

GARAMOUSH

By Michael Wettengel

### Published by Michael Wettengel at Smashwords

Text Copyright © 2014 Michael Wettengel

### All Rights Reserved

Cover design by Finn Smulders

### All Rights Reserved

### All of the characters in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

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To the great people who helped me get here,

### Brandi Reissenweber, Sam Luccioni Mancini,

Kristen Grismore, Alec Faleer,

and my whole family. You all put up with my

craziness and are now helping me to

### infect the rest of the world with it.

I hope you're quite proud of yourselves.

### Table of Contents

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

# Part 1

"Hurry up, Father!" Eym called, her bright blonde curls lifting in the wind like flower petals.

"And why should I?" Stenn responded. "I know the way. How do you think you'll get there if you keep running ahead of me?"

"Oh, Father," Eym said, every word punctuated with a quick hop, "I know how to get there! Every girl and boy worth their salt knows!"

As if it was a cue, Eym broke out in a sing-song rhythm "All-Seeing Garamoush." She cracked out the old ballad with a gusto that only youth could provide. Eym sang of the sleeping god's life, from the time He walked amongst humans until He collapsed on the shoreline where He slept ever since. She paid special attention to the mention of the living god's clairvoyance- His ability to see all across the land and mutter His findings in His sleep.

Stenn found himself half-mumbling some of the lyrics out of habit. Eym twirled and spun about as she sang. Her father shook his head and smiled, picking up his pace on the cobblestone path.

Stenn never grew weary of the wide open spaces in the world. The sense of freedom was something that Stenn drank up like water. Stenn turned as he heard his daughter start squealing. Evidently, his young daughter was infatuated with the great big outside world as well.

Eym laughed in delight when she caught sight of the first of many butterflies. They were all sporting the confident colors of springtime. She became a benevolent hunter, chasing down the insects with reckless fervor. The air was fresh with a hint of salt from the nearby sea. Stenn had walked the path more than enough times to have committed it to heart. The edge of the sea, and His Shore, would be just over the next hill.

The cobblestones of the path beneath his feet seemed to cave and move as if accommodating Stenn's aging limbs. The warm spring wind chuckled as it tumbled through the wide, green plain. Stenn had to start picking out pieces of windblown grass as they landed into his short black hair. He had to admit, though, a seed of nervousness had taken root inside of him when he left his home in nearby Dehry Township that day. He had not laid eyes on the slumbering god since he left the Ministry of Fate and His Greatness- six years ago. Stenn liked to think he was a better man than he was back then, but if Garamoush could truly see all as He slept, He would certainly see who Stenn once was and the doubts he still had about himself. After all, Stenn thought, impulsively biting his lip, they didn't name the Ministry after "His Greatness" for no reason.

Even those thoughts, however, could not weaken Stenn's mood or his sense of wild amazement when he crested the hill with his daughter at his side. The hill continued down to form a cliff overlooking the sea. Save for the beach and the sea laying to the east, the cliff stretched in a nearly circular shape and it sloped downwards to the ground with an almost gentle slope. The space below could only be described as a crater; it was a gargantuan space that could have held a small city but now held a slumbering god.

Garamoush was a god in every right. There was not a single story, fable, legend, or nursery rhyme that overstated Him. If one could move past the fact that when He slept He looked more like a mountain than a living being, more parallels could have been drawn between Garamoush and a common tortoise as opposed to a god. He wore a shell, black and brown with silver veins like cut marble and bumped like an ancient tree. However, most tortoises didn't have four arms, a flat tail nearly as long as the body proper, and a crown and cowl of gnarled white bone.

A sound of rushing air caught Stenn's attention and he looked about, expecting to see the plains shimmering from a strong gust of wind. Instead, he was drawn to Eym, who was gasping in nothing short of wonderment.

Gasping was all she seemed to be able to do, in fact. Any words that she tried to form ended up leaving her mouth in quiet, out of order fragments. However, what Eym couldn't say with her mouth, she was saying with her eyes. Her pupils shot around like birds taking flight as they tried to absorb all that she was saying.

Stenn smiled. I once was the same way, he thought. I once thought it impossible, incomprehensible almost, that something so enormous could ever exist. We're hardly even ants to Him, Stenn had thought then and still thought now, it would take a god's intelligence to even notice creature as painfully small as us beneath Him.

"He's got four arms, Father," she gasped.

Stenn shook his head. That's what you notice? Never mind the fact that He's larger than your entire hometown. "Yes. Yes He does." In the valley, Stenn noticed that a spattering of children, overseen by an elderly woman, was playing down in the sand. In Stenn's day, it was almost a rite of passage for children to play near the benevolent god at some point in their lives. Stenn's life as a servant in a lord's manor never allowed him the luxury to see Him in the flesh, however. Stenn finally laid eyes on His divine form only a few years after joining the Ministry when he escorting a Declarer for the first time. He was happy to know that his daughter was already living a better life than he had.

There was another gust of wind but this time it came from down below. Garamoush's breath pushed clouds of sand and dirt into the air that could easily swallow up whole groups of men.

"For all the sleeping He does," Eym said, "why would He even need all those arms?"

"To Stir, Eym," Stenn responded. "He couldn't roll or move very well without all that strength, now could He?"

His Shore wasn't even a shoreline before His arrival, in fact. When He had finally laid down to rest, He flattened virtually an entire hillside in the process. His Stirrings only made the Shoreline longer and wider as His massive frame flattened rocks and hills. The flood of clairvoyant visions Garamoush was said to have as He slept, perhaps understandably for a pacifist god in a world of humans, occasionally caused Him some distress. Thus, He tossed and turned in His sleep, not unlike the humans He was dedicated to protecting and watching over. His words had stopped wars, birthed cities, and imparted cures to stop plagues over the course of over two hundred years. It only helped Him that cities and towns that were miles upon miles away could feel the ground rumble just a bit whenever He Stirred. When a god was displeased, it was almost impossible to ignore Him.

Stenn sat and flexed his toes and fingers in the tall grass. It had been six good years since he felt his hands and feet laden down by the armour of a Ministry Knight. Six good years of life he lived without regrets because he spent all of that time watching his daughter go from a newborn to the curious young girl she was now. Stenn dug into his pocket and pulled out his pocket watch; the new invention of clockwork continued to amaze him and when the Ministry sent it along with him when he was freed from his duties, he found some kind of petty vengeance in asking merchants just how much the device would have been worth. He would have loved to hawk the brass cylindrical "gift" and spent the small mountain of gold indulging in every vice the Ministry warned against. It's not like I even have the stomach for that kind of stuff anyway, Stenn thought. Then he smirked. Please, I don't think my wife would approve.

Eym's eyes, like the clockwork inside it, wound over the watch. She had taken a fierce liking to the device since the moment she could hold it. That was more than enough for Stenn, so he kept it.

"Your mother should be here soon," Stenn said, the clock showing that it was barely past midday. "It never takes more than a few hours to get here from Oxfield." Tania had insisted on being with her father at Oxfield while her mother finished recovering from her gout. Stenn had received a letter just a few days before that his mother-in-law's pain had subsided and she was quite vocal in her displeasure that he, too, did not wait on her. Eym had smiled and laughed along with her father as he read the letter aloud in his mother-in-law's low, accusatory voice. Tania would have no doubt laughed alongside them, if not laughing the loudest of all.

Eym could hardly sit still; she bounced on the balls of her feet, her eyes darting between Garamoush and the watch.

"Do you think He'll tell me my future one day, father?" Eym asked, her gaze now transfixed on the slumbering god.

"It doesn't really work that way, I'm afraid," Stenn said. "Garamoush doesn't tell the future, He... sees things, sees them all across the world even as He sleeps. Then when something really bothers Him, He'll start speaking in his sleep."

"That's much less interesting, Father," Eym said, her brow trying adorably hard to look angry.

Stenn shrugged. "Just the way it is." But you've been to plenty of Ministry services, right? Haven't the Declarers told you some amazing things, things that somebody who has been asleep since even before I was born somehow still knows?"

"Well Father," Eym said, utilizing all of the stubbornness that came with Stenn's side of the gene pool, "He's a god. He's supposed to know things. Like the future. That's a god-ish thing to know."

"And have you ever spoken to a god, young lady?" Stenn asked with a smile. "How do you know what kind of 'things' they know?"

Eym's lip stuck out as she floundered, searching for an answer or a way to buy time so she could just make up something that sounded good. "No, I've never spoken to one" she admitted after a while, but was quick to retaliate with, "but you have."

"Garamoush spoke at me," Stenn said. "Besides, "it was the Declarers I was guarding that He spoke to. I just happened to be nearby." Even the memory of Garamoush's voice was so punishingly loud that the ghost of a ringing could be heard in Stenn's ears. In truth, it was more like He spoke around Stenn, rather than at him. "It's not like I knew what he was saying anyway. Only the Declarers knew."

Her newest scheme foiled, Eym kept scowling and started to angrily pick at the grass beneath her.

"I just wanted to know if I'd grow up to be somebody great," she said, "somebody like you, Father. I want to be in history books one day." It was there that Eym's mother and Stenn's wife, Tania, started to come through. A big heart and bigger dreams was what drew the lowborn Stenn to the only daughter of a wealthy merchant. It was also those qualities that kept Stenn coming back no matter how many times Tania's father shooed him away like a wandering, flea-bitten dog. Even back then, Stenn knew that he was hardly better than a hired thug when he worked for the Ministry. And in general, Knights weren't seen in a very good light by regular folks. To make things even worse, Stenn had no family name or legacy to vouch for his character. In the end, Stenn had to admit that he was as close to being a dirty, homeless dog as a man could be. But Tania was persistent. It was a special skill of hers. Her endless energy for life rubbed off on her father eventually, so much so that the old man eventually became Stenn's father-in-law. Tania's energy must have infected Stenn as well and both he and Tania were happy to see that it passed to their daughter as well.

"You don't need some stupid tortoise to tell you that you will," Stenn said.

"Stupid?" Eym gasped, "I thought you said He could see all around the world as He slept. That's bloody brilliant."

Luckily, Stenn's daughter wasn't knowledgeable enough in the world of nuisances and sarcastic jabs; otherwise she might have taken that opportunity to turn Stenn's words against him. If she was as similar to her father as he thought, Stenn probably wouldn't have heard the end of it for some time.

"I mean that you can be great without somebody telling you that you can."

"Oh," Eym said, the gears in her head resetting, "I want to work for the Ministry. Like you, father. Or like Lord Ennet. He was a Declarer too, wasn't he? Do you think I could be one? I hear they have to study loads to understand Garamoush. Months," she said, incredulous, "years even." Eym's young body hummed with excitement as her dream was put into words and shared aloud.

Stenn, meanwhile, concealed his frown behind a thin smile. He had slaved for the Ministry for thirty years. Thirty years too many, he thought. If he could help it, the Ministry would not get ahold of another member of the Fenner family. But he also frowned for the man his daughter had mentioned. Lord Samuel Ennet and his wife hadn't been seen in years. They, along with some of their retainers, had disappeared into the labyrinth inside of Garamoush's shell five years ago and hadn't been seen since. Most believed, and perhaps rightly so, that they were all dead. The shell of a god was hardly a place for man who was so old that his walking stick was practically his third leg.

Stenn's mind remained dwelling on the Ministry. The ghosts of their rhetoric and the time that he had wasted listening to and following them still remained as whispers deep within his mind. They were merely whispers now, but they still lived on nevertheless. As if fate had a cruel sense of humour, Stenn's eye caught sight a cluster of figures in the light shade of an outcropping of rock some ways away. He frowned as soon as he saw them.

Of course they're here, Stenn thought, why wouldn't they be?

The men and women of the Ministry of Fate kept to themselves, avoiding all contact with other humans and even the bright and cheerful sun. A pair of acolytes sat cross-legged with books in their laps, their faces and figures obscured by a hooded heavy brown robe. The dark gold embroidery on their sleeves and shoulders told Stenn that they were at least somewhat progressed in their studies to become full-fledged Declarers. In his days, Stenn had seen Declarers with intricate and oftentimes stunning embroidered art- usually of sacred scenes or symbols- woven into the fabrics of their robes by the Declarers themselves.

Stenn hesitated when he saw the Knight standing with his arms crossed and in his plate armour. He looked like a steel-clad statue as he stood guard over his charges.

Stenn almost didn't want to look the man's way for too long, just in case he was somehow recognized. He knew how absurd the idea was, given the distance at which he sat from them and considering how preoccupied their minds must have been. Garamoush rarely spoke with any real consistency- gods were probably not known for a sense of timeliness since they lived forever- but His Stirrings were the best indicators that the Ministry had that He might speak soon. But for the past couple of years, Garamoush had been strangely silent. He Stirred with ever-increasing frequency and yet He said nothing. Stenn could hardly change the fact of the matter, but even he was beginning to grow nervous about the god's prolonged silence.

Simply looking at the trio for too long was making Stenn's stomach turn over, as if they were demons trying to tempt him back into a life he had chosen to leave behind. So, he turned away from them and back to Eym. Back to the life had had chosen to replace his old one.

A rumbling ran beneath Stenn's feet. Eym was quick to notice it, too, and was quicker in rising to her feet. A sound like the low blowing of a horn ran up from the valley below up to the cliffs. The sound was indeed low and loud like a horn, but it was strong enough to push against Stenn's chest. It felt like somebody was pushing a rock up against his chest. He had felt it many times before, but had never grown used to it. He knew exactly what it meant.

The valley below was now thrumming with activity. The small horde of young people that ran and played around Garamoush was being called to and the children's old caretaker had personally run up to the playing children, trying to pull them all away. Her voice was drowned out by the thunderstorm of noise that was coming from Garamoush.

"What's going on, Father?" Eym asked with her eyes still on the valley below. She had her hand on her chest, evidently not enjoying the strange new sensation.

The children in the valley didn't seem to realize the amount of danger they were in. Some simply bounced up and down in joy from the new sensation. One who appeared much older than the other children simply stared at Garamoush. Then, her long dark hair snapped close to her back as she crouched down like a hunter about to fall upon prey. Stenn raised his eyebrow at the young lady, but put her away in his mind- the rumbling and noise was only getting worse.

"He's going to Stir," Stenn said, putting his hand on her shoulder. Both he and Eym knew what it meant for the great slumbering god to Stir. Stenn had told his daughter all about the feeling and the borderline incomprehensibility of the whole experience of watching, hearing, and feeling Him Stir. Stenn wagered that Eym was still having a hard time believing what she was experiencing.

Like a human in sleep, Garamoush tossed and turned. The Ministry always told Stenn to regard a Stirring as a sign that Garamoush would speak soon. But for right now, Stenn only knew it as a sign of impending mortal danger for the children below.

