The rest of the trip—or rather the rest of the slog—went without further incident right up until the Gyring Ash came in to view. Of course, "without incident" didn't actually mean pleasant. Marwan soon became incredibly, maddeningly sick of the feel of ash-sludge slowly seeping into and then squelching back out of his boots. He assumed the other three humans had to feel the same way, but Chioma was busy playing Fearless Leader and therefore wasn't about to admit to shit, and the Somonei were Somonei; serene stoicism was like half their professional self-image.

So he settled for a couple grumbled comments to Sabiqah, who teased him gently about them but that was alright. He'd already spent a few minutes teasing her as she washed ashwight-ichor off her claws and the surrounding fur-and-flesh with a small cloth and an expression of supreme disgust. And he did feel for her, using a sword was one thing, using a bit of one's personal anatomy was another, even if her Fathomclaw techniques effectively gave them something like ten times their natural reach.

Squelch. Squelch. Squelch. It was dark, not enough that any of them were in any danger of running into one of the embertrees, but still oppressive, utterly sunless even during the late morning, all of Farrod's light absorbed utterly by the Siinlan Veil overhead. Instead there was just the faint illumination of the ash-sludge, constant only in its slow eye-straining shifts.

Squelch. Squelch. Squelch. No one was speaking, least of all Marwan, and then the word came from the Somonei up ahead. "There's the Gyring Ash. It's...wow. I have to admit, it's more...more than I expected it to be."Astrud's voice, sounding calm but still genuinely surprised.

"Is the boat there?" Chioma demanded. Marwan noted the deep thread of anxiety buried in her voice and didn't blame her for it.

"Yeah, it's there, I can see it up ahead." Astrud said. "Still tied up to an embertree. We'd better hope the deal you struck with the Praedhc holds when we get back, or we're going to be spending some time making our very own very special raft and hoping it can get us across the Gyring Ash before it's done a full quarter turn round the Caustlands."

The small sudden burst of acerbic commentary gave him a moment's surprise, along with a small warm sense of relief. The Somonei were fully human after all, or at least Astrud was. And of course he'd known that, but hadn't really felt it up til now.

It took a few moments, moments without any sound but the arrhythmic chur, chur-chur of the Mire and the sludging sounds of their own forward progress, before Chioma replied. "Yes, we'll just have to trust that the deal holds. We're in Praedhc territory until we cross back into the Caustlands. We're going to be at their mercy in one way or another for essentially the entire trip, but they have no reason to wish us harm, they know what our expedition is for and won't want to needlessly antagonize Auraramad— or for that matter all the Fallen of the Caustlands, because make no mistake, all eyes are on us with this thing."

It was a pretty good speech on such short notice, and had the virtue of also being true enough, though there might be a degree of exaggeration especially there at the end. Certainly there would be a measure of outrage throughout the Caustland States if the Praedhc just across the Siinlan screwed the expedition over, but this particular clan normally had very little commerce or even contact with their Fallen neighbors. The town of Hafaljaheem was there to exploit an especially rich field of skysteel, not to serve as a trade outpost, which was just as well because as this expedition showed, there was no easy way into the Abwaild nearby.

The only reason they were crossing here was that it was reportedly the closest point in the Caustlands to the continent's shoreline, and that mattered for all kinds of reasons. Only an utter fool of a Fallen would spend a single moment than they had to in the Abwaild. One could argue that only an utter fool of a Fallen would set foot in the Abwaild at all, and many had argued it, including plenty among Marwan's own friends and relations.

There it was again, the silence of voices, the soft maddening malpredictable chur, chur-chur of the Mire.

"They're Praedhc," Shu said flatly. "We're Fallen. They're not likely to put a lot of stock in promises to us." The haft of her pudao bounced up and down on one upraised palm, but stilled when Astrud put a hand on her shoulder.

"We don't know what they'll do, Sister. We have to be prepared either way and hold off on judgement."

