But then there was the other side of her; the other side of this whole journey. The religious one, the mystical one, the prophetic one. The one that had told her Sally would come to Cardinar, the one that allowed them to meet in the first place. The reason they now journeyed together to Lake Dread, the reason they faced a Demon, the reason her reunion with her brother turned to experiments and shouting. The reason Sally was likely alive at all. Was that the reason Lucy bought her gifts? Why they were even friends at all?

  And that thought, that burned within her more than anything else.

  13. Lake Dread – August 8, Year 216

  The journey through the Red Wastes was a quiet one, Sally occupied by her own thoughts and emotions bouncing between the best and worst she could think of. Meanwhile, Lucy struggled with the physical part of the journey: the heat, the uncertainty and the difficult terrain wearing her down each and every step of the way.

  They followed the river Madus as closely as they could, which meant from a respectable distance, preferably with an incline in between them and it. The red-sand dunes of the Wastes were a treacherous thing, ever more so the further inwards you travel. One moment it was a cloying thing, dense like syrup while actively seeking to drag your every step and slow you to a crawl. Then, it would turn on a dime into a slippery slope of fine sand, trying to swallow you into its unknown depths or worse, into the river. Two times already, she’d had to drag Lucy out of its deadly trappings.

  The river itself looked normal at first glance, a glittering blue stream of water in a sea of red. Although not very wide and with a depth of up to her shoulder, it had a soft and current and meandered leisurely, acting as if one could lay in it or float on it safely. Neither did it visibly contain any of the creatures making themselves at home in the other rivers of the Grand Circuit, who would occasionally venture forth from their waters to snack on any traveler straying a bit too close. In fact, it contained seemingly no life whatsoever. Barring, perhaps, one.

  Up close, the truth revealed itself. Within the water, invisible from afar, was a translucent, thin-stringed substance that travelled its course throughout. It floated in the water less like water-grass or algae and more an oil-like mucous lying still on a quiet, unmoving lake. It spread throughout the river at random, left and right, up and down its course and into its shallow depths and surface, denying to acknowledge the current at all.

  Touch the water, and these things would attach themselves to you. Walk away from the river, and it would cling to you regardless of distance, forging a slimy bridge between you and the river. The longer it grabbed a hold of you, the stronger the pull towards the river becomes, eventually and inevitably dragging you into it.

  Meanwhile, it dug through any armor and ate away at any cloth, fusing with the skin before you could even notice it was there. By the time the pull toward the river became a noticeable attempt to reel you in, it would begin to burn the skin, causing it to bubble and pop and melt. It will have dragged its target into the body of the Madus before it could eat through whatever limb it attached itself to, and once in the river, other strings would swarm and eat away at you as well. In the end, nothing, not even bone remained of its prey.

  It was unknown if it, whatever it may be, was alive or not. It did not act like any animal or demon, did not venture out to grab people and devour them, instead acting more like a chemical substance than anything. However, combined with the behavior of the red sands of the Wastes, it was a bit too effective and too much like a predator to be just a chemical. It was like the whole river was one singular creature from its starting course high in the mountains to Lake Dread itself. Maybe it was a Demon, a true one, slowly eating away at the Circuits inhabitants for the past two hundred years.

  Thus, despite having to follow the river’s course, they never strayed too close to be caught in a shift of the sands and roll into the inevitable. Although, a morbid thought would now and again pop into Sally’s mind: What would happen if I did? Would she die like everything else? Would she be revived beside its current, alive? Or would she be stuck in an endless cycle of consumption and restoration, an infinite meal to whatever the Demon of the Madus was?

  Sally hated those thoughts, but could not shake them entirely. It made her already none-too-bright mood spiral down further.

  What made it worse was that they failed to make their original target of five miles a day. Sally could blame Lucy for it – they only stopped for her, while Sally always felt ready to continue on – but that would be a lie. They’d accounted for the difficulty of the journey in their planning, cut their regular travel time by more than half.

  Which meant the issue was Sally. She was supposed to be the guide, but every so often she would struggle to find a navigable path through the shifting sands or lose sight of the river. Twice Lucy had been caught in the sand, and Sally blamed herself for it. Whether it was a lack of experience in travelling these parts, a lack of skill or a lack of proper mindset, Sally was the one to blame.

  Once again, this soured her mood further.

  Still, eventually they spotted Lake Dread from atop a hill, its sight lifting her mood at least temporarily. They shifted course, eventually ending up on its banks on the fourth day after their meeting with the Red Graces’ caravan.