The ground lurched and trembled as Garamoush swung two of His enormous arms into the ground and rolled Himself over. Watching Him move was like what it must be like for an ant to watch a human. Everything seemed to move in slow motion.

The chaos below only grew when He turned again, lurching and throwing His weight to the side and bringing it down heavily on the ground. Stenn could barely watch, knowing that He might also be coming down on the terrified children.

His arms smashed into the ground, sending sand and dirt into the air as He came to a rest, His shell once again level with the ground.

Stenn bit his lip. He knew his conscience- his damn conscience which he had been stuck with the moment he met Tania- would not allow him to stand idle while children were thrown into mortal danger. He felt like it could excuse that comparatively small infraction of abandoning his daughter to go try to be a hero.

Eym must have sensed her father's discomfort. She put her small hand on Stenn's clenched fist.

"I'm sure they'll be alright, Father."

Stenn gripped her hand with his scarred and pitted one. It practically devoured Eym's whole. "Let's hope so," Stenn whispered.

The pandemonium on His Shore wasn't quieting down. In fact, the chaos only seemed to grow. The elderly matron of the children was taking turns flailing her arms about in dismay and embracing her recovered youngsters. Now, however, people were starting to come down from the hills and cliffs that overlooked Garamoush to help reconcile the whole affair. So far, though, nobody was particularly effective. Men and women both looked, understandably, hesitant about approaching the sleeping god, lest He Stir again, or inflict some kind of godly curse on them.

"Look," Eym shouted, her pale finger jutting down towards Garamoush. "That boy is walking back!"

It took Stenn a moment to notice the tan fabric of the boy's shirt and trousers, but his daughter was right. The boy was walking, though it looked more like dazed stumbling from so far away, over to the matron. The old woman stopped her flailing once again to partake in the only other action her arms seemed fit to do- embracing the child.

Stenn looked to the outcropping of rock for the three members of the Ministry. All of them were gone and the books of the acolytes had been left behind. Stenn quickly found them again, their small-looking bodies made even more miniscule by their closeness to Garamoush. The Knight had his back to the acolytes and was slowly pacing, keeping an eye on everybody and anybody, those mighty metal gauntlets of his shined in the sunlight. Meanwhile, the acolytes had apparently been joined by a new member- a Declarer. The Declarer held her hands high above her head and was shouting out apologies, requests, and questions.

In other words, they were doing bugger-all to help the people who were panicking barely spitting-distance away.

Stenn ran a quick count of the heads. Seven children had vanished under the shadow of His shell. Six were mustered around their caretaker.

"There's still one missing," Stenn said, "the young lady with the dark hair." He had to suppress the urge to bounce on the balls of his feet.

For a few moments, nothing new happened. The world continued on as normal and the little corner of it that Stenn was in continued to drive itself mad. Stenn had to look down at his feet; the sound of heavy clopping made it seem they had begun nervously moving on their own. However, when Stenn looked down, his feet were rooted in place as before, but the sound was still getting louder.

Again, Eym saw it first. She eagerly pulled at Stenn's shirt sleeve. "There's Mother's carriage! And look, Grandfather Bartholomew's driving the horses!"

And driving them he was. Stenn's father-in-law pushed the pair of horses like he had a horde of demons after him. Either that or he caught wind that a god the size of a mountain just moved. Bart's flat grey mop of hair bounced about like the carriage itself. The carriage's four tall wooden wheels trundled about the cobblestones and people scrambled to get out of their way.

Bart pulled his cart to a halt and as he quickly tended to the agitated horses, the door to the carriage swung open and Tania stepped out. She evened out the creases in her simple dress and tossed her short blonde hair out of her eyes. She gave an energetic wave to Stenn and Eym.

Stenn raised his hand to his father-in-law, then to his wife. He pointed down at Garamoush and yelled he was going to help the children. Tania yelled something in return, but the wind drowned out both of their voices.

"You heard what I said, right?" Stenn asked, turning to Eym.

She nodded. "I know what you need to go do, Father." She smiled and her eyes lit up with pride. "Do the Fenner family proud," she said. Stenn playfully patted the back of her head at her cheekiness.

"I will, my noble lady," Stenn said, playing along. He even bowed, which according to Eym's explosion of giggles, she enjoyed greatly.

"Come back safe," Eym said, sounding notably less playful.

Stenn thought for a moment. "Words will only go so far, Eym." Stenn dug into his pocket and pulled out his cylindrical watch. He pressed it into her small, soft hands. "Hold on to this for me. On my honor, I'll be coming back for it." Stenn knew he needed no collateral to make him come back in one piece and his daughter probably didn't need it either. But if it set them both more at ease, Stenn could justify it.

With that, Stenn began running. He found the same paths that he had taken alongside Declarers and other Knights; they had practically been engrained into his mind after all of those countless assignments. This time, however, he had no Declarer to watch over, no holier-than-thou baggage to weigh him down. He found himself moving freely. In a way, it was liberating to run as quickly as his body could carry him down the paths the Ministry supposedly owned.

Stenn was not the only person rushing to aid the children or their wailing caretaker. However, he was the only one to get close enough to touch Garamoush. The great god shook as He slept, His breathing carrying the strength and consistency as the coming and going of the tide. Stenn wondered why He had chosen this beach as his place to sleep. Maybe the waves soothe Him, he thought, maybe He doesn't feel so alone when there's something else as powerful and old as Him nearby.

Stenn ran about half the length of Garamoush's enormous black, spiny shell before he needed to stop and catch his breath. It was like he was trying to run his way around the outside of an entire city. He stained his ears to hear the children and their caretaker. The tone of their voices hadn't lightened or calmed in the slightest. Still one missing, Stenn thought.

A gust of wind tickled the back of Stenn's neck. But unlike the warm beach air, this wind was cold and dry. Stenn turned to see that it had come from what looked like a hole in His shell.

Part of the old verse about His shell came unbidden into his head.

...Garamoush saw nature grow

Up from girlhood

She gave Him a shell

He gave us knowledge,

Protection, guidance,

His shell, like His body

Is just another face

To His many appearances

Of Greatness

"Look deep"

He said

"Deep inside of me"

"For it is where my knowledge comes"

He speaks in riddles

Lest we lesser creatures wrestle His divinity away

"Make pilgrimage"

"Into my labyrinth shell"

He would say

Heed Him well, you lesser creatures

Us lesser creatures

His knowledge cannot be claimed

Only earned

If not by advantage

Then by adventure...

What the singers of that story often failed to note, however, was that to enter His shell was treasonous and sinful on an uncountable number of levels. Stenn had even seen a few poor sods dragged into the dark underworks of the Ministry's Granite Citadel for heretical offences much less severe than entering His shell. Not only were they never seen after that point, but they were never even spoken about. It was as if the Ministry erased them from history.

Stenn looked about. He bit his lip as a new layer of sweat formed along his forehead. He wagered that it was unlikely that anybody could see him if he decided to poke his head in and although members of the Ministry were just barely out of earshot; Stenn had gone too long in his life being afraid of them. Stenn knew perfectly well that what he was doing would probably be considered a great sin by the Ministry, but if he just took a quick look... A quick look for a good reason...

"Hello?" Stenn called, stepping up into the hole. It looked more like the mouth of a cave now that he got to take a good look at it. Only his echoes responded to his call. "Hello?" he called again. "Uh... young ma'am? Are you in there?" Stenn waited, but again only heard his own dwindling voice talking back to him. It made his skin crawl to think about it, but as far as he knew, he could be standing right on top of that poor girl at that very moment. She could be underneath Garamoush's shell, pulverized into the sand and dirt like a post driven in with hammer. Stenn tried to shake the thought out of his head.

Stenn swallowed hard as his thoughts drifted to his child. Little Eym needed to know her father was, without a doubt, going to be coming back alive and well. But the lost girl's parents, whoever they might be, deserved the same peace of mind. In a way, the familiar warm buzzing in the head of a duty unfulfilled, one of a father, if not in practice than in theory, made up Stenn's mind.

Am I really playing hero like I'm from some child's fable? Stenn thought. I suppose I am.

And then there's the Ennets... Stenn, along with the friends and colleagues of the Ennet family even held a funeral for in their honor three years ago. At first, the Ministry's Knights and Justices kept a careful eye on Garamoush's shell so that they might arrest Samuel and anybody who had gone in with him. But, years later, even the Ministry had given up the hope that either of the Ennets was still alive. But there Stenn was, standing at the cusp of an entirely different world, the same world where a man who once meant the world to him had disappeared into. No, Stenn thought, he's gone. He and Marianne and any who came with them.

"This isn't for me," he mumbled. "This isn't to set my mind at ease. It's to set some poor worried parent's mind at ease." When he said it all out loud it seemed to make much more sense. I'm going to be coming back, Stenn assured himself. I gave Eym my word as a father. He called one last time but entered into the deep dark of the shell even before his echoes died away.

The cavern Stenn found himself in was one almost unnervingly close to human architecture. Bone made up the trusses and pillars that supported walls and ceilings of warm red flesh. The floor, made of the same fleshy material, was remarkably firm. The squelching sound his heavy feet made was almost negligible to his ears. But, as a worrying testament to the length of the cave, if it could honestly be called a cave, was that the sound still echoed a good ways before fading into the thick darkness. The whole atmosphere smelt and felt... cold. Like raw meat covered in a layer of frost. Stenn was fully aware going into Garamoush's shell that it was unlike the shell of a usual tortoise or turtle. His shell was an extension of His living flesh. Stenn was certain that the fleshy material in the cavernous space was actually part of Garamoush's own body. He would look over his shoulder every few steps. The cave hardly ever bent, rose, or fell, but the brightened path to the outside world was quickly getting dimmer the further he pressed onwards.

Eventually, only his hand and careful walking was a reliable guide to him when the light from outside failed to reach him. Looking ahead into the endless darkness, he couldn't help remembering what Lord Samuel Ennet had written about the deep ocean in On Natural Forces.

Light, he had written, and Stenn's mind recited in Ennet's characteristically high and bookish voice, is not infinite. Stenn noticed that when he blinked now, there was no difference in the light or dark. The further one goes down into the depths of the ocean, Stenn's hands could reach out and touch both sides of the walls now; the tunnel was becoming narrower, the less light ultimately reaches. Stenn checked over his shoulder. The light was hardly a grain now. And the darker the deep ocean waters become." Sten called out again, twice in a row. The sound of his echoing voice played a trick on his mind, making him think he heard a deep rumbling. I would exercise extreme caution... Ennet's voice said. The rumbling came again, this time unbidden by Stenn, ... when investigating the unknown and mysterious depths.

The next time the rumbling came, Stenn was thrown to the wall. It was louder and longer this time. The wall became the floor. Then it became the ceiling. Garamoush was Stirring again. The last speck of light faded away and Stenn's head hit a length of bone hard. He didn't even know his eyes were closed until half his body went numb and he passed into unconsciousness.

# Part 2

Stenn thought it was a dream- it had to have been. He didn't really go into the shell of a god. All he had done was slip and hit his head on a rock. That was all. Tania and Bart must have carried him back home. When he opened his eyes, he would be lying on his bed and the sunlight would be coming through the open window like it always did. Tania would be sitting next to him, a mixture of concern and good-humor spread over her freckled face. She would take his hand in hers and run her fingers in-between his and tell him with sarcastic graveness that Eym laughed at him all the way home. Then Stenn would smile and the world would be as it should.

Where Stenn was laying was cold. When he opened his eyes, there was no warm sun and his big hands had no other hands to grip. He groaned as he sat up and stretched. The living nightmare was his reality and the world he thought he would have awoken to was, in the end, the dream.

Stenn would have lashed out then with all of his might into the bizarre nightmare world he had fallen into, but good sense stayed his hand. I'll be needing all of my strength, Stenn thought, as if he was scolding the less-rational parts of his mind, punching a wall won't get me anywhere... if you can even call these walls.

Stenn blinked, the strange new world slowly coming back more into focus. Glowing patches of blue and green grew like boils out of the red walls. They cast a strange, eerie light that made Stenn uneasy, like the light was trying to almost burrow under his skin. His hand and feet found steady footing by the patch's light not long after he awoke and he finally got a good, clean look at exactly what kind of madness he had gotten himself into.

In one direction, the cave was getting steadily thinner. Stenn reasoned that he was bound in that direction. He remembered right before the Stirring that he could feel both the walls of the cave when he couldn't before. In the other direction, there was only cold and unwelcoming darkness. The heavy rasping of Stenn's breathing was all he could hear.

Knowing full well that his original path for escape was unusable now, he shook the rest of the ringing and fogginess from his head and started walking.

In the unearthly quiet of the cave, Stenn's thoughts were impossible to ignore. They had moved from the warm, sunny dream of his family to the true gravity of his situation. True, he was now trapped inside the shell of a god, but he still had enough optimism and confidence to stay true to his promise to Eym. He would be coming back to her and her mother. But after he escaped... what then?

Stenn might have avoided being seen by the men and women of the Ministry as he entered Garamoush's shell, but there would be no avoiding them as he escaped. As a Knight, Stenn had guarded Declarers for years- the Ministry always wanted to make sure that their most valuable members were well protected and only the Declarers could be in any direct contact with Garamoush. Even so, by sacred edict, no human being could pass into Garamoush's shell, no matter what the songs or fables said, unless they wanted to be marked as a heretic. Heretics were only punished with death, but a heretic that went into Garamoush's shell... Stenn actually felt a bit better about Samuel Ennet's fate. It would have been much worse if he was ever captured by the Ministry.

But, there Stenn was, inside of a god's shell. Stenn let himself smirk. He had half a mind to saunter into the Ministry's sacred Granite Citadel and gloat about his little misadventure up to high heaven, just to see their pursed, jealous, hateful little faces. Then he would probably be hanged as a heretic. His fantasy paused as he squeezed through a particularly narrow part of the tunnel.

A different Stenn might have found the image even funnier, and one absolutely worth it in the end. But that different Stenn didn't have a wife and young daughter. With that, Stenn shut the thought out. If, no, when, he found his way out, young woman in tow or not, it might be best to flee town or maybe even the whole damn country. He knew how the Ministry worked. Heresy, in their minds, spread like a disease. The only way to ensure that it was stamped out was to stamp out those who were infected with it. They wouldn't spare Tania and little Eym would probably be shipped to a faraway orphanage.

Stenn shook the though from his head. He locked it away with the rest of the filth that wasn't worth his time to think about. There wasn't a force in Garaheim that could keep Stenn's scared and old hands from those of his wife's. He could still feel their softness and their deep inner strength now and he latched to the feeling. He used the feeling as an anchor and an extension to the vow he made to his daughter.