Shu kind of grunted at that, but then she'd reached the boat and her attention was now taken up by removing its strap from around an embertree. And doing so a bit gingerly, Marwan thought, until he got closer himself and saw that it was clearly some exotic material of Deisiindr manufacture, and remembered that these followers of the Triune Path considered the Deisiindr unholy. "That Fathomless tower of iniquity," as he'd heard it put. Anything that came out of it was therefore unclean, which was unfortunate since it was also exactly the kind of thing you'd need to make sure that, say, a strap didn't rot away and let a needed boat drift off to God knew where.

Ah well. He'd followed plenty of rules without much sense to them too, in an earlier life. Maybe one day they'd come round to his sort of thinking, maybe not, meanwhile there wasn't any sense in antagonizing anyone.

"Let me help you with that," he said, stepping up. "I've used this sort of strap before, in my Army days." Which was true enough, but Shu seemed to sense the intention behind the gesture and spared him a tight smile before stepping away.

Progress already, he thought as he tossed the strap into its box at the back of the boat. Working with Somonei might not end up an utter pain in the ass after all. Then he reminded himself that Shu must be shaved utterly bald beneath the light helmet she wore, like all Somonei, because he had liked that smile, tight or not, and that wasn't wise, he shouldn't be watching the graceful way her tall wire-willow body moved, keeping her polearm ready above the muck. Shouldn't shouldn't shouldn't, and he thought of other things.

Specifically, he thought about the Gyring Ash, which he'd avoided looking at up til now without really realizing it, even thought it was right there through the trees and not many trees now and he could see exactly what Astrud has meant about it being more than she expected.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

It was huge, for one thing, and moving at once faster and slower than he'd expected, which seemed impossible of course but there was such a sense of inevitability to its flow, such unbreakable momentum, that it frankly fucked with any notions he had in his head about speed and the way it should work when it came to a massive river of ash-sludge. And it wasn't a seeing thing, anyway, it pulled at him, a great thrumming sideways shunt of energy he could feel in every bone and nerve channel from his left to his right.

"Marwan," Xiansu said, tapping one scaly foot against the bit of shoulder armor he was standing on. "It's not healthy to spend too long staring at that thing."

"That thing," Marwan repeated, and wrenched his gaze away, looked at the boat instead, started calculating how he was going to get himself and his pack in without upsetting the balance. That thing. It was way too big and...he didn't know, significant maybe, to be just a thing. But Xiansu was right, and Marwan gave him what he hoped was a properly apologetic smile as the Caustland Crow hopped off his shoulder onto the boat.

"Yeah, sorry, kind of lost in my own thoughts here."

"Understandable," Xiansu said. "Just remember, the Gyring Ash really isn't. We understand almost nothing about it even after two and a half centuries of study, but we do know it has strange effects on the human mind. It's no, well, it's no Black Fence..." he paused and gave his feathers a rapid ruffle, "...but still. We should be careful."

Marwan nodded. He knew, but Xiansu was still right to remind him, and he also knew he'd been thinking that, that his mind was in a bit of a loop but there were worse things.

"Go on," Shu said, and he started, staring at her across the boat, there on the other side holding it steady.

"Right, of course," Marwan said, and gave her a smile he found himself wondering about, what qualities it had. You Goddamn idiot. "Thank you, ah, Sena-Somonei." He knew that was the proper form of address, he'd researched it after finding out Chioma was planning to hire from the Presilyo. Sen-Somonei for the monks, Sena-Somonei for the nuns. It sounded much too formal, though, in such a small group, staring down such a long and uncertain time.

Shu smiled, less tight this time, more wry, and nodded. "Of course, Raqiib Chadriji." There was no mockery in her tone, throwing his old title right back at him, but maybe something in the eyes?

He threw it from his head, and hopped up into the boat with what he thought a reasonable measure of grace, considering the way the ash-sludge dragged at his clothing and dripped into the boat. "No, not for a couple decades now. Since I carried military rank, I mean. You can simply call me Marwan."

"Not Doctor Chadriji, then?" Maybe a hint of teasing, now, as she climbed into the boat herself. But Astrud came up right behind her, and touched her lightly on the arm, and the two of them looked at each other, and he didn't think he could read that look even if he'd been rude enough to stare. "Okay," Shu said, still holding her partner's gaze. "Marwan."