  Lake Dread was everything its name implied.

  Dozens of yards from its waters lay what was most likely the most ominous beach in existence. Rather than a shell or sand beach, it was made up entirely of pieces of bone bleached white by either the sun, the river or the lake, and yet walking on it did not feel like it. Instead, every step came with a returning bounce. Picking up a piece, Sally felt as if she was holding a sponge soaked full of water, yet without any of it leaking out even when tightening her grip. Nor did the bone crack, even though most of the beach’s bones certainly looked cracked and broken.

  Then, after walking the field of spongey bones, there was the lake itself. Its waters were dark, so dark as to appear black. And yet, one could peer into its depths with ease and see the unforgettable.

  It was a similar picture as that inside Lake Prior, except taken at the worst angle. Sally thought the greater lake up north showed a vision of death, a picture of a world too proud of itself to recognize it had died long ago, a necropolis still moving about, hidden in the shine and shimmer of a mystical lake.

  Lake Dread showed the true necropolis. City towers like skeletons of titanic beasts, hollow and without a face. Glowing pale lights lined the dark city’s veins, illuminating nothing of the streets they hovered above. And the corpses, infinite corpses of all varieties – demons, humans, animals – spanning infinite distance, floating in the water like hollow-eyed and hollowed-out specters, their placidity clawing at the mind, beckoning one to join their ceaseless meandering.

  Among them, members of her Villa, her mentor, her parents, and Sally herself.

  There was too much of it, all of it, everywhere. Far, far too many remains to be reasonable. Even if every animal, every demon, every person and anything else that died in the Circuits – no, in the entire world had their bones and bodies collected and dragged into Lake Dread, it would still not be enough for the sheer amount of death it contained. It was a necropolis without a source, without purpose, without an origin and without an end.

  Sally threw up, then again and again into the water until there was nothing left to give. She felt weak, sweat breaking out for the first time since the battle with the bloodfiend over two weeks prior. Though she’d stopped looking, the vision hung in the back of her mind, a feeling of unsatiable dread making her shiver non-stop.

  “Do you know why we’re here?” A hoarse voice from her left asked.

  Sally looked at Lucy. The pilgrim, like her, had thrown up into Lake Dread as well, looking as pale and clammy as she felt. Still, unlike Sally, she wasn’t shivering, but instead tense. There was a fire in her eyes and steel in her bearing that Sally lacked, despite their similar positions.

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  Sally shook her head.

  “Do you think this lake shares this vision to all who come to it? That anyone who would come here would walk its bone shore?” Lucy asked.

  That made Sally think. Every story, every rumor she’d heard about Lake Dread was more focused on its dangers, both in getting there and at the lake itself. Of the lake itself there were horror stories about demons and Demons living there, even building a city there, or they were about Hilaynites and other things capturing and dragging people to the lake in sacrifice to a dark god.

  But never did she hear anything about a bone shore or the corpse-city. Nor had she ever heard it being compared to Lake Prior, despite the similarities in its vision.

  “How?” Sally asked, voice as hoarse as Lucy’s. “We can’t’ve been the first to make it here.”

  “No, but look around,” Lucy said, standing up and gesturing towards the horizon behind them, away from the lake. “Tell me if we’re still where we should be.”

  Sally did and looked.

  Gone was the red sand, gone were the endless dunes and gone was the river feeding the lake. All of it had been replaced by the same field of bones as the beach. Further and further she turned, doing a full rotation and finding the lake itself gone.

  “What? how?” Sally said, head moving and eyes darting from place to place only to reveal the same endless bone-dessert. Then, she settled her eyes on Lucy, eyes half glare and half despair. “What’s going on? Where are we? What is this place?!”

  But Lucy merely shook her head. “We’re at the lake, Sally, caught in its vision, its version. What did you see?”

  As if against her will, the words were dragged out of her. “I-I saw the city, the one in Lake Prior, but endless, and dead, worse than dead, it was-”

  “You – we – saw the weight of the past made present, Sally. The burden left behind by our predecessors,” Lucy said, a slight tremor going through her as she said it. “Reflected back at us, like sunlight on water.”

  “What does that even mean?!” Sally shouted in frustration, before collapsing on her knees. “Why can’t it all just be simple?” Tears of frustration and helplessness welled up. Sally’s hands went up to cover her eyes, before remembering she only had the one left. Another sob left her, before burying her face in the crook of her arm.

  Lucy sat next to her, rubbing her back.