There is nothing in Garaheim that can keep me from them, he thought, his steps becoming more confident as he walked, not even Garamoush Himself. Stenn's mind immediately started to run through different possibilities for what came after he escaped His shell because there was going to be an "after."

Maybe Tania's father can shelter us, Stenn thought. Bart did say he wanted a son like me, didn't he? Well, I guess we can meet him halfway by living in his house. But that might also... put... him in...

Holy hell.

The thin tunnel and Stenn's mind both had eventually given way to a brand new environment. He had to be dreaming now. There was simply no way it could have been real.

Those are stars. Stars.

Stenn's neck craned until it started to become painful. Then he just craned it some more anyway. Far, far above, specks of light were glowing light blue. It was like looking up at the night sky, there was simply no other comparison Stenn could draw. But he was inside a shell. It was almost too much to take in. Stenn only shook himself from his stupor when he realized that his mouth was becoming dry from it hanging open for so long.

His mind concocted a plan to rationalize. He tried to trace out all of the constellations he knew. The Clockmaker, the Black Chariot, the Great Spyglass- none of them appeared in that strange sky. For the first time, Stenn looked around him, rather than above him. Small patches of silver-blue light, similar to the ones in the cave were spread out on the floor, reaching far into the distance. Their distribution spoke of a round shape to the room.

So, Stenn realized, not a sky at all. Just a ceiling. An extremely odd ceiling. A ceiling that was probably once a floor not too long ago thanks to His Stirring. Strangely, though, the walls were complete devoid of the glowing patches. His eyes scanned above him with new knowledge and a new purpose. Stenn frowned. A ceiling with as many entrances as the floor. The light cast from the patches showed dozens, if not hundreds of entrances to caves similar to the one Stenn had just come from.

She could be anywhere, thought Stenn, his frown deepening. For all he knew the young woman could have moved with much more speed and grace than an old man like him and was still conscious while Stenn was lying passed out on the floor. Hell, she might have even gone into one of the caves that would now be part of the ceiling.

Stenn's knees started to disagree with the indeterminate amount of time he spent staring at the ceiling. So, Stenn sat. Stenn sighed. Stenn thought.

He thought long and hard, about both the strange new world he found himself in and the old world he had left behind. His eyesight was finally adjusting, at the very least. The starry ceiling shone clearer and brighter, almost exactly like the real night sky. A pang of guilt hit Stenn's heart. One week ago he made a promise to his wife and daughter that he would take them to a plateau not far from the Granite Citadel. It was the best place in all of Garaheim to see the night sky. As a Knight-in-training and a fully-fledged Knight, Stenn loved the mysterious night sky, but he had always taken his nighttime trips to see the stars alone. Now he had a chance to share the experience. I'm going to see the starry sky, the real starry sky again. And I won't be alone.

By then the strange boney contours and warm, sinewy flesh was starting to come clearer to him. Even the corners of his vision were starting to light up, despite him not being even within spitting distance of any of the bulbous patches of light.

Perhaps in a vain hope, Stenn left where he sat and started to walk towards the far side of the room, his adjusted eyes open all the while, looking for anything that might be construed as a clue to the young woman's path. The walk was long, lonely, and unfruitful.

In the quiet dark, an unwelcome part of his mind started to remember in earnest Stenn the Knight, not Stenn the father. As a Knight, it was his job to be cynical- to guard the Declarers from any threat, even imagined ones. His eyes were trained through the decades of looking accusingly at crowds, even though they often full of people he knew would do no wrong.

It felt like rusty plates rubbing together when Stenn brought those old skills of searching and identifying to the surface. Each glowing patch became another face in a crowd. He looked for patterns in them, for anything to stick out as different. Whether that different thing was going to be dangerous or helpful, Stenn couldn't tell. He didn't think his expectations would be valid here in this bizarre world. His eyes rolled over the strange patches until he started to lose track of time. But then, he stopped.

It wasn't something that he did notice. Rather, it was something that he did not. He could see a consistent cover of the glowing patches across the entire, except for two. Two were dim and, more unnervingly, popped like boils and their dull-colored contents had spilled out onto the fleshy floor. Stenn didn't suspect that they popped naturally; someone must have damaged them as they moved about.

Stenn spied one of the patches near him and placed his boot against it. He cringed at the feeling, at the sensation of thick and strange fluids moving beneath his foot. Stenn pushed all other thoughts out of his head and stomped down hard. As he expected, the patch burst and it lost its light almost instantly. Also as per his expectations, his boot was now well and stained with the curiously warm viscous fluid.

Stenn couldn't repress a shiver, despite the warmth of the room. He resolved that a bath was the first thing he would do when he escaped Garamoush's shell, bar hugging his wife and daughter. He was able to nod, though, secure in his intuitions. The young woman was leaving a clumsy trail to follow indeed, just perhaps in not the most traditional sense. He followed the trail of darkness between the patches on the floor and quickened his pace when he saw footprints made from small feet but a long stride were weaving through the patches, the dull goop from the patches evidently clinging to the young woman's boots like Stenn's. He ended up at a particularly large cave entrance. With the patch directly in front of it extinguished, it was hard to even gauge the height of the cave's mouth. Stenn only shook his head. It's no wonder I didn't see it. Without any light it's as big and as black as the rest of the walls.

There unfortunately wasn't much light within the cave either. The dim light of the stars did not penetrate far in. Stenn only felt his way along, keeping his breathing and feet quiet. He reached a wall, his hands blindly groping out at its fleshy material. He stood still for a moment, hoping that eventually his eyes would adjust to the almost unnatural thickness of the dark. A light caught his attention from the corner of his eye. At first, he thought it was just his racing mind playing tricks on him, but the light stayed. It floated dimly at the edge of the tunnel.

When Stenn reached the light, he noticed that it was coming from another series of glowing patches. The area of the cave he had entered was a bit taller and wider than the last. Why does it feel so odd to be standing like this? Stenn turned to look over his shoulder. It was subtle, but now that he was apparently on flat ground, the tunnel he emerged from seemed to be sloping downwards.

Stenn groaned. "I meant to be finding a way out of here. Not a way to get deeper in." He stopped and got down low, his fists raised. It was probably just the way his voice echoed along the strange cave walls, but he swore he heard some kind of scuffling. He began moving forward slowly- almost painfully slowly, but his eyes were sharper now and he wasn't about to let anything sneak up on him.

Stenn sighed and stood up, straightening his back. There was no place for something to hide in this straight tunnel, so he stopped himself from worrying any more than he already was.

Besides, he thought, there's nothing for it. Stranger things have already happened. Maybe it won't all be bad. Still, Stenn knew that he was lost in a dark and truly alien place. It almost seemed impossible that benevolent Garamoush's shell could be so unnerving and unwelcome. It was contrary to just about every song and tale told about the god. Stenn started to search his mind for one such song, as if to prove to himself that Garamoush was still the caring god he had always heard about.

...He would pluck the stars

Down to the ground for us

If we asked...

Stenn rounded a corner, his mind feeling a bit more at ease with the familiar words circling in his head.

For He is good

And He will care

The Finder of the Lost

The-

Stenn wondered why his breath wasn't coming in like normal. He no longer had to wonder once the pain from the kick to his gut set in. He stumbled back from the blow, his watering eyes trying to find the attacker and his head bashed with a thud up against an outcropping of bone. Stenn's attacker quickly had their arms around his waist and flung him to the ground.

The young woman's face was familiar, even if Stenn had only seen it from up on a cliff. The girl who he had come to search for was now on top of him, her knee pushed against his chest and a knife of heavy grey iron at his throat.

Stenn ground his teeth at how easily and completely he had been beaten. Whoever the young woman was, she knew what she was going. Maybe she doesn't need my help after all, Stenn briefly considered.

"How did you get here? Who the hell are you?"

"Same way as you did, I imagine. And my name's..." Stenn feigned a cough and flailed in the way an aging man was probably expected to when a knee was pressed against his chest, "my name... would be easier to say if I could breathe normally."

The young woman jerked her head in closer, her rough and wild brown bangs splashing into Stenn's face. "How stupid do you think I am? Tell me who you are or it's going to get a lot harder to breathe."

The knife hovered just below Stenn's throat like a viper with death in its eyes and now her knee was actually starting to grind into a painful position on his chest. "Not at all," Stenn coughed out. "You seem to be smarter than most." Stenn's head shot up, the knife blade just a tiny bit too low to actually cut him as he did so. He stopped his head-butt so close to the young woman's forehead that he could feel her gasp in surprise as she jerked off of Stenn and stumbled away.

She regained her composure remarkably quickly and adopted a clumsy defensive stance. Stenn stood, content to let his thick frame tower over and intimidate the young woman. "You're just not smarter than me," Stenn added. He noticed that she was crouching down now, like a cat about to pounce. Stenn, by instinct, adopted the traditional and feared bare-knuckle brawling style of a Knight. He had no doubt that if it came to actual blows, he could defeat his young and stubborn opponent in a few choice moves.

But...

Stenn dropped his stance and smiled the best smile that a man who nearly had his throat slit could. "My name's Stenn," he said.

"There's a lot of Stenn's out there," the young woman growled, "which one are you?"

"Stenn Fenner. I was born in the manor of Lord Samuel Ennet over Smallslip-on-the-Hills. My current home is in the Dehry Township, six or seven hours from here by horse. I have a wife and daughter and live in-"

"Shut up." The youth was starting to circle Stenn now. The few times she had to look down to check her footing were the perfect times that Stenn could have disarmed her. He had been trained to see to take down trained assailants, but this wasn't an assailant. This was a young woman. Stenn didn't think she looked hardly a year into womanhood. It, by no means, meant that she wasn't dangerous or skilled in her own right, but she was no trained killer. "I don't care about any of that. What do you want? Were you following me?"

"You know," Stenn said, "it's usually tradition to tell somebody your name once you have been given theirs."

The girl only spat. Stenn's mouth began to twist and his brow furrowed.

"Yes," he said, the patience starting to drain from his voice. "I am, er, was following you. I saw Garamoush Stir and saw you slip under Him. I wanted to check if you were alright."

Stenn wasn't entirely sure what kind of reaction he was expecting to get, given how odd it must have sounded to claim good intentions when he sounded like he was on the verge of possibly strangling the next person he saw. But, he certainly wasn't expecting the youth to stow the knife and straighten up.

"Well," she said, her voice in something like normal conversational tone for the first time Stenn had heard her speaking. "Thanks and all. But if you can't see, I'm tops alright. So you can just turn around and leave me alone."

"Unless He starts Stirring again," Stenn said, tapping one of Garamoush's bone growths with his foot, "I'm stuck here with you. The way we came in isn't exactly open anymore."

"Well hell," the youth said, readjusting her satchel attached to her belt, "I knew that. But there's dozens of caves and tunnels back there in the big star room... place I'm sure one of them leads outside. Probably. Eventually."

Stenn was nodding along until it struck him. "Wait a tick," he said, his thoughts rapidly catching up with him, "you came in here without knowing how to get out?"

"Didn't you?" The young woman spoke much in the way people talk about the weather or the idle goings-ons of humdrum everyday life. She even began walking away from Stenn, down the length of the boney tunnel before he could respond.

"I-" Stenn started to say, "I suppose so. But I was coming after you. I thought you might have gotten scared and ran in here or something. It's not like I expected Him to start Stirring just then."

"So, what you're getting at," the youth said, carefully navigating the bone beneath her feet but choosing from the various branching tunnel paths seemingly at random. "Is that you need my help now."

On one hand, this girl's cheekiness was working its way into the cracks of Stenn's old heart. On the other hand... "What are you doing here?" Stenn insisted, his patience little more than a façade now.

The young woman sighed so heavily, Stenn could practically see her rolling her eyes in his mind's eye. "Alright, firstly, I'm Anna." She spun on her sharp heel to stare up at Stenn. "I don't like being talked to like I'm not a person. Anna. Not just 'you'."

Stenn nodded. At least he was able to put a name to a face now.

"And I'm going to find Garamoush's Wellspring."

Anna turned again and began to saunter away, her head held high in the eerie blue-green light. Stenn, however, was rooted in place with his mind spreading out in each and every way like a storm's squall. Stenn knew, anybody with a brain knew, that what he and Anna were doing at that exact moment was essentially the highest heresy in the eyes of the Ministry. But the legions of inquisitors and Knights of the Ministry were sweet spring flowers compared to the sheer cliff of suicide that Anna was so casually walking towards.

Stenn's voice started off as a whisper, but turned into a full-blown shout of panic and near-anguish by the end. "You're going to find Garamoush's Wellspring? The source of all of His divine wisdom? Just like that? You're going to go steal the knowledge of a god... from inside His own shell? On your own? What in the world are you thinking? If you're even thinking at all?"

Even as Anna stood well down the tunnel of flesh and bone, Stenn could see her sharp brow bending like a bow. "Anna," she corrected Stenn. "My name is Anna, old man. Not 'you.'" And then she walked away, again.

Stenn groaned and before she got far, Stenn's hand was on Anna's shoulder. He spun her around to face down his large blue eyes with their tiny black pinpricks of pupils. "He'll tear you to pieces, Anna," he said. "This is a god we're talking about here."

"Good," Anna said, her head cocking to the side, as if everything Stenn said was something so trivial, so insipid. "Because only a god can help me now. And if I don't wake the lazy bastard, how can He be of any help to me anyway?"

"That's not how it works- help you with what- hey!" Anna, slipping away from Stenn, evidently found another random path that was much to her liking. She quickly darted down it. "Would you just stop for a second and listen to me?"

"Why should I? People like you have been trying to stop me for years."

"People like me?" Stenn asked, his voice starting to carry some of the irritation he was feeling, as he dipped underneath a low-hanging branch of bone. "All I'm trying to do is keep you from doing something dangerously stupid."

"Yeah, I've heard that before, too. But me not doing this is even more stupid. Believe me."

"Believe you? I'm only, what, thirty-some years older than you?" In the random patches of good light, Stenn could see Anna's face a bit more clearly. Her dark brown hair was long, but now tied back with twine. Its frayed edges spoke of the quick decapitation of its loose ends with a knife. Probably the very same one she still carried. Beneath the locks, two pairs of eyes, thick and brown like a wolf's, peered out. But despite her less-than-youthful hair, her face still had some of the telltale roundness of childhood. Stenn had placed Anna at around fourteen- tough for her age, but still a child in the end.

"What does that matter?" Anna asked, still not having the courtesy to face Stenn when talking to him. "All of the adults I could have listened to would have just told me to... well, not do this."