She wasn't asking him to call her just "Shu" but he knew he could anyway; whatever their other faults, Somonei weren't really demanding about titles when it came to outsiders, they spent too much of their time embedded with whoever had hired them, like state militaries or mad expeditions out into the Abwaild. Still, though, still.

The boat was moving now, and he realized he'd been using Shu as a distraction, and maybe she'd been doing the same thing, because it was a profoundly uncomfortable sensation. The vessel was pushed forward by the Fathom-imbued channels on its underside, and that was fine, but that feeling of forward motion paled next to the sheer sideways pull the Gyring Ash was exerting on the boat and its inhabitants and...everything. Everything, the air, the blood in his veins, the breath in his lungs, the utterly overwhelmed web of his thoughts. Right flow right go right.

Sabiqah came and pressed herself to his side and he clutched at her, feeling her rabid breathing, knowing she could probably feel his. She was warm and alive and familiar-Fallen and he looked to his right in the direction of the flow and saw something roiling under the dark grey crust, creating a pattern of breaking-out greenish light, cracks on the surface, and how far away was it? Was it moving toward them? Because they were moving toward it, and he looked ahead and saw they were nearly at the edge, not the shore, this thing had no shore just more ash-sludge it moved past as though it weren't there, and he remembered the last time he'd crossed the Gyring Ash, the way the river had flowed across, some over but mostly below, still that tug on the boat, and this, this was worse but...

They were there, crossing into the Mire on the other side, almost immediately wedged between the twisted trunks of two embertrees, some minor scrapes to the sides of the boat but that was fine, because they'd made it.

But also something was coming, there under the Gyring Ash, one of the Things that were under it and that no one understood.

"Jump out!" Marwan yelled, already halfway over the side himself. "We need to carry the boat away!" Some part of his training hooked into his brain and pulled hard, he knew he was terrified but it was calmly dragging him along, horribly familiar but still better than the utterly Other push-pull-drag of the Gyring Ash.

Sabiqah and Xiansu stayed in the boat but the three other humans heeded him, splashing into the ash-sludge, lifting the vessel with him to navigate it between the trees while something approached, no point looking back at it, just trudge through as fast as possible.

"Don't look at it!" he yelled. "No point, we get away or we don't!"

It wasn't alive. He knew that. Not alive the way other things were alive, not even something partway like the Ashwights seemed to be. The Fathom, always at least in the periphery of his awareness, told him nothing, because in the Fathom there was nothing to tell about this Thing. It was driven-animated by whatever something-else kept the Gyring Ash circling circling circling round the Caustlands through the center of the Siinlan with the Ashlit Mire looking on from both sides.

Embertrees splintered behind him. He moved. There was a noise, then a rush of air, almost like expelled breath, smelling of nothing at all. He moved. Then it was moving away, behind them, now they were beyond its reach or its interest, if it even had anything so understandable as interests at all. He was breathing hard. They hadn't gone far, it hadn't been long, it had been forever. He slumped back against the slimy pseudobark of an embertree and breathed, prayed no ashwights would choose this time to make a visit, prayed silent even though he had no reason to believe anyone was listening.

Old habits old thoughts surfacing when everything has been churned through plowed up shaken hard.

But fuck it, this was long enough, this was going to have to be enough for now.

"Okay," he said. "Chioma, I think we should probably get out of the Mire as soon as we can. We're all going to need some real rest and we won't get it here."

Chioma stared at him just a moment with wide eyes, a hint of flush even under the dark brown of her skin. "Yes, you're right. Come on. Let's get moving." She reached into the boat and pulled out Sabiqah's smaller vessel, and the Pircaat hopped in the moment it hit the ash-sludge surface.

He felt a weight settle onto his left shoulder, heard Xiansu's voice in his ear. "Good nerves, you, keeping your cool back there. We're lucky to have you."

Marwan laughed, enjoying the small relief it brought to those same quite frayed nerves as some of the tension flowed out. "I was terrified, like everyone else. The secret is to do what you have to do anyway."

"Makes a difference," Xiansu said. "Now on to the Abwaild."

"Yes," Marwan agreed. "On to the Abwaild."