The mist shimmered with too many colors. Glinting sparks of ruby and topaz, and deep, dark violets flashed in the fog. As though there was some source of light, hidden just out of sight. Only, it was everywhere.

It’s more than water vapor, isn’t it? Poire thought.

The air was thick with it. It crawled over the stones and muffled their voices, their breathing, even the crunching of their footsteps on the gravel. It swirled in the holes in the ground, or clung to the stone statues and the tops of the mineral-encrusted pipes that jutted out of the templelands.

In some places, the mist didn’t move at all. It just hung there, a curtain of sparkling white fog, suspended by nothing. In others, the mist came rushing up from the ground in waves. If he wasn’t paying attention, it almost made the stone statues seem to move.

Poire kept the liquid armor up, so that his face and head were completely covered by that living metal. He wasn’t sure what made him more nervous: the mist, or Slow Corps.

The soldiers were on edge. They walked as though the enemy was everywhere, crouching low. Trying to stay quiet. Swinging their weapons around at the slightest noise.

Once, the mist peeled away so that three stone statues seemed to emerge out of the fog. One of the soldiers hissed, and pulled his rifle up to his eye… but stopped just short of shooting at them. Cursing silently to himself.

The Chief was up front. He was the only one who seemed unbothered by the mist. As if he’d been here, a hundred times before. Sometimes, the wind would blow, and they would lose sight of him. Then, it would blow the other way, and he would be too far ahead. He grumbled softly at them when they walked too slow, too cautious.

But it was Scamius who worried Poire most of all. The tattooed longneck was at the rear of the line, talking to himself.

“He was. No, no. You know he was. We had to do it to him. What else could we have done?” He said. “What else could I do?”

Poire watched Scamius stop short. Put down his rifle, and hold his hand to his face, moaning softly into his palm.

Then, though Poire hadn’t heart a sound, Scamius looked up and swung around. “Who’s there?” he whispered out into the mists. Pointing his rifle at nothing. Breathing too heavily.

Laykis touched at Poire’s arm. “Come, Divine One.” And pulled him away.

The Chief was stopped up ahead. He was chewing on some dark tobacco that stuck halfway out of his lip. He was half-sitting, half-crouched on the outer rim of a massive elbow pipe, which had come unburied from the gravel. The pipe bent at a sharp angle, disappearing high into the mists. Poire could only guess at its purpose. Down on the ground, minerals had built up over the rusted metal, encrusting the base of the pipe with a wide shelf of rocky mineral growths, covered in a reddish-brown moss.

While the soldiers adjusted the straps on their gear, or drank or grabbed rations out of their packs, Poire circled around to Scamius.

Scamius’s eyes snapped to Poire, as if he hadn’t remembered who the human was. Or why he was there. Maybe he wasn’t used to seeing Poire, wrapped in metal.

Then, he held up his hand. “Don’t.”

But Poire could see it. Even now, it was under his scales. He could see the flesh, being picked apart. Rotting in the mist.

No. Not rotting.

It was crumbling, like stone turned to dust.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Poire whispered, his voice made metallic by the armor. “Please. Whatever you think you’re going to do here. You won’t live if you keep going.”

Scamius’s eyes were wide. Unblinking. His pupils were dilating, undulating, as he tried to focus on Poire.

“I’ve heard the gods could see the future. Can you? Can you see my future?”

Coming from another person, it sounded absurd. Of course, I can’t see the future, he wanted to say. Light exposure. That’s all this was. Too much light could make you hallucinate, everyone knew that. That’s why they always kept it contained, right?

It’s just the mist. The mist is the problem. They shouldn’t be here.

But Poire couldn’t deny his sight.

And the Vision… It had all felt so real.

The world splitting open. The buildings, the people, being unmade before his very eyes as the sky turned black with their dust.

That shrouded figure, staring back at him. Untouched by the change.

Scamius was still staring at him. Unblinking. Only now could Poire see how the cyran’s hands were shaking. How his breath trembled with each exhale.

“Can you see the future, godling?”

What should he tell him?

The truth?

“I can see something. I don’t know what it is. It sits above the world, on top of it.” Poire put one hand on top of the other. “Like this.”

“What do you see, when you look at me?” His voice was strained, like he didn’t actually want to hear the answer.

“You should go back,” Poire said. There was a fly, dancing on the wet surface of his eye. The muscles of his cheeks, exposed and rotting in the mist.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“You should go back. Now.”

Scamius exhaled heavily. Almost with relief.

The cyran clenched his hand around his wrist, trying to stop himself from shaking. Poire watched him walk over to the Chief, who was sitting on a part of the overgrown pipe, staring out into the mists.

Scamius said something that Poire couldn’t hear.

The Chief spat on the ground, tobacco making a black stain on the pale gravel. He stood up, slowly unfurling himself to his full height.

He stepped past Scamius, slowly. Easily.

“Anyone else?” the Chief growled, “Anyone else want to take the easy way out?”

Scamius swallowed hard. He was watching the back of the Chief’s head. He looked like a nervous deer, about to bolt.

Nobody said anything. They looked at each other, uncertainly.

“Go on,” the Chief said to Scamius. “Leave your gear, you piece of shit, and get out of my sight.”

Scamius looked like he was about to argue. Then, he loosened his pack. And let it fall to the ground with a crunch, never taking his eyes off the Chief. They stared at each other.

Scamius started to walk. Past the Chief. Past the rest of Slow Corps. Out, into the mists. He didn’t look back.

Poire didn’t see it happen, that thunderous crack of gunpowder. But he saw the Chief’s pistol, held out. Still smoking.

Scamius stopped walking. Looked down at his chest, where a red hole was blossoming, soaking the back of his uniform.

Bang!

Bang!

Bang!