  “I want to leave,” Sally said.

  “Then open your eyes.”

  X

  The real lake sat before them, two miles wide and one-and-a-half miles long. It was one of light blue water shimmering in the afternoon sun – no time had passed despite the memory of the other realm carrying the weight of hours spend. This Lake Dread was filled with countless of the same translucent threads the Madus was filled with.

  Somehow, this was a comforting sight to Sally.

  They sat for any number of minutes in silence, steadying themselves. What Lucy was thinking about, Sally had no clue, but her mind was simultaneously active and empty. Glimpses of thought buzzed by in the blink of an eye, but none caught her focus.

  Eventually, her mouth moved on her own, asking the same question she did before. “What did it mean?”

  “We saw Lake Prior as it could’ve been, as it was before the Prophet. Not carrying a city of past glory, not granting boons and blessings, not sharing visions of the past and future. Nothing but a sinkhole of death and despair, providing nothing but pessimism and dread for the future.”

  “Why? Why would it do this?”

  Lucy shrugged. “I don’t know. Why does Lake Prior show visions to some and grant others miracles? Why does the divine bother with anything at all? All I know is it wanted to show us something, and it needed you to do it.”

  “How? How do I fit into it?” Sally asked.

  Lucy remained silent for a moment, contemplating. “Remember, back in Lovesse, when you asked me about what it is mages and priests study?”

  Sally focused on the memory that now seemed ages ago. “The divine?”

  Lucy nodded. “Yes, but not that of gods or angels, but another one, the Binding Presence. You did not want to hear it then, but do you want to now?”

  Despite lacking an accusatory tone, Sally felt attacked. If it explained anything, why would she not want to hear it? “What kind of question is that?”

  “It is a question of religion. I know you aren’t a follower, that you don’t like religion-” Let that shimmer through, did I? “-but it’s the only answer I have.”

  Sally mulled it over. She didn’t want religion, true, but how else to explain what just happened other than a religious experience? Maybe there is something to it after all, she thought, even though a part of her was repulsed by it. By the determinism, by the inevitability it carried.

  “Fine. If it gives me answers, I’ll let you preach,” Sally said.

  Lucy gave a weak grin before clearing her throat and beginning with her lecture, tone of voice shifting to match.

  “When asked by a disciple how the divine can manifest itself only temporarily through miracles, but never permanently, while simultaneously permanently manifesting creation through its presence, our Prophet Ante gathered his students and taught them about the Binding Presence thus:

  ‘Think of divinity like water in a river. The river is a thing that flows water, and without water present, it is an empty river. Without water-past, it would not be a river and without water-future it will cease to be a river. But the river is not water, even if it needs water to exist. But an empty river is still a river, even without a water-present. Divinity is thus always there to fill creation, but it does not need to be present.’

  Then, another disciple asked if that means creation is not divine, and if things exist without divinity. After which, our Prophet Ante spoke about The Binding Presence thus:

  ‘Divinity is the Binding Presence of all existence. Without the Binding Presence, there is no past, there is no present and there is no future. And without time, there is no space, and without time and space, there is nothing. Thus, the Binding Presence transcends all things, for all things exist within these bounds. And no thing can contain the Presence, for the Presence transcends all things.

  But for a river to exist or come into existence, it must have had either a water-past, water-present or a water-future. And so must existence itself have a time and space, which cannot exist without the Binding Presence, and thus all things must contain the Binding Presence that simultaneously transcends it. How does one reconcile this?

  All things must have once been and become the Binding Presence, for like the river and water, there would be nothing without it. Thus, creation comes from the Binding Presence, without containing the Binding Presence. Thus, the Binding Presence is the Binder of Existence, without being part of existence. And thus, divinity made manifest cannot be done without miracle, and never made permanent.’” Sally finished her lecture and silence returned.

  A moment past. “I don’t get it,” Sally said bluntly, to which Lucy snorted.

  “It is difficult, and most Dekantists either don’t know about it or don’t care to know it. Hell, I don’t claim to grasp it fully either, and I’m part of the upper layers of this whole thing!” Lucy laughed, jokingly self-deprecating.

  “But what I can give you is a practical example. Remember I initiated those teens back in Lovesse into the Dekantists? Gave them their First Sip?” Sally nodded and Lucy continued. “I did not carry the waters of Lake Prior with me.” Sally remembered asking herself that question. That’s at least one thing solved, she thought internally.