"You mean your mother and father?" Stenn said, the pain and frustration of the day boiling up with him scarcely noticing, "I suppose if they were stupid enough to let you and your siblings play near Garamoush with only some old woman to watch you all, then-"

Stenn's old Knight senses were the only thing that kept Anna's vengeful fist from connecting with his gut. Both had a look of surprise on their faces as Stenn's much larger hand clamped down on Anna's muscled wrist. The young woman recovered first and tried to pull her hand free. Stenn didn't bother denying her.

"My mother and father..." Anna said as she rubbed her wrist, sounding as if she had heard the words for the first time in her life. "I guess they would have said something about it. But corpses aren't much for conversation." She laughed then and it was the loneliest laugh Stenn had ever heard. "Believe me; I've tried to talk to them. They're just so... stiff."

Is there anything worse in the world than the life of an orphan? Stenn thought. It was that very same thought that forced Stenn to finally leave his life of a Ministry Knight with some help from the Ennet family. Eym needed a father in her life, a father who gave up his job at being the local monster that mothers told their children about to frighten them. Stenn wasn't so sure that that same father was also the one who ran into the shell of a god looking for a young woman and a dead lord. But Eym's stuck with me, Stenn assured himself, and I'm stuck with her. I'm coming back for you. I promised you.

"Those weren't your brothers and sisters with you on Garamoush, were they?" Stenn edged.

Anna shook her head. "Just other orphans. I don't think I ever even really learned their names."

"Aren't you a little old to still be in an orphanage?" Stenn asked. "Most young women your age, with or without parents, usually are employed somehow."

Anna scoffed. It was a blunt, almost hostile noise. "Yes, I can't wait for 'employment' as a whore or a nun. It's about all I had to look forward to after the orphanage. And yes, I am a bit old, hence why I came here today. They would have kicked me out eventually anyway and the old woman we came with is just the sister of the orphanage owner. She's a bit... touched. I said that other children had played on His Shore before and they said it was fun. We've learned by now to not ignore something fun." The more she spoke, the more she recovered. What small slouch of discomfort had worked its way into Anna's spine had been expelled. She was standing more like an adult again and presenting herself in a similar way. "I didn't mean for anything bad to happen to them. I wasn't even sure it would work at all."

"They're all fine," Stenn said, creeping ahead in the tunnel to look down some of the other dim paths. There had never been any legends or stories about monsters or evil creatures roaming about inside of Garamoush, in fact it seemed rather contrary to His nature, but caution dictated caution. "They all ended up with your caretaker. They're safe there."

Anna nodded and pushed off from where she stood on the wall. "Oh, and, I'm sorry I tried to kill you. I didn't expect you to be... uh, you know... not bad..." With that, she began to wander down the boney halls of Garamoush's shell yet again, but this time at a much more reasonable pace. Stenn followed shortly afterwards.

Somebody else thinks I'm a decent man, Stenn thought, allowing himself a small, tired smile. That number seems to go up the longer I stay away from the Ministry.

As they walked, the puzzle of the fiery young woman who possessed the worst apologies in the world tried to unlock itself in Stenn's mind. Her tenacity and determination had certainly seen her through this far but it was foolish to think that those traits alone could carry a person up to the fount of a god's knowledge.

By force of habit, Stenn had already grown accustomed to stepping over the odd flesh-and-bone flooring of Garamoush's halls, though one hand always rested on the walls lest Garamoush start to Stir again. His feet still made a subtle, but noticeable squelching sound, but even that was becoming less noticeable to his ears. In short, the silence the two were walking in was quickly becoming unbearable.

Luckily, Anna was the first one to work up the courage to speak. "He knows everything, right?"

"Garamoush?" Stenn responded. "Of course. He can see the whole world as He sleeps. That's how He knows all that He does and all He imparts to us." Or, so the Ministry tells us, Stenn reminded himself. No matter how many times he had been on His Shore, hardly an arrow's flight away from a Ministry Declarer taking in Garamoush's incomprehensible god-speak, Stenn had never been quite sure that what was coming out of the god's mouth then and what would be coming out of the Declarer's mouth later were one in the same. But it only made sense, didn't it? A god that large with that many legends- and a god among mortals no less- yes, it only made sense. If anybody knew the truth of things, it would be Him.

"He had better," Anna said. She sighed as she continued to walk. It may have just been her newfound sense of calm or perhaps she was starting to actually piece together the eldritch environment, but her choices in paths seemed to be more thought out than before. She would stop at junctions and appear to think about her choices before making them, which was a welcome change from her earlier random wandering. She would even examine the outcroppings of bone and comment on if she had seen them before. Stenn thought it equally impressive and improbable that Anna was able to keep the bones straight in her head- they all looked the same in Stenn's head. "Since you asked so nicely..." she paused, as if debating once more if she really wanted to keep talking. Evidently, she did, "I'm going to ask Garamoush where my brother is."

The amount of relief Stenn felt at that honestly surprised him. At least she isn't totally alone in the world, he thought. "He's alive?" Stenn asked.

"As far as I know. We were separated when my parents were killed. Ministry's orders." The last two words were said with such venom that Stenn's skin crawled.

Stenn swallowed. "Your parents were heretics." Stenn had thanked Garamoush every night for a year and a half the day he learned he was assigned to become a Knight in the Ministry and not one of its feared Justices. They were zealots that shared more in common with stones or lumps of iron than other human beings. Frankly, they reeked of evil. They had been molded, mostly through pain and doctrine, to carry out the Ministry's orders with unwavering fanaticism: "The words of Garamoush shall not be denied. Those who denounce His words denounce their right to life." Needless to say, Justices took their assignments very seriously and they never failed to complete them.

"You don't get to choose your parents." Anna said, sounding as if she had answered the question many times before.

"No," he said. "No you don't." Stenn flexed his aching, many-times-broken and many-times-breaking fingers and thought of the gentle, delicate hands of his daughter." I wonder if she would choose me if she could have, though.

The two walked in silence for a few moments. Stenn still couldn't look at Garamoush's flesh without eventually starting to cringe. He wondered if Anna was the same way. He wondered if she was just as revolted as he was. Or, maybe she was fascinated by it all, the way that young people are.

Stenn swallowed and resolved to break the silence.

"Though god He be

Though god He stay

Gods must rest

In their own way

Hours, days

Bands, parades

Pass in front Him

Pass and fade away

Yawn

Stir

Speak

You see we men

We women

Are not so different

From gods

When we duel

On even ground

On the battlefield of

Beds

And dreams-"

Anna groaned and made her footsteps louder, as if to drown out the noise.

"Sorry," Stenn said, cracking a small grin. "You were too slow. If you really hated my singing, you could have stopped me a while ago."

Anna turned to him as she walked. "I didn't stop you because I thought you got hit in the head harder than I thought." Stenn pointed and Anna barely avoided knocking her own head on an outcropping of bone. She tried to walk it off, holding her head up higher. Stenn's smirk grew wider. "I thought maybe you were going mad and you'd just drop dead eventually."

Please, Stenn thought, I've been through worse.

"Do you know of Lord Samuel Ennet?" Stenn asked.

"Is this another one of those bloody fables?"

"No, actually. In fact, he's one of the writers of fables."

"How can he write about things like that if he's not there to see them happen? Hell, I've heard some stories that are about people who haven't lived for hundreds of years."

"He just does. He was a Declarer too, which probably helped. And he writes other things. Theses and dissertations and... those words don't mean anything to you, do they?"

"I'm just waiting for you to make your point already."

"He came to Garamoush as well. Well, he was last seen with Him. He always had this particularly strong obsession with Garamoush, even going so far as to take up painting and etching just to draw Him..."

"Point," Anna said.

"Alright, alright. He went into Garamoush's shell and hasn't been seen since. At least, that's what everybody's been saying for the last five years."

"Five years is a long time for somebody to live in here," Anna said, at least sounding a little bit interested. "Interesting story, but how is it-"

"People with more experience and who have been better prepared have ventured into Garamoush's shell. None have come out in one piece. None outside of the old legends, of course."

"Are you still on about that? I'm not giving up."

Stenn sighed and rolled his shoulders. Everything felt... heavy. "I suppose I knew that already. I realize that ship has sailed and is halfway around the world by now. I only mean to offer it as a warning. If this place took apart such a noble, brilliant lord with an equally noble and brilliant mind, we need to be extra careful."

"Did you think I came all the way here and wasn't planning on being careful?"

"I'm just saying," Stenn said. "It's just that... well, conventional wisdom seems to not be very valuable here."

Stenn's boot hit the ground hard, no harder than usual, but hard enough to punch right through Garamoush's flesh. He turned around with wide eyes and saw Anna in the same state. The ground, now that Stenn was closer to it than he would have liked, was speckled with black spots that smelled like death. The flesh of the ground peeled away more as Stenn and Anna struggled.

They gave each other one more look before the ground broke completely and gave way to open air.

For a moment, the world was nothing but a strange blur of foreign sights and smells. Stenn didn't fall for very long, but before he made impact with the ground below, he saw that it was glistening as if it was sweating gold.

It was a hell of a sight to see right before a man died, but his mind was ranging to far brighter, cleaner places in his memories. He saw Eym's blonde curls and the way she curled up like a cat when she fell asleep in front of the fireplace. And he heard Tania. He heard what she had always told him whenever he had left the house.

"Be safe," she had told him.

"Always," he would say. He never really realized that eventually, what he said would turn out to be a lie. Be safe. The least safe place in the entire world was quickly rushing up to meet him, its glistening surface ready to embrace him with flat, bone-crushing arms.

Stenn met the ground with a splash.

Wait, his thoughts came, still surprisingly clear and coherent. A splash?

It felt like his body was still plummeting downwards and everything blurred as a false sense of gravity pushed him down. A sudden and much more real weight from above made him cry out, but he found he was braced on hands and knees and his stubborn old bones refused to buckle. Another heavy-sounding splash came afterwards and Anna's high brown boots fell into Stenn's view. His shoulders ached and burned and his head swam in a curtain of confusion.

His still-racing mind didn't see a deeper part of Garamoush's mysterious shell, but instead one of the many halls of the Ministry of Fate. The white pillars of a distorted shape became the towering marble columns that had been erected about two centuries ago. The wide and flat boney slab some dozens of yards ahead was the central podium where the Declarers would give their addresses and impart the wisdom of Garamoush. And the floor... the... deep, mucky, thick floor...

Every last inch of Stenn's body retched in revulsion. The amber-colored fluid he was braced in slopped and crawled like lantern oil. The stifling stench was a clear enough indication that Stenn's body was practically swimming in some kind of bodily fluid. Its purpose, or origin, however, Stenn did not allow his mind to consider. He merely kept it as far away from his mouth as possible and tried to shake off as much of it as he could.

Stenn counted every lucky star that he had ever known that he was able to catch himself on his hands and knees. Even when he fully stood up again, the liquid was still high enough to swallow his feet completely and even work its way up the lower part of his legs.

The greater pool of the liquid practically vibrated with joy as the stray droplets of the viscous... stuff returned to its larger form. Anna, who unapologetically wandered about the pool's odd white towering outcroppings, didn't even seem to notice as Stenn shook himself like a dog who wandered inside after a rainstorm.

Now that Stenn could get a good look at the outcroppings he began to understand their unearthly appeal. They all shot upwards, to the ceiling, which again glowed with the blue-green patches of the tunnels and caves. The shape and texture of the outcroppings looked closest to bones in Stenn's mind- he had certainly seen many of them broken or jutting out of tender red flesh in his time- but they grew and twisted like trees, as if they grew straight up from the ground.

"Stone, no, that's not right," Anna thought for a moment. "Stenn. Yeah. Stenn. Come here and look at this."

The horrific orange liquid bubbled and squished as Stenn forced his legs through it. Stenn followed Anna's finger as it traced what looked like a carving on the bone outcropping.

"You wanted me just to look at some chicken-scratching?"

"Look harder, old man."

The dim lighting made it hard to examine exact shapes, but the cuts into the bone were too methodical to have been purely accidental. Forms twisted and bent through shallow cuts made by a hand with good intentions but very little skill. At the very least, the four-armed tortoise-like shape of Garamoush was legibly carved into the pillar, but around him wound a long coil that Stenn couldn't quite place.

"It's a... vine?" Stenn guessed. "Thick ivy? A really thin river, maybe?"

Evidently more interested in the mysterious carvings than he was, Anna brought her face close enough to the pillar so that her nose touched it. "It looks more like a snake to me. See, it's got a head right there?"

"It's too head-shaped to be a snake head."

"That's because it's not a snake head. It's the head of a man."

Stenn studied the carving as best as he could. From what he could see, it ran the length of the outcropping with the strange thick, winding creature being copied throughout. The further the worm ran on the carving, the thicker it became and the more haphazard the etchings became.

"Or maybe," Stenn said, "it's just a bunch of random scribbling made by who-knows-what. But it's probably not something pleasant if it felt the need to carve while it was still almost knee-deep in all of... this." He motioned to the mire of orange liquid that still swallowing part of his legs.

Anna was seemingly lost in thought, her hand running along the carved lines. Stenn thought he was going to have to nudge her onward, but she broke from her spell of concentration. Once free of the unmentionable orange-ish muck, Stenn left his heavy and soaked boots on the flat boney slab, which served as a shoreline of sorts. By the light of the patches on the ceiling and walls, Stenn could see other holes in the floor similar to the ones that Anna and he had fallen through dotted the room and the pool of liquid extended so far that the dots of light on the distant walls seemed like stars all over again.

"I have to ask," Stenn said, still trying to comb the rest of the sludge off of his person, "when you decided to risk your life by crawling into Garamoush's shell, did you expect it to be anything like this?"

Anna seemed perfectly content to let her pant-legs and boots stay drenched. All she did was kick some of the free-hanging slop off, but otherwise remained firm. "I didn't come down here with any expectations at all. It's probably why I'm handling this all a lot better than you."

"You had to expect something if you did the research to know how to get into the shell in the first place, right?" A new cave mouth presented itself; the blue-green lights were actually starting to grow on Stenn. He did realize, however, that his affection might have been because he somewhat forgotten exactly what the sun looked and felt like. In fact, even normal reality seemed to be slipping away from Stenn's memory at that point.

"Research?" Anna asked. Stenn hadn't ever considered how some of his words might have been flying right over the youth's head for some time. However, she continued to say, "I don't know if I'd call listening to or reading fairy tales and legends counts."

"You're saying that you used something that was told to you as a bedtime story as your guide to sneak into the shell of a living god?"

Anna shrugged, and walked with head held high into the new cavern, enjoying her own audacity. "It was all I had. Besides, you managed to get in alright, didn't you? I'll bet you heard the same stories as a boy."

"I did," Stenn admitted. But I also worked with the Ministry of Fate for decades. That helped a bit. "I do remember one old legend, about Cross-Eyed William. Actually, that story's one of my favourites."