The Chief squeezed off three more rounds. Not too fast. Not too slow. The hammer of the gun smashed and cocked back, again, and again. Each time, a new hole appeared in the back of Scamius’s uniform.

It was like watching a tree fall.

The Chief walked calmly over to the body. Aimed his gun into the back of Scamius’s head, and squeezed the trigger. Blood and flecks of white and dirt and gravel splattered up from the ground. He fired again, and again, until he was out of ammunition, and then the Chief gripped the barrel of the gun, and threw it at Scamius’s body.

“Who’s in command here?” He shouted, kicking at the corpse. “Whose in command?!”

The body jerked limply with each kick.

The others only watched. Three grim faces, sprinkled with mist.

Poire could feel the hot sting of tears running down his cheeks. Wrong. Everything about this place. About them. About him.

Everything was wrong.

He was alone. And he should have come alone. Why didn’t they listen?

A sound in the distance. A primal sound. At first, he thought he imagined it. He wiped his eyes, and tried to listen. None of the others seemed to hear it.

The scrape of something long and heavy in the gravel. Too close. It sounded like there was something on the other side of the stone structure. Just out of sight.

Poire turned to see. Nothing but the mist.

“Chief,” one of the soldiers was saying, “He’s dead. It’s done.”

The Chief whirled around. His chest heaving. His eyes red and wild. His hand clenched into a fist, as if he was ready to smash it into someone’s face.

Wood creaked out in the mist. High, overhead.

Poire saw it before any of them. A shape, tall, towering in the mists. Thick, gnarled limbs reaching down from the shimmering whiteness, almost perfectly silent.

Something whipped through the air. Long, thorny vines lashed around one of the soldiers. Her scream was cut short as she was yanked away into the mists.

“Shoot it!” Someone shouted. “Shoot it now!”

The Chief dove for his pistol. The rest of Slow Corps brought their weapons to bear, and started firing blindly into the mists.

Poire found Laykis, and reached out for her hand. The liquid armor extended his fingertips unnaturally, stretching out to touch her.

When she caught him, she hauled him to her side. Her legs were already pumping up and down, and her heavy footsteps sprayed gravel in her wake as she hauled Poire off into the mists.

She did not say a word.

Behind them, there were more screams. The crashing of branches - or something like it - on stone. The dangerous groaning of timbers, and the ear-raking shriek of metal on wood. Something whipped at the air behind them, cracking one of the stone statues in half, sending chunks of wet stone exploding outward.

The ground shook. A plume of heat and warm, orange light erupted behind them. Did the soldiers have explosives? Or was that something else?

Poire tried to turn around to see it, but Laykis’s grip was iron, and she ran as if that was her only purpose in life, dragging him with her. It was all he could do to keep his feet.

“Don’t look back, Divine One,” she said. Her voice perfectly even, despite the speed at which she was running.

It was huge. Whatever it was. It was huge, and it was tearing into the squad. Poire could see it’s black bulk crashing into the ground. He could hear the gunshots.

And then, the gunshots were silent.

And he couldn’t hear anything, except the crush of Laykis’s feet and the squeak of her joints.

They couldn’t have run far. Only a few minutes. But here, the ground was wetter than before, and slippery with deep crimson moss. Laykis had to slow her pace, because each step gouged deeper into the rocky soil, and water seeped up through the gaps. There were pools of water now, and tiny ferns growing in the muddy soil - little more than small, purple leaves and red stems. But the puddles grew into ponds, and the foliage grew with them, growing into an ankle-deep ground cover.

There were even a few stumps of trees, though most of them were thin, young things that had been shorn off… by what?

In some places, the ponds drained into enormous holes in the ground. He could see the water slowly moving, hear the rushing trickle of water. Algae grew in the slower parts, covering the ponds with a dark sludge.

Something glowed in the mists. Not far ahead. A bright, burning orange.

It was the brightest color he had seen since coming to Thrass..

“What is it?” Laykis asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t even know where we are now.”

“Neither do I,” she said. “My sensors are failing to parse this mist.”

“Come on,” Poire said, stepping around the puddles of water. “If it’s a landmark, it might help us find our way.”

Before she could argue, he started off around one of the larger ponds. He knew what she wanted to say: What if it’s dangerous?

Of course, it was. Everything here was dangerous. But he had to know.

They crept slowly around the pools of water. Careful to keep their feet light. To stay out of the water, as if the ponds themselves were alive. But it was growing on a small hill, surrounded by the water.

A tree.

It was covered by a half-dome of plasma - dozens of plates of energy that glowed a bright orange.

No, Poire realized, *the plates are growing out of the tree.

Instead of leaves, the tree’s limbs seemed to support the energy shield, each branch holding up a different section. And where the branches ended, so did the shield, so that the whole lower half of the tree was exposed. A whole carpet of dark, red fungus grew in spikes and thorns over the gnarled roots of the tree, living under the protection of that bright, orange shield.

Laykis tailed Poire, almost shielding him with her body as they approached. Mist hissed quietly as the water evaporated on the shield. He took another step closer, going underneath the shield, and now he could hear the quiet hum of the energy, too.

And something else.

The groaning of wood...

“Poire,” Laykis whispered, her voice clicking with stress. “We’re surrounded.”

Poire’s froze.

There were huge shapes half-hidden in the mist. Each one, as tall as an ancient kapok tree. Groaning and creaking as they settled into place.

They were surrounded.

“What do we do?” Poire asked.

Motion caught his attention.

From the white tree. One of its lowest branches was pushing out more plasmatic energy, though this time it was a dark red. It formed into leaves made of light. And then, the leaves widened out, touching each other. Sealing against each other. Interlocking into a shape that looked too much like a face.

A human face.

“Is it time?” A voice said. It came from the branches above, and when it spoke, it fell like the rain. “Is it time to wake, yet?”