.

No.

That…

No.

I checked my status.

Status

Name: William

Class Assignment: Survivor

Level: 13

Advancement: 22%

Attributes:

Might: D-

Speed: E+

Presence: E-

Armor Rating: 21

Traits: Darkvision, Immunity to Poison and Disease

Number go up. Or in this case, the letter grade. It was simple enough to work out what happened. I just didn't want to work it out. I'd been caught in one of the black holes Bojack had warned me about, only instead of a hyperbolic time chamber where a year passed for me while a day passed for the rest of the world, it had been a freeze.

But that didn't make any sense. If the kulu was hunkering down in a black hole, how had it been able to grab me and pull me in? This had to be another error, another mistake of the System, brought on by the chaos poisoned environment of Bedlam.

I threw the pack over my shoulder and ran.

My armor was no longer waterlogged, but the swamp still slowed me down. The mushrooms had moved, and the marks I had left behind me on my way in were gone, so I climbed on to one of the higher caps and looked for the stone hut where I'd left the minecart. There it was, only a few miles away through zombie infested wilderness. It hadn't disappeared or been overgrown. The runes must have kept the fungus from swallowing the structure.

I jumped back down, trusting Featherfall to give me a soft landing, and jogged non-stop through the muck. Water sucked at my boots, but I didn't slow. When a zombie reared up in front of me, I hacked it in half. When a squid dropped out of the canopy, I grabbed it before it landed, spun it around my head, and threw it at a mushroom.

Its color changed from slate gray to hot pink as it bounced off the cap and landed in a shallow pool. I didn't bother killing it, instead charging headlong into a swarm of giant gnats. One of them slipped in through my visor. I opened my mouth, sucked in, bit down on it, and kept going. Its bitter insides covered my tongue, mingling with the bile that had already risen in my throat.

The cart was still in place, the gates and levers in working order. Its wheels spun when I flipped its switch, and it carried me off of the island and back into the space between. As there was no way for me to increase its speed, I ground my teeth and stewed until it arrived at the first asteroid. Nothing had changed. If a decade had passed, the map on the wall could be wrong. All the islands could be in new positions. But I'd taken a right to get to Zombie Island, and the cart was keyed to the asteroid regardless of their actual location. So I left the track in its current position and kept going.

Ten years. What would the world look like when I got back? Had Dargoth conquered the Free Kingdoms? Had Bojack decided Esmelda had outlived her usefulness?

I was going to kill him. But that had already been the plan. If he had hurt her, there had to be something worse you could do to a demon than kill them. Take his hands, keep him in a box. Let him see me rid Plana of Bedlam's infestation.

If Esmelda was gone, did I even care about that anymore?

She wasn't gone. I wouldn't accept that as a possibility. There were plenty of reasons for Bojack to keep her around as insurance against my return. No particular reason to kill her, even if he sent her to join the rest of the lillits as one of Kevin's slaves. And if ten years had really passed, she wouldn't be alone. She would be with our son.

The dream hadn't been real. But I believed there had been some truth in it, a gift, if a twisted one, from Mizu. We had a son.

The ride back to base was a long one.