"He sounds like a real hero of legend with a name like that." The new cavern was considerably more spacious than the last ones Stenn had traversed. The bone was growing thicker and, to Stenn's disgust, not only was the horrible orange liquid pooling in some dark parts of the walls, but something new clung to the walls. It was somehow even more revolting. It was black as bile, hung like tar, and splatted onto the ground like a waterlogged body hitting earth. Luckily, it only appeared in spots and was relatively easy to ignore.

"You've never heard of Cross-eyed William?" Stenn asked, "Good Garamoush, I thought you children were all told that one. We told it like it was breathing in my house."

"I'm not a child," her voice had that familiar, abrasive edge to it.

"Alright, alright," Stenn said. His big, clumsy feet weren't accustomed to walking on eggshells like this. "Young women are also usually told that story. At least twenty times. It's only proper." Stenn had to scoff. When inside the shell of a living god and when almost entirely covered in mysterious bodily fluids, there was probably not a less-fitting time to use the word "proper."

"I've heard it before. Maybe not twenty times, but I know it. A man is crushed by Garamoush's shell but he comes out of His shell alive two years later and he could speak to the god. And then he became the first Declarer or something. Bullshit, I say."

"Bullshit indeed," Stenn agreed. He had read the histories; it was part of being a Knight, after all. When the Granite Citadel was being constructed before Garamoush went to sleep, there was a mention of an architect named William, but nothing beyond that. The first Declarers were just able to hear Garamoush. There was never really any reason given, though they were able to pass down their knowledge to new generations all the same.

Stenn had to smile as he recounted. Before he was thrown into the hell of being a Knight, there was hope for Stenn's life. He had learned to read at eighteen, just one year after he joined the Knights, not bad all things considered. Floor after floor of the Ministry libraries filled his head like how water fills the ocean. Histories dating back to the first true Declarer might have been seen as dull and dry to most but to Stenn, there was no greater pleasure in moving into past, future, and myth without ever leaving a chair. From His Words, recording every Stirring and all of the words of Garamoush to Lord Ennet's On Natural Forces, when he learned to read, he knew that his life became worth living. He was hardly even daunted when he saw the first Ministry book-burning. He never really asked which books they were burning or why. They weren't burning the books he was reading, so he mostly ignored the burnings altogether.

But now, he knew better. He had moved past looking into books for purpose and happiness. Now, Tania, Eym, and even Anna were making his life worth living.

"But you're not really wrong," Anna said. "It was the stories I was told that at least gave me hope. Hope to try."

Sometimes that's all it takes, Stenn thought. Leaving the Ministry might have been more complicated than just having hope, but it was certainly an important first step.

"Does this cave rub you as being a little bit... strange?" Stenn waited for Anna to answer her own question. "Okay, stupid think to ask, I know, but really look." She had stopped walking now and was running her hand along the boney protrusions that served as both pillars and vaulting. "These shouldn't be this... big."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, look at it. The bone, that is. Look at how much it sticks out. It's almost like the rest of the flesh... stuff... whatever you want to call it, has been carved away by something."

Anna had given words and life to a suspicion that Stenn had been carrying for some time now. The thick black tar he had seen before was even starting to become more and more common. At some points, it practically ran the length of the tunnel. He pushed the idea out of his mind that the tar and the caves were related. His clothes still hung heavy on his tired body and the smell of the mysterious amber liquid was getting forcefully wedged into Stenn's nose and memory. If he could avoid thinking about sludge, oil, slime, bile or anything of the sort, he was going to avoid it with pleasure.

"If it has been," Stenn said, starting to walk again, more quickly now, "and I'm not saying you're right, but if it has, we probably don't want whatever made it to find us in here."

Anna's light footsteps were quick to announce themselves behind Stenn. After a moment of anticipation, she squeezed past Stenn's large frame and once again led boldly and aimlessly from the front.

"You think it was something living?" The accentuation of that last word sounded like something between terror and amazement. Then again, that emotion was beginning to sound like the norm in Stenn's ears at that point.

Stenn couldn't deny his own worries about if, in fact, the tunnel and its bizarre black slop had been created by something that lived and breathed. It was bad enough being in an entirely new world with new laws of nature that seemed inclined to destroy intruders. He didn't want to think about what it'd be like to have to contend with something living, living and malicious, as well.

"I doubt it," Stenn said for his and for Anna's sake, "I haven't seen anything living in here yet, aside from you of course. Besides, if there is anything down here, I'm sure you'll be able to handle it."

Stenn smiled as he practically heard Anna's mouth twisting in disapproval. "I already apologized for doing that to you, you know."

"Oh, you apologized, that makes it alright then."

"It's better than not saying it."

"I wouldn't be so sure. When you apologize, you're admitting that you were wrong. If you didn't think you were in the wrong, you have nothing to apologize for."

"I guess so."

"So, was that a real apology?"

Anna just shook her head in her usual insolent way.

"I don't suppose you thought ahead enough to bring any kind of food or water down here, hmm?" Stenn's stomach was grumbling and his throat was parched, but he knew that Anna must have been worse off. He worried that she could collapse at any given moment. She didn't deserve to pass out from hunger in such a place as this. And she'll be a pain in my back to carry, Stenn thought with a sarcastic smirk.

"I did," Anna said. She pointed at her satchel. The bottom of it was splashed with thick, amber-colored liquid from the other chamber. "I don't think I'll be eating of it now."

For some reason, Stenn felt a little offended to hear Anna talk only of an "I." He knew she needed any food more than he did, but it irked him nonetheless.

"Then we'll have to find the Wellspring quickly," Stenn said. "As if it wasn't already obvious. We should take things easy in the meantime. We don't want to use more energy than we-"

"What is that?" Anna shouted, cutting him off. She broke into a run and rounded the nearby corner.

"Goodness, how many times can a person say that in one day?" Stenn mumbled as he followed after Anna. Before he could round the corner, she returned, looking... different.

She must have seen the confusion on her face because she said, "What, you mean you don't see it? I'm standing right in the middle of it."

Stenn rubbed his old eyes and looked harder. Now that he got the chance to look hard and look, Anna appeared to be... glowing. Like there was a kind of halo around her entire body. The kind of halo a person gets when they have their back to the sun and the daylight seems to surround them.

Sun, the word rang in Stenn's head. Daylight.

Anna's impatient sigh snapped Stenn back into the present. She left as quickly as she had before. This time, though, Stenn was much quicker in following her. A way out! Stenn's thoughts chanted. Sunlight and wind on his face, his daughter caught up in his arms and his wife's hands in his. Maybe then all of them together could talk this brave, foolish girl out of her quest, no matter how noble it was. It wasn't worth waking a god and overturning a civilization for.

In fact, the prospect of it all seemed almost too good to be true. And, indeed, it was.

Stenn found himself in another hollow- one larger than any he had seen before. Even the star room paled in comparison. Grass covered all of the walls and ceiling, as if a plain had been rolled up into a sphere. Small rocks and patches of dirt even showed through the sea of gold and green. It was beautiful, no doubt, but it was ugly as sin compared to the outside world Stenn was hoping to find.

Stenn ground his heels to a halt atop a little hill. Anna was a lanky, long-haired shadow just beside him. She looked much more pleased than Stenn was. Dirt and grass were just more parts of the real world outside of His shell that Stenn had never really thought about ever missing. He had never thought about it until it was gone, of course. Now, however, he wasn't sure he wanted them back- the grass underneath his feet felt different. Like an imitation of what Stenn actually wanted to see. It made him pine for a return to the real world even more.

There was no real sun above Stenn and Anna's head, but it certainly was a different caliber altogether from the patches of mysteriously glowing patches on the walls that they both had become uncomfortably well-acquainted with. Instead, the light almost literally poured out of a sphere that hovered about midway in the air of the enormous chamber.

"How do you suppose He's doing that?" Anna asked, finally sounding like the wide-eyed and curious youth Stenn was expecting her to be.

Stenn shook his head at the question, still a little downtrodden about his dashed hopes. The sphere looked as though it were made of the last rays of sunlight at dusk and the first at dawn- melding them all into one ball. "To be honest," he said, "I have no idea. At least up until now I've been able to at least somehow reason that things in here have existed as they are because they're a part of Garamoush's body, but... this?" Stenn shook his head again. "Magic. That's what I'll say. It's magic."

"Magic doesn't exist," Anna said.

"We're in the shell of a giant sleeping tortoise god."

"And? That's just what He does. It's not magic."

"So what is it?"

"Hell, I don't know," Anna said, crossing her arms. "We're just little specks compared to Garamoush. Gods work how they want to work."

"Perhaps," Stenn said, laying his hand on the strange soil and grasses. "Perhaps."

Obviously taken by the odd sphere, Anna began to proceed forward, relatively speaking. Like most of the larger "rooms" in Garamoush's shell, as Stenn was finding out, cavern entrances and exits dotted the whole length of the room. But they were on the ground as they knew it, so that was good enough for now.

Stenn wanted to cry out, but he was too late. The rock had already left Anna's hand before it could say anything. He started to count the seconds before the apocalyptic explosion that he was sure waited in the very near future. But, instead, the hurled stone only sailed upward, into the sphere, and came plummeting down with no horrific repercussions... none that Stenn noticed, at least. There had been no legends about a second sun (or a vast open plain for that matter) inside of Garamoush' shell, so, despite the light in the room, Stenn was in the dark.

Anna quickly scooped up the stone and called out to Stenn, "It's not fire, whatever it is."

"How do you figure?" Stenn said, quickly catching up to Anna, but keeping an eye on the sphere above him.

"The rock's not warm," she said. "If it was regular fire like a candle or a hearth, it would have gotten warm. I heard that's what rich people do when their beds are cold. Hot rocks, I think they're called."

Stenn took the rock and tossed it between his hands. It was indeed only as warm as any stone that had come before it. "That's right," he said. "As a child I actually had to do the heating and changing of the hot rocks more than a few times for Lord Ennet, particularly in the winter. One stray snowflake or shiver could have probably broken that man into little pieces. How in the hell did he think he was going to make it in here?"

When next Stenn looked to Anna, he saw that she had taken up residence on a sizable rock atop a gentle hill in the same part of the field. Stenn sat on grass (at least, his mind was telling itself that it was grass) away from her- he was still slightly sopping from the horrible amber bile, but the non-sun's warmth was already making him feel a bit less disgusting. Still, Stenn felt a pang of uneasiness just looking at the uncanny vastness of this plain that felt so real but he knew was still many different kinds of wrong. It was different than the glowing and swaying fields and plains leading up to His Shore. This land still had outcroppings of bone to remind Stenn he was still trapped. In essence, it was a cage. A stunning cage, but a cage nonetheless.

"That's... an interesting thing to remember from your childhood," Anna finally said. Again, the ethereal quiet of Garamoush made itself known in the empty space between words. No wind, no birds, no sea waves. Only quiet breathing and quieter thoughts made any real noise at all.

"Believe me, it was one of the most exciting things to happen to me until I learned how to read. Oh, and I suppose until I became a Ministry Knight. That was fairly exciting too."

"Then you made a career out of protecting important people," Anna concluded. "But the first time doing something new is always... special. Were you really a Knight?"

Amongst many other questions, Stenn had gotten so used to hearing that one asked about his job that he had an entire answer etched into his mind he could spout out whenever the situation demanded it. But this situation was different. He went off the books for it. "No," he said, chuckling, "the old knights in the stories, you know, the men with lots of land in shining armour on horses who saved the peasants and the fair maidens from invading hordes-" Stenn was cut off by Anna's sarcastic snort of laughter. "Exactly," Stenn said. "Bullshit aside, Ministry Knights are nothing like them. They didn't like us enough to give us horses or land." He laughed again. Anna joined in that time. "I suppose the Ministry just thought they were being clever, calling us knights." But we were just their thugs. "We weren't very 'knightly' at all."

"No," Anna said, "I don't really know why I expected them to be very 'knightly' in the first place."

"Because chivalry is a load of overblown horseshit?"

"Because they're part of the Ministry."

Stenn had to concede that one with a nod. Those scarred and worn hands of his found comfort for the first time in what felt like an eternity in the field's peculiar grass. Stenn might have simply forgotten what real grass felt like, but it would suffice for now. All of his limbs were thanking Anna for the chance to stop and rest. As Stenn stretched out, he also yawned. If I'm not careful, I might not want to get up again, Stenn thought as he fought back another yawn. The feeling of utter exhaustion wasn't exactly foreign to Stenn, his years as a Knight had taught him to live with the feeling like it was supposed to be his default state of being. But that was a different Stenn, a younger one.

Anna, however, was thanklessly free of the curse of an old body. She stretched and bounced on her heels, perplexed in that youthful way at everything around her. "I'm honestly a little bit surprised that we made it this far," she said with her eyes still skyward but her grimy boots digging, in a vain attempt to get clean, into the grass.

"Did you think we wouldn't?"

"I said before that I had the hope to try, didn't I? Well, I never really tried hoping that I'd actually succeed. Maybe I thought I'd die trying and this would all be a big, noble sacrifice. That seems the most likely thing to happen anyway."

Stenn frowned. He had, perhaps against reason, been thinking that the fire inside of that young woman didn't need to be stoked. But, she was like everybody else and Stenn wasn't entirely sure why this bothered him so. Maybe it was the fact that the words of a cynical fatalist were coming out of a young woman's mouth. Maybe he thought that there were people in the world who weren't like him, people who one day would give up their fiery love for life for an existence of pure jaded stubbornness. Maybe...

"I thought you didn't like chivalry and heroics," Stenn finally said. It was a pitiful attempt to diffuse the tension in his head, but pleasant conversation was still a skill he was blowing the dust off of. It had been shelved the day he donned the Knight's gauntlets and armour.

"You don't." Anna roamed at a leisurely pace around the hill, occasionally picking at the alien grass. She scoffed after a bit. "You're lucky you know how to read," she said. "Not just, you know, in general, but because then you could actually read how full of shit the old legends were. Me, though, I was just told them and accepted them as they were."

"It's not as great as you make it sound," Stenn said. "The world's a lot less interesting once you realize that all of the great heroes and kings either just got lucky or were enormous pricks in the end."

"Or when you finally realize just how long death is," Anna said, a clump of roughly-picked grass frittering away and blowing gently away, "You never figure out how long forever is until you have to live every day knowing that you'll never see somebody's face again for all that time."

Stenn wanted to stand up then. He wanted to stand up and place his hand on young Anna's shoulder and tell her that, as a man who knows a thing or two about pain and death, that anybody can make it through anything fate or nature or, worst of all, other humans could send their way. But something stayed his hands and legs.

What, Stenn asked himself, am I expecting she'll snap like a cornered wolf if I touch her? Now that Stenn heard it said aloud in his head... it sounded even more probable. Stenn sighed. I'm going to make a shit father at this rate.

"Wait," Stenn said, a spark in his mind finally catching. He sat up to the tune of popping and cracking in his back, "is that... wind?"

For a moment, Anna didn't react. She was probably still in her own world and sorrows, but when she saw the aged Stenn moving with speed that would outpace even her, she was quickly back in reality.

Anna's smile looked a bit forced, but it was a grin nonetheless. She picked up another handful of grass and let it free. The blades were cradled by an invisible breeze and take just a few paces before falling to the ground again.

"Well, I'll be damned," Stenn said. He tightened the belt around his tunic, slime-encrusted as they both were, in anticipation of Anna's next move.

Instead, the young woman only said, "We're not damned just yet." Then a truly genuine smile flashed across her face before it was replaced with a familiar determination of pure iron. Stenn smiled too, as a result.

No, he thought, we've still got some life in us yet.

"Look," Anna shouted, her finger pointing with the authority of a compass' needle. Stenn hurried up the hill as quickly as his legs could carry him. Wind meant a connection with the outside world. It meant that somewhere nearby there was finally a way out of His shell. Stenn vowed to himself that he would make this all up to Anna somehow. He might still have access to some Ministry records on the grounds of seniority, come to think of it. If he could avoid getting killed by the Ministry Justices, he might be able to track down her brother. With an escape route so close, there was no way in hell he was going to let her just continue on with her little quest. He wasn't going to let her die all alone, even for noble intentions.

Stenn followed her finger and Anna was indeed pointing at yet another hallway of Garamoush's shell. The mouth of the new cave was enormous in comparison to the cramped quarters of nearly all the others. Two fully-laden carriages could have rolled through side-by-side with still room to spare. Or, at least they could have rolled through if not for the barricade that had been erected to close most of the mouth off. Confusion was mixing with excitement on Anna's young face. When she looked up at Stenn, he could feel his own expression changing into something very similar to hers. She idly wiped away a bead of sweat that had been forming on her forehead. "What do you suppose that is?" she asked.

"For once," Stenn responded, "I can answer that." He continued to speak as he walked, straining his eyes to get a better look. "Well," he said, "those sharpened wooden stakes are part of a palisade. They're a kind of wall used to protect camps and villages. It's a bit old hat, but it keeps wild animals... or wild people away pretty well." He strained his eyes again to make out the rest of the wooden shapes. "The rest just looks like logs and planks roped or nailed together. Overall, it's a half-decent barricade."

Stenn rubbed his eyes. It wasn't until then that he had ever taken the time to realize just how exhausted he was. His eyes were starting to sting and burn as he stressed them further. He was about to repress a yawn when Anna let one loose first.

"You think somebody built it?" Anna asked.

"I don't see what else could have," Stenn said. Now that they were a bit closer, Stenn could see the woodwork a bit more clearly. The barricade probably hadn't been tended to in a few years. The ropes holding the boards together were slackening and the crude iron nails were starting to turn brown from rust. Also, shattered bits of timber and board seemed to be littering the area. Stenn reasoned it to simply be the remnants of the barricade's clumsy construction.

"I wonder if they made that to keep things out like you said."

"What else would it be for? When I was a Knight, we used to use palisades, or 'stake-walls' like that to keep camps safe. Never really did anything else but keep things out."

"Have you seen anything in here that needs keeping out?"

Stenn shrugged, starting to scrutinize the obstruction with renewed attention. Whoever made the cumbersome thing must not have had the best of tools, or materials for that matter. The ropes were frayed; the iron of the nails lumpy, and the wood itself was thin and at places nailed to other pieces in an attempt to create one flush board. Still, at least the builders seemed to have remembered His potential for Stirring and the builders had driven long, thick posts into the ground to steady the whole structure.

"Maybe we've just been lucky."

Anna snorted. At least she was still keeping her sense of humour. "Maybe rather than keeping something out, whoever built this was trying to keep something else in. I'm just thinking out loud, I suppose."

"Don't suppose you could think a bit more quietly? I'd rather not worry about thinking that something could be lurking in there." Especially when the only way out might be this way, Stenn thought.

Anna rolled her eyes and started to meander around the structure. Stenn's disapproval at the builder's choice of materials did nothing for the fact that the barricade was still almost certainly strong enough to resist pulling, pushing, or bashing by hand. Climbing over wasn't an option either, twisted iron barbs had been affixed to the top of the highest boards. At that point, though, he was starting to think that maybe just bashing his head against the damn thing would be the best course of action. Either the wall would break or he would.

Stenn, by instinct, almost struck out with his arm when an unfamiliar hand touched his back. He stopped himself, though, when he saw Anna clutching a pair of metal objects in her arms. The spark of surprise slowly died in her eyes like a candle flame against a winter breeze. She unceremoniously presented the metal items to Stenn. "These look useful," she said. "Just found them all tangled up in the grass and dirt over there. They might be kind of small, though. You have monster hands."

"They're not monster hands," Stenn said, defensively. "They're proportionate to the rest of my body."

"Then you have a monster body," Anna said. Then she busied herself amongst the sights of the peculiar grassy sphere.

Stenn turned over the objects in his hand, clearing away the dirt and tangled grass. Some of the grass looked brown and dead, like it had been sitting in the item for some time. But before long a very familiar shape began to form. The objects were gauntlets, hands wrought of steel and old companions to a Knight such as Stenn. A punch that could stun a man could suddenly cave in his head like a ripe melon when fists of flesh were replaced with fists of metal. It was with some hesitation that Stenn pulled the gauntlets on. Hesitation at the fear of him becoming something else entirely once his hands started to feel the power and protection of a metal shell that had so long defined them. He feared the Knight that lurked within him. Curiosity or desperation, or a combination of both, pushed him onward.

The metal had a good amount of denting and rust, but Stenn knew high quality steel when he saw it. Anything less than the best would have probably would have broken under all of the abuse that the gauntlets had apparently endured. Even so, the metal was in a much better state than that which was found in the barricade. Stenn found that the gauntlet had three or four more straps than usual; his forearm alone was wrapped with four straps of strong leather. Stranger still was that the end of the metal fingers ended in hooks that were still caked with dirt. And yet, every time Stenn found himself looking over the new equipment, the only pieces of tangible good luck that had come to him and Anna thus far, he kept looking at the barricade.

It wouldn't be impossible to bash through the cracked wood now.

"Stenn," Anna said, her hand tapping impatiently on his back again, "look,"

Stenn followed her finger upwards to the grass-covered ceiling of the room. His eyes trained the length of the dome, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary, relatively speaking. The bizarre non-sun still hovered in the open air, obviously to its impossible nature. "What am I looking for?"

"Not for," she said, tilting Stenn's head so that his eyes met perfectly with the thick black shadow being cast along the ceiling. "At."

"I still don't-" Stenn stopped, his eyes began to move on their own as they traced a speck of black that fell from the "shadow" down to the ground. The "shadow" was dripping. It dripped and ate light in the same way as the black filth in the cave. Stenn's eyes followed the dark trail across the grassy ceiling until it was nearly directly above where he and Anna stood. The trail remained highest on the ceiling, but snaked all the way down to the barricade. Whatever made the trail must have traveled on the ceiling and went right over the barricade. Dark drops were still leaking down onto some of the wood, turning it a sick black color.

"Are we sure we want to be breaking this down?" Stenn asked. "Maybe you were on to something about this keeping something locked in rather than us locked out."

"Maybe..." Anna said, her voice heavy with doubt. Then her whole body snapped up, like she had just been awoken from a nap. She started looking around like a startled bird, her eyes going between the black sludge and the barricades. "But as you said, we've really only got one option now." She added, "Unless we want to wait for Him to Stir again... or wait for whatever made all of that sludge to come back. Then we'll know for sure what we're dealing with."

"I do hope you're being sarcastic. Besides, who knows when He'll Stir again. I'm secretly hoping that He doesn't anytime soon. I'm still feeling the effects of the first time He did it when I was in His shell." The pain in Stenn's head had mostly gone away, but he could almost feel the lump beginning to form where his head hit the bone. Besides, now his head was aching for a different reason. It had probably been hours since he had last had anything to drink. "I suppose we'll find out what's behind this soon enough." Stenn said, refitting the gauntlet to his hand and landing more heavy blows to the boards. The wood cried out in pain as each blow landed and the closest thing to music that Stenn had heard in some time came from the choir of metal striking timber.

The wood started to come away in clouds of aged splinters, the wood beneath the top layers more laden with rot that Stenn first would have thought. Out of the corner of his eye, Stenn could see Anna busy herself with digging through the wooden wreckage. He couldn't help but think that as a poor orphan, Anna already had some experience with foraging and looting. Maybe she can put those skills to good use now, Stenn thought. He delivered another shattering punch to the crumbling wall with the newfound metal gauntlets.

The feeling of crushing and destroying with his own two hands was one like a gnawing hunger growing inside of him, one quite unlike the feelings of real hunger that he had been ignoring for some time now. He couldn't ignore this craving. Every hit he landed was a flash of lightning in his head, the silhouette and crumpled features of some nameless man or some defenseless woman burning an imprint every time. Stenn clenched his teeth, his mouth shaking in pain when he landed a new punch. He was almost on the verge of screaming to shutting up the invasive thoughts of a Knight.

Instead, he decided to fall back into the past.

The blows started to all meld together until Stenn was no longer aware of them.

His mind took him into the past, to the study of Lord Samuel Ennet.

"Are you getting enough rest?" Lord Ennet once asked Stenn. About seven years ago, Stenn found the time to return home and away from his life as a Knight. It was the last year he would be a Knight in the Ministry. Tania was already very much on his mind then and Stenn was prepared to shed his old life for a new one with her.

"I think I forgot what that word meant," Stenn had said. He was invited into Ennet's own library then. A respected member of the Ministry's sanctioned thugs needed to be treated with proper decorum, after all. The room was usually well-kept, conservative in decoration, and open to plenty of light, much like the man who owned it, in fact. But on that day, a tornado would have done less damage to it than Samuel Ennet did.

"Now Stenn," he said in his friendly, gentle tone, "getting plenty of sleep is important. Not just to a Knight." Ennet himself looked like he needed some rest though as he pulled book after book off of the shelves and separated them into piles, acknowledging Stenn with only sideways glances.

"I get plenty of sleep," Stenn said, trying to make sense of the piles of books. His memory was fuzzy in that regard, though. "But I get no rest."

"The life you chose was a hard one. When the recruiter came to Staringsun, nobody forced you to leave. You knew that when you left my manor's service." Stenn remembered Ennet's voice there. It sounded almost accusatory. Stenn was only a servant in Ennet's huge manor. He never quite figured out why Ennet seemed to care so much, let alone why he cared so much when Ennet himself was a man of the Ministry. True, even back then Ennet's days of being a Declarer, at least in its strictest sense, were over, but he never stopped busying himself with research.

"The life of a blacksmith or a mason is hard as well," Stenn remembered saying. He also remembered just how pathetic it sounded, even back then. "But this is different." Stenn's spell of illusion broke as a board did under his metal-fisted assault.

He tried again to lose himself in his thoughts, but this time, only the voices remained.

"Have you ever considered retiring?" Ennet asked.

"That and more," Stenn responded. He remembered clearly then and still now that he was once told that it was remarkable that Stenn had been a Knight for so many years and was still alive. But it wasn't because Knights were killed during their time on the job. It was because most Knights had killed themselves by then. Apparently the ghosts that haunted Stenn's mind and nightmares had no particular grudge against him. Instead, they seemed to haunt all the Knights equally. How considerate of them, he remembered thinking.

"It might behoove you to do more than just consider it."

"What would I do if I did? What life do I have to live? I'm one of the best Knights the Ministry's got. Other than that, I'm not much else."

"That's up for you to find."

"Not a very convincing argument."

"It's the only one I need to make. And the only one you need to think about. If you could truly be anywhere else in the world but with the Ministry, than you'll find that life eventually."

So Stenn, in all his confusion and rage and doubt brought a new kind of zeal to his job as a Knight after that. A kind of zeal like that comes only when somebody is running from something, and running quickly. It's not like it mattered anyway, Stenn bitterly recalled, there's no retirement from the Knights. You join and then you die. Stenn struck the boards one final time. At least not all of me died. I guess that makes me lucky.

The wind came to greet Stenn and congratulate him for his efforts. The wood was peeled away enough to see the deeper parts of the tunnel. The light that came from it was bright blue and seemed to be almost leaking out of the far wall, which itself was mostly still covered in darkness.

A deep rumbling ran underneath Stenn's feet.

"Bloody hell, Stenn," Anna said. "You didn't have to overdo it so much. You made the whole ground shake."

"No, I didn't."

Anna was about to respond when the rumbling came again. It was louder this time. Pieces of broken wood bounced about like ants thrown about by a passing stampede.

The two of them looked at each other.

"He's Stirring," Anna breathed.

Stenn grabbed Anna by the wrist without even looking at her and he started running, his legs throwing him forward as quickly as they possibly could. The hole he made in the barricade was more than large enough for them to both fit. It was hardly a step away. Then it was two steps away. Then three. Then five. As if fate was laughing at them both, the barricade only moved further and further as Garamoush continued to roll. To Stenn's growing horror, He didn't seem to be stopping any time soon and even appeared to be picking up speed.

Anna cursed in frustration, loud enough to be heard over the rumbling that seemingly smothered everything else. Stenn wanted to rip the gauntlet off of his hand. He knew that getting rid of such a small amount of weight wouldn't have helped him move any quicker- maybe it was some kind of evil totem or it had a curse on it. But then, the dirt on the gauntlet's claws made sense. What was once the floor was now quickly becoming the wall, so Stenn threw himself against it chest-first and dug the metal claws into the floor-turning-wall's soil. The steel hooks latched in deeply to the soil, which was harder and tougher underneath than Stenn had expected. Secure now, the barricade stopped moving further away. Instead, it was Anna who was moving further away.

Stenn's efforts kept his head in place, so while he couldn't see Anna, he could feel her tugging against his arm as the room continued to rotate. He could feel and hear her running, trying to keep up with the rotating room. Stenn knew he was her anchor, so he only dug himself in deeper and clung on harder.

A pain like hot coals festered and grew in his shoulder. Anna was growing heavier and heavier the more she drifted away from him. The wall, which was once the floor, was now becoming the ceiling. Garamoush was rolling completely over and was probably completely ignorant to the little human insects that were inside of Him.

If this keeps up, Stenn thought, I'll be lucky if I can keep just myself from falling. The strain on Stenn's arm only continued to get worse. Adding Anna's weight will be a different matter entirely.

Another curse shot out of Anna's mouth, but it was cut off half-formed and replaced with a shriek. Stenn forced himself to look down. He promptly wished he hadn't. The more Garamoush rolled, the more Anna hung in open air. The two of them were steadily losing any kind of ground that they could cling to and now, where Stenn was clinging was almost the ceiling of the entire chamber. As he neared the top of the sphere, he soberly realized just how enormous the whole chamber was and how far a fall it would be down to the bottom. And yet, non-sun floated as it always did, in the middle of empty air, ignorant to the tiny specks of flesh and blood that dangled above it. Stenn could feel Anna's legs start to kick and she struggled for any kind of solid ground to latch on to, but despite her efforts, the ground only moved further away.

There was a shaking, one with such force that it ran through Stenn's gauntlet and into his body, making him tremble like the leaf at the mercy of a hurricane that he knew he was. His breath caught in his throat when a loose piece of the barricade came free and tumbled down towards him. The remnant passed so close to his face that he could smell the dry scent of timber.

Anna, however, wasn't as lucky. Stenn caught sight of one of her thin arms as it came up to defend her from the shrapnel, but the force of the blow only served to knock her free of Stenn's grasp and she fell away with a grunt. Stenn slammed his eyes shut, trying to shut out the grim reality of what it meant to truly be small; to be a mere human compared a god, a creature that could kill lesser beings simply be existing.

He felt Anna's arms grasp around his leg and the weight sent him swinging towards the wall to which he clung as if Anna was the weight to the bottom of a pendulum. For a moment, he thought that the queer feeling of weightlessness mixed with a burning pain would be one of the last things he felt in the world.

He expected his leg to fly right out of its socket when he felt Anna latch on in one final, desperate attempt at survival. But there was nothing, only the feeling of clutching arms. The rumbling and rushing of air still shoved against him.

Am I falling? Stenn asked himself. Am I falling and just haven't noticed yet? Did I let this lonely orphan girl die? He braved another look down.

This time, he regretted not doing so sooner.

Anna's feet were dug into the ground-turning-ceiling. Metal boots of the same workmanship and steel as the gauntlets on Stenn's hands had their metal shovel-shaped extensions driven far into the dirt. Between them and Stenn's gauntlets, they defied death and death itself let out a wailing, frustrated shout in the wind and shaking of the world. But Stenn jammed the hooks of his other hand into the wall as death continued to howl and rage in vain.

Stenn and Anna wordlessly stubbornly clung on, desperate to spite the murderous intentions of fate. When the world fell quiet again, Anna was the one who started laughing first. Stenn soon followed. Nothing else seemed as fitting at that moment in time.

With the world almost entirely upside down now, the metal claws and boots dug and pulled their way along with steely determination that was matched only by those wielding them. The hole that Stenn had made was still wide enough for him to climb up into. With Anna still clinging to him, Stenn reached into the breach he had made and gripped the floor of the interior of the cavern with his gauntlet and the remaining wood of the barricade with his free hand. He closed his eye from the effort as he strained to move his body awkwardly upwards.

Then suddenly, he found himself on his chest with his face to the floor. He heard and felt Anna plop to the ground just as gracelessly. Stenn rolled and nearly swallowed his tongue at what he saw. Stenn was sitting, but by rights, he should have been falling. Looking out from the hole in the barricade, he saw that giant grassy sphere was still upside-down. He and Anna were sitting on what was technically the ceiling, though it was only recently the floor. Much like the mysterious non-sun, the two of them seemed to be defying gravity. Or maybe gravity is just ignoring us, Stenn thought. It made about as much sense as everything else he had seen recently.

When Anna picked up her head, she looked just as panicked at the strange sight. But then, just as suddenly as she started, she stopped.

"Are you okay?" Stenn asked, panting.

"What kind of a question is that?" Anna asked. She rolled onto her back and started laughing again. She kicked her feet into the air. The metal boots were almost certainly of the same workings as the pair of gauntlets. Stenn had to admit that together, they made a clever defence against Garamoush's dangerous Stirrings. It seemed that not only were there once people in Garamoush's shell, and relatively recently by the look of it, but they were well-equipped and knew what they were doing. "Am I okay? I'm here aren't I? I was just dangling for my life and now we're in a cave that spits in the face of gravity, but here I am. Still alive. Does that answer your question?"

"I know you're here," he said, an exhausted smile appearing on his face, "I'm more worried if you're here." Stenn pointed to his head.

Anna was sprawled out on the tunnel ceiling-turned-floor. Dense, packed earth replaced the usual flesh and bone of the caves. The distant light was still bright enough to see the beads of sweat that sat on her forward. "I don't know," she said, "you seem to not think so."

Stenn smiled. "If you're not, then I'm not either." Before Anna could say anything, he added, "Which means you're fine."

Stenn stood and helped Anna to her feet. They both just stood there for a moment, collecting their breaths. Now that he could see it more clearly, Stenn thought the cave was one of the most comforting things he had seen in His shell. A plant that looked almost like ivy lined the walls and, aside from the black sludge that stuck to the ceiling, it looked almost inviting now.

"I never thought the phrase, 'light at the end of the tunnel' could be so literal," Anna said. She had her hand on the rock wall and Stenn soon joined her. The blue light that streamed from small slits in the rock intensified and the pieces slid apart, seemingly by their own accord. Light and fresh air came out to meet them both and they sighed in relief.

# Part 3

Another non-sun hovered silently at the crown of the room. Room, Stenn thought, for once I feel comfortable calling something in here by that name. Unlike every other hollow in Garamoush's shell, this one was not symmetrical- the floor was distinctly the floor and the walls were distinctly the walls. The room sported ponds of clear water, healthy-looking green vegetation, and squat structures made of white stone. The ceiling, on the other hand, was the closest thing Stenn had seen to a blue sky in a long while. Light blue liquid swirled lazily overhead and a barrier of what looked like glass formed a bowl-like sky.

The ghost of a rumbling ran underneath Stenn's feet. He sucked in his breath. This room might not be like the others, Stenn thought, but that doesn't mean it won't move when He Stirs... The ground rumbled and pulsed only slightly and there was no movement. Stenn looked behind him and through the open stone door. He saw that the plains in the last chamber continued to roll, but Stenn and Anna stayed put. Even the previous cavern stayed anchored in place. He is good and He will care, Stenn recited again, realizing just how truthful those words were.

"I like this place already," Anna said with a little laugh.

"Mm," Stenn said noncommittally. But this shouldn't be happening, he thought. Garamoush might Stir once, maybe twice every few weeks- it was uncommon enough to make it an auspicious occasion. Something's wrong here. Stenn shook the thought from his head for now and turned to see the new hollow he and Anna had fallen into.

The word His Sanctuary was etched with caring hands on a slab of the white stone. Or, at least, the stone once said that. Now, the word Ruins was scrawled across it with violent, cutting strokes. It was as if a rabid bear had carved the word, a rabid bear with one giant claw. It hung silently, held up by braided rope attached to a natural arch courtesy of the thick branches of nearby trees.

"You look surprised," Anna said, her eyes fixated on the ceiling.

"I am. Well, I'm surprised because I'm not. No state of breathtaking shock, no clever quip. I don't know if me getting used to all of this is a sign of adaptation or madness. Honestly, this seems even more out of place than the rest of the outrageous stuff in here."

"That's because it shouldn't be in His shell."

"You could say that for a lot of things."

"I don't think so. Everything else we've seen... makes sense. Sense, at least according to us humans, is probably not something that should even apply to Garamoush's shell in general, but this room is different. We've never seen anything even resembling a structure made by humans." The more Stenn looked at the structures, the more they became almost like small houses. The buildings had had blankets drawn overtop them to serve as a kind of roof. Given the lack of weather aside from the occasional chilly gust of wind, the blankets must have only really served as a way to keep the non-sun out of sleeping eyes seeing as how the trees that had apparently been growing there had been chopped down. Stenn reasoned that the wood was likely put to use building the barricade. "But these houses are supposed to be elsewhere, anywhere else but here, really. Believe me, I'm more than glad to see a place like this, but... maybe it's just an old man thing to be so wary sometimes."

"Again, I've been saying that a lot already. After all of what we just slopped through, I'm not going to let a blessing like this pass us by."

"So, you're seeing this through the end with me for sure?"

Stenn honestly didn't understand the question when he heard it. "Of course. Why do you think I've been sticking around for this whole time? Why do you think I just saved you from ending up as a puddle back there?"

Anna's quick smirk told Stenn that she didn't think it was really much of a question either. She said, "I tried to kill you."

"Garamoush has tried to kill me more. And I daresay he's doing a better job. But you don't see me trying to carve him up like a fowl."

"You said what I was doing was childish, rash, and stupid."

"Oh, now you're just making fun of me, aren't you? I might... have implied that, but look where we are. I can't help but think that diving into this shell after you might have been at least two of the things you mentioned."

"At least," Anna said, the threat of a laugh passing her lips. It was only a wisp of one, but it was good enough for Stenn.

The stone structures looked like little islands amidst the patches of green grass and the gently flowing rivers. The water didn't seem to have any point of origin, however. Instead, it flowed through its little channels, sometimes even straight up hills. Tufts of taller, paler grasses grew along some parts of the riverside. Stenn knew that no place like this could ever exist in the outside world and it was hard for him to put a word to what he was feeling as he absorbed the gentle scenery. Serenity was the closest word he could find. It was as if somebody had taken the world of a dream, a dream that somebody would never want to wake up from, and made it a reality.

"It's still up there, Stenn," Anna said, as if she somehow sensed Stenn's rising mood.

Stenn looked up at the ceiling, knowing full well what she was on about. Indeed, the black sludge, or tar, or whatever it was, ran along the length of the ceiling and all the way back down to the ground where it seemed to disappear out the other rocky door on the far side of the room. It looked significantly less... wet than the slime that was on the ceiling in the plains, but there were still ponds and patches of plants that looked less than healthy now- they had adopted the same characteristic blackish hue.

The corrosive black sludge had almost completely destroyed some buildings as well- their white stone crumbling into blackened powder. But, strangely, some of the stone chunks were scattered about, far from any of the buildings. Stenn had seen other, more natural looking, outcroppings of the white rocks throughout the Sanctuary, but these were different, fragmentary. It was almost as if some huge force has blown parts of the buildings to pieces. Stenn's eyes started to instinctually scan the whole of the tranquil hollow for any sign that whatever did the damage was still lurking about but he forced himself to stop- who or whatever it was must have enormous strength and thus, enormous size. If he wasn't able to pick it out in a quiet, idyllic garden of all places, it probably wasn't hiding there.

Stenn had to smirk at the irony. His experience as a Knight and his skill at picking dangers out of crowds could be truly useful again, but Stenn was simply too exhausted and relieved to care to question his blessing.

Still, as he walked amongst the blasted and decaying ruins of the buildings, he noticed that some of the stones must have been under the effects of the sludge for some time. Some were thin and smoothly rounded, almost like bones. They even had a hint of yellow showing on their pale surfaces where the sludge had not eaten through. Stenn's weary mind shook off the gut reaction association. Slightly yellowish stone would probably be the least strange thing Stenn had seen in quite a while.

Stenn made it a point to avoid wandering too close to any of the affected ponds, plants, and buildings. Instead, he waded through a shallow part of the river to a large grassy patch that sported a fair number of still-intact stone cubes. They were bigger up close, Stenn realized. They looked to be the size of a sizeable room one might find in a fairly wealthy home.

However, as he got closer, he realized that what he first thought were tricks of the light were very much real. The same carvings of the worm... snake... river thing that covered the bone pillars had reappeared on the white stone walls of the small buildings. Now, the carvings were much larger, with the same worm-like shape wrapping around what appeared to be a huge four-armed tortoise- undoubtedly Garamoush. Stenn ran his hands along the carvings. It seemed like they were done with an even more unsteady hand than before. It looked strangely similar to the handiwork that carved out the word "Ruins" on the stone slab.

It's one thing to carve out wild, abstract shapes, Stenn thought, but there's still solid form in those carvings. It looks like each one was intentionally. Stenn wondered at the unnerving art. Whoever or whatever was making the carvings seemed to be growing more erratic in their handiwork but their focus was still just as strong. The appearance of Garamoush as a victim of the bizarre worm shape particularly bothered Stenn. I do hope I didn't bring us into a deathtrap, Stenn thought. Stenn quieted his thoughts and went inside the building. Neither he nor Anna would be able to make it to the Wellspring with so little direction and energy, so the Sanctuary was still their best chance at survival.

On the inside, the stone structure was no more than a cube without a roof aside from its cloth awning. Beneath it was tightly-bundled straw with two thick woolen blankets. It was frugal living, at the very least, but whoever decided to settle in the "Sanctuary" must have planned well in advance for their stay. Carved into the stone were also small shelves that held pairs of clothes bound with string, as well as handfuls of tools ranging from knives to skillets to chisels. Stenn didn't think that rusting and decay followed the same rules in Garamoush's shell that it did on the outside. The metal on the tools, much like the metal in Stenn's newfound gauntlets, was still in remarkably good condition.

"Seems like we could take a rest here if you'd like," Stenn said. "Anna?" He looked around, poking his head back outside of the structure. "Anna?"

He found Anna with her head deep in the river, her head and hair swishing about like grass in the wind. She pulled head out of the clear water with a smile.

Anna turned to look at Stenn, a wet eyebrow raised. "You were taking too long. Didn't you say you were thirsty?"

Stenn chuckled and sat down next to Anna. "You heard what I said about taking a rest, right?"

"I did."

"Good." Stenn lowered his own head down and began to drink the water. It was clear and cool, almost unbelievably so. Stenn felt almost as if his whole body was being revived and given new life. He had to wonder if all of the tranquil Sanctuary really was just a part of some waking dream.

"Have you ever stuck your hand into a fire?" Anna asked, her filthy hands mopping up the droplets that tried to escape down her face. "Like, a hearth?"

"What on earth are you talking about?"

"You mean you never tried it as a child? Never held your hand over a candle flame just to see what would happen?"

"On accident, maybe. But not on purpose."

Anna's look said good enough and she continued, saying, "Sometimes something is so hot that when you touch it you actually think it's cold at first. It's a really bizarre feeling, like your body doesn't know what to do with so much of one thing. That's what this feels like. Like the water isn't real. It's so real and so good that it isn't..."

Stenn just let the rambling young woman continue to ramble on as he drank more. But perhaps she had a point. Stenn's throat was so dry that it took handful after handful just to feel anything but brambles in this throat. Strange as it may have seemed, Stenn wouldn't have minded drowning in that water if it meant getting more of it into his mouth.