  “But! All waters in the Circuits either come from Lake Prior, or flow into Lake Prior. With a miracle, a connection to divinity, I can switch their temporal position for some time, at least enough for people to Drink,” Lucy finished.

  Sally couldn’t claim to grasp the Binding Presence or whatever, but to think of divinity like ‘the thing that is needed to make a spell work’ somewhat made sense. But still…

  “What does that have to do with what just happened? And why me?”

  “Lake Dread, like Lake Prior and Lake Majestic and Lake Solemn, are all miracles, but only Lake Prior is active. The others need something – or someone – to activate them.” Lucy stared at Sally intently.

  “Me?” Sally asked, to which Lucy nodded. “So, what, you brought me here to activate these lakes for you?” Sally accused.

  “No. I knew I had to come here, I knew you had to guide me to get here, yes, but that this would happen? No,” Lucy stated neutrally.

  “But you suspected something, right? Saw something in your vision? Or was it the experiment my brother concocted that told you?” Sally asked bitterly.

  But Lucy remained unruffled. “My ‘vision’ didn’t show me anything at all. I’ve told you before, it told me – continuous to tell me what to do and when, but not why. Like I had talk to Alain about you coming to Cardinar, and had to have you come with me on my pilgrimage.”

  “And to bribe me with gifts?” Sally asked, bitterness slowly fading.

  Lucy smiled a bit. “Only that new gun of yours,” she said, pointing at the shotgun. “But no, the rest are just that: gifts.”

  “But why?” Sally asked, to which Lucy shrugged and replied. “I’ve told you why. I got funds from the Praesidium and it’s better to spend it, meant to be spent on this journey. Why not spend it on my friend and bodyguard?”

  It… made sense. Which made her feel ashamed of herself, then depressed and annoyed, and then angry at that annoyance and depression. Ever since she was revived following the disaster with the Erlings, her emotions had been all out of whack. Spiraling downwards, lifting back up, getting annoyed and angry and suspicious and paranoid at the drop of a hat, her emotions were all over the place before returning to normalcy and feeling ashamed of them, turning that into another downwards spiral and starting all over again.

  But this time, she would cut it off. No more.

  “I’m sorry,” Sally told Lucy. “I’ve… not been the nicest these past days.”

  Lucy blinked at that, surprised. “Not nice? Sally, you saved me at least two times in the Red Wastes alone. If this is you ‘not nice’, I’d hate you see you at your nicest.” Lucy gave her the bright-eyed, wide with shining teeth smile that had become her staple over the journey.

  Sally returned a smaller smile, before hardening her expression. “You gave me gifts and I became suspicious, resented you for no reason. And even before that, with all the stuff with my brother- I pushed that all on you.” Sally took a deep breath and reiterated. “For all of that, I’m sorry.”

  Lucy stared before nodding and smiling again, patting Sally on the back. “Aw, come on! It’s all water under the bridge, eh?”

  They sat for a moment in comfortable silence, before Sally recalled a topic that had been dropped by the wayside in the course of the conversation. And if they were clearing the air, well, why not clear it all?

  “Wait, what about the thing with Caldwell? The results of the experiment? How does that fit in?”

  Lucy shrugged. “To be honest, who knows? Well, Caldwell I suppose, but he’s under some magical oath not to divulge. As far as I know, your destiny is linked in some way to the waters of the Circuits, Lake Prior, the Devourer and Dakh Hilayn. Though whatever that means, only time will tell.”

  Sally hummed in agreement, before her attention caught a word. “Wait, my destiny?”

  “Yes?” Lucy replied. “What else would you call all this? Your revival – twice – being tied to these mystical forces? My visions of you? What else but fate and destiny can carry all that weight?”

  Sally thought about it, but ultimately shrugged. She didn’t like the idea, didn’t believe in it, didn’t want anything to do with it. But could she deny it?

  These connections with mystical forces were real, the ritual conducted at Lovesse was good for that much, at least. Add to that the resurrections, the endurance, strength and speed she now had, and now the episode to the lake? Something was slowly beginning to take shape. What that shape was, Sally couldn’t tell, and if Lucy wanted to call it her ‘destiny’, then who was she to argue?

  Yet despite the talk of destiny, the horrible vision of the past, the grueling journey both past and yet to come, the vague connections to the Grand Circuit’s best and worst aspects, and the fallout with her brother all still weighing heavily on her; despite all the apprehension, she now felt more than ever ready to confront it.

  Still, who knew that the best place to talk about one’s feelings would be called Lake Dread?