"It's funny how that works," Stenn said as he finally tore himself away from the pond. Something is so hot that it's cold, so wet that it's dry. So strange that it's something you don't look twice at." The swirling sky of blue liquid shifted and changed in the non-sun's light, like it was the heavens speeding by.

"It was all wrong," Stenn added.

"What was?"

"Everything. Everything I came in here that I was confident in."

"For He is good

and He will care

The Finder of the Lost

The steadier of nerves..."

Stenn had to laugh. "Come on, it just sounds ridiculous now. All of it. I had been clinging to make out a scrap of truth here and there from the old legends and myths, but..."

"It's almost as if the people who wrote it had no idea what they were talking about."

Stenn frowned, not in the mood just then for Anna's sarcasm. He sighed and sat upright, his arms around his knees, "I suppose I never really considered just what that meant. Then again, I never thought I'd have to put their... factuality to the test." For a moment, only the faint wind and the gentle lapping of the pond's waves made any noise. "I think what you said before makes sense now. You came in here with nothing. No expectations aside from the ones about yourself. I expected the world to follow the rules of the humans who wrote about it." Stenn dryly chucked. "How old did you say you were?"

"Older than you, I guess" Anna said.

Stenn nodded. He supposed it was true. He was still clinging to the same stories he heard as a child. What adult truly believed in them?

In pensive silence, Stenn and Anna washed themselves clean of their filth in separate ponds. The waking world seemed lighter and less hostile as a result. Their old clothes were exchanged for pairs of dusty clothes found amongst the ruins. The only clothes that could even somewhat fit Stenn was a pair of trousers and a posh-looking doublet that he had cut most of the sleeves off of when he felt the fabric start to protest as he moved. For all the practicality and simple nature of the "Sanctuary," formalwear didn't rub Stenn as a necessity.

Anna reemerged some time later, in similarly edited clothing. She had chosen to keep her dark red coat, but the brown tunic and trousers she wore were probably suited to a woman, or thin man, who was close to a taller than Anna.

When Stenn pointed that fact out, she only shrugged and said, "Didn't you say something about not ignoring blessings as they come?"

Stenn smiled and consented. "Speaking of which, have you been thinking what I have about this place?"

Anna looked Stenn up and down, as if trying to read into him. "At this point," she said, her sarcasm returning, "I'm pretty sure your old man brain and mine couldn't be more different, so...

Stenn shook his head. "Of course, of course. I'm thinking that if the people who settled here were able to get this far, don't you think they might have been meaning to... keep going?"

"Maybe they were just murderers who escaped from prison."

Stenn's skeptical look and raised eyebrows snuffed out Anna's theory. Although, Stenn thought, it might explain where everybody up and left to. "I think you get what I'm hinting at now."

"They were going for Garamoush's Wellspring too." Anna forced out, as if it had been painfully obvious all along.

"Exactly. Which means that they might have brought... something that can help us. A map, maybe?"

"Somehow I doubt it. I've never heard of cartographers coming in to Garamoush's shell to make their fancy little doodles."

"But it also means we get to stay here that much longer. That's something."

"That's one of the smartest things I've ever heard you say."

Stenn shook his head, but he smiled. "Thank you."

Anna pointed to a pile of yellow buds that lay on a white stone slab on the grass. They were shaped almost like the heads of tulips, but were a bit thicker.

"I found those too," Anna said. "They're good."

"Good?" Stenn said, slightly horrified. "You've been eating them?"

"Have to eat something," Anna said, shrugging. She reached over and picked up bulb and popped it into her mouth. "They're all over the place," she said, food flying from her mouth.

The light of the non-sun made everything look a bit more golden than it actually was, so Stenn had to wonder if the bulb he held in his fingers was really so brilliantly yellow. He slowly squished it with his finger and a syrup-like liquid trickled out.

"I think I've been a little unfair to you," Stenn said. He eyed the small yellow bulbs with undiminished suspicion, but popped one into his mouth. It had the texture of a meatball

"Meaning what?" Anna said through a mouthful of five bulbs.

"Meaning I thought all this time you needed some kind of rescuing to get out of here. I underestimated you. For that, I apologize." Stenn saw Anna's eyebrow start to rise. "And yes, that's a real apology. I admit I was wrong. But also, I know who you are. But you probably still don't know anything about me. That's not right."

Anna groaned. "Bloody hell," she swallowed some of her food, "is this your new strategy for trying to stop me? Making me listen to your life story? You're so damn ancient that I'll waste away just sitting here."

"I would go before you would," Stenn pointed out. "And like I said, I'm seeing this through to the end. Hell or high water... both of which we've already experienced a bit of already."

"Alright," Anna said, lying on her back while stuffing more food into her mouth.

Stenn pulled Anna up. "Don't lay on your back," he said. "You'll choke."

Anna gave a small nod and stared at Stenn with those wide brown eyes of hers.

When Stenn tried to organize his entire life inside of his head, it did seem almost unbearably long. Entire years had been compressed to a few murky images or muddy sounds in his mind, but now they were being rolled out like dough and growing again in clarity. Still, it took no less than a few minutes to set everything in order but Stenn found he was asking himself- How in the hell did I manage to live this long?

So, he told Anna all of it... Lord Ennet's manor, his living-dream turned living-nightmare as a Knight, his departure from the Ministry and his new life with Tania and Eym. It was a trimmed, broad, history and Stenn couldn't help but think he lost a detail here and there, but it was out all the same. It was out and it was true. No legends, no songs, just the life he had lived for forty-one years.

"He's important to you, isn't he?" Anna's feasting was much slower now. She didn't let her food get in the way of talking clearly, either. "This blue-blood Samuel Ennet."

"Incredibly," Stenn said, his thoughts immediately turning back to the kind old man. "He was even important to the Ministry several years ago when he was still a Declarer. But then one day, he disappeared into Garamoush's shell, same as us."

"Except, we'll be coming out of here alive," Anna said.

"My thoughts exactly," Stenn said with a smile.

"You think maybe he's still here?"

Stenn ate one of the bulbs, using the time to mull over his thoughts. "It might explain who lived here," he admitted, "but he was old when he disappeared. Disappeared without a word or trace, in fact. Provided the shit we've seen in His shell didn't get him, old age might have." Stenn looked down at his own reflection in the water. His already-large nose was starting to hook and the lines of age in his light brown skin were becoming even more pronounced. "I think I'm content with letting him become part of the past." When Stenn said it out loud, he wasn't entire sure he even fully believed it himself.

Anna apparently didn't, however. She didn't even try to hide her disbelief, but didn't make anything of it. She shrugged and said, "If that's what you want. My past is the only reason I'm here at all. So maybe it's worth holding on to."

"Samuel Ennet..." Stenn said, standing up. He paced the length of the pond, shaking his head and smiling a smile brought on by memory, "Lord Samuel Ennet, husband of Marianne Ennet, father of none, lord of the beachside Staringsun Manor over Smallslip-on-the-Hills... he was certainly something. Certainly somebody." The old man's identity, from his friendly, affected voice to his coif of light hair that had been grey for decades, to his immediate and selfless concern for his subjects, anchored Ennet in place in Stenn's mind. If he hadn't forgotten about the old lord by then, when all hope for him had faded years ago, he wasn't about to just then, much as he might have just wanted to. It probably would have been simpler that way.

"My lord?"

Stenn wheeled around, looking at Anna. "What did you say?" he asked.

Anna looked just as confused as Stenn. "I didn't say anything."

"My lord Samuel Ennet?" The voice was that of an older woman.

Now both Stenn and Anna were looking around the Sanctuary, the new voice seemingly coming from everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

"Wha-" Anna started to say.

The voice called again, this time in a tone almost nearing sing-songy.

This time, Anna had evidently pinned down its location. She sprang to her feet, depositing her last bud in her satchel as she did so. Stenn quickly followed after her. The calling was repeating, but always sounding just as jovial as the last, as if this mysterious new person was looking for Ennet like she was playing a game of hide-and-seek with him.

The ghostly voice hung on the gentle winds throughout the Sanctuary and suddenly the old white stone ruins were adopting an unnerving aura all their own. The unyielding golden sunlight was no help, either. Horrors and monsters of stories and legends were often confined to the nighttime. Feeling such an uncomfortable tingling in his spine in broad daylight, Stenn didn't deny his unease as he and Anna searched where she had thought the voice came from.

"What in the world-" Anna started. She cursed in frustration. "Where? Who-?"

Anna's eyes widened as they fixated on the form on the far side of the small stone court. Stenn followed her gaze and every faculty in his body froze solid.

A woman, well-dressed and well-kept fluttered about the grassy islands, trying to pick the yellow buds from the flowers. Her hands passed right through them, however. In fact, everything seemed to, even the light. It was as if the woman was made of white morning mist.

Stenn's whole body shivered as he suddenly became cold.

Stenn's hand instinctively shot out, telling Anna to wait. Wait and keep her distance. The calling woman was... wrong. It was as if she wasn't a full person, merely the echo of one. Her body showed what was behind it as if she were made from silvery water. And yet, she moved with the freedom of air.

For once, an image from Stenn's stories matched its reality. The woman was not entirely of this world- a ghost. A spirit shunned by death for its enduring attachments to the mortal world. It didn't even take a Ministry education or even the ability to read words in a book to know a ghost story. They were favourites around fires and hearths, but few people outside of the Ministry probably knew just how true some of the stories were. If the world was strange enough for a four-armed, future-seeing tortoise who talks in His sleep to exist, the appearance of the living dead was hardly much of a tall tale at all.

The ghost's long curls flowed behind her as she scurried about the square buildings. Her trained hands were weathered and muscled and she was intent on putting them to use in working the white stone. She raised her mallet and chisel, swinging with purpose and a practiced eye, though her tools passed straight through the material with every strike.

Stenn edged in closer.

The woman's white form flickered and she disappeared.

"Wha-?" Stenn and Anna both said.

The apparition appeared some ways ahead, her foggy pale figure blending in with the stones in the distance. Stenn and Anna followed quietly, taking pains to avoid hitting any of the broken stone. The woman was now bending down, her hands passing right through the yellow buds she was no doubt trying to pluck. She did this many times, ever ignorant of her inability to touch the plants. But she was dauntless, mechanical even. The woman moved like her life had been written out on a page. She followed commands and went through motions but touched nothing. But she didn't know any better, only doing what seemed right in her head.

Stenn's foot brushed a chunk of lopsided stone and it fell with a soft thud.

The woman looked up from her work and Stenn froze in place. The woman started to walk towards him and Anna. Anna was quick to jump out of the ghostly woman's path, but Stenn was not so quick. The phantom moved with fittingly unnatural speed and grace. She sped forward, her legs moving faster than a human's should have.

Stenn took a breath in as she neared him. Her eyes were empty wastes, but there was something about them... No...

The brief moment of Stenn's thoughts passed him just as the woman did. She brushed right by him and continued her gathering elsewhere.

When Stenn lead his breath out, he felt like it could have filled a ship's sail for an entire ocean-bound journey. The chill that passed through his body lingered, though, like he had fallen into a mound of snow.

"She doesn't even know we're here," Anna said, rejoining Stenn.

Stenn shivered. "Maybe that's for the best..."

"What's wrong?" Anna asked.

"Well," Stenn started. "We are now in the company of a ghost who has almost touched me twice now." Stenn saw Anna's raised eyebrow out of the corner of his eye. "You've never heard the old legend about how if you're touched by a ghost it makes you a ghost too?"

"You have an old legend for everything, don't you? Is this just something old people are good with?"

"Most of us," Stenn admitted.

"Odd source of oddly practical knowledge," Anna commented. Stenn nodded.

The woman busied herself amongst the buds and the ponds. She looked left, then right, and then sighed in relief. She put her bucket down and began to pace the length of the pond Stenn had drunk from. Her head tilted back and she began to sing.

Whether it was the distance or Stenn's mind simply rebelling against him, he couldn't quite make out the song. It sounded familiar, though, Stenn couldn't quite place it. It was an uplifting tone, the garbled words of the ghost still carrying the joy in the song's words. It reminded Stenn in more ways than one of the Ennet manor and the songs sung in it that he grew up on.

Stenn swallowed long and loudly. "There's one more thing," he said. "I know that woman."

"What." Anna said. It didn't even sound like a question when she said it. Instead, it sounded more like a statement of pure disbelief.

Stenn's shoulders suddenly felt more aching than before and his eyelids felt heavy. It was becoming so simple. He was just going to escort this young woman to speak to a god by going through all of the horrors of a labyrinthine shell that seemed to try to emotionlessly kill them off at every turn. Simple. But now, a literal ghost from his past had to make things completed once again.

For the first time, Stenn thought, there's a problem in here the strength of my body can't solve.

"That's Marianne Ennet, Lord Ennet's wife." Just saying her name dug up more memories. Though she was a shadow compared to Ennet's greatness, as many great women unfortunately were, she relished in being a shadow. She ran the manor when Ennet's studies were running him. She turned the countryside from sodden farmland into groves of grapes that grew some of the best wine Stenn had ever drunk. She organized villages into towns, towns into cities, and the ruins of lives into healthy new ones. And... "I owe my life outside of the Ministry to her."

"I thought you said her husband was the one who convinced you to leave."

"He convinced me to try, to think about it. But she was really the one who made it all possible. Ennet was a Declarer and a damn respected one at that, but he didn't have the kind of power to dismiss a Knight. But one certain Pontifex, you know, one of the heads of the Ministry, well, he thought his daughter and Ennet would make a good match. As it turned out, Ennet's new father-in-law had just the power we had been looking for."

"She looks pretty old," Anna said. The wrinkles were indeed starting to work their way into her cheeks and her whole face spoke of aged experience. Still, Stenn didn't place her as being much older than him. She was at least a handful years older than he though. Her death couldn't have been more than a couple years ago. "So, I guess they were a pretty good match after all."

"They were. Whenever Ennet wasn't staring into his books, he was staring at her. To say that they loved each other would be like saying that a fish loves water. They simply couldn't exist without one another. Even three stillborn children later and no direct heirs to their name, their love never faltered." Stenn had spent most of his life seeing the love between Samuel and Marianne. That kind of love is what he had wanted to feel in his own life. There's another promise for you, Tania, Stenn thought, we'll be as happy as they once were, if we're not already. "Still, Marianne liked to have her eyes elsewhere, helping others whenever possible, myself included. We conspired together. With her father still a Pontifex, the oldest one to date as it turns out, getting me out of the Ministry when only death or injury could free Knights from the job... I owe quite a lot to her. And to her father. Then one day, she just disappeared with old man Ennet. No letters. No word at all. Nothing."

Suddenly Stenn was almost falling straight towards the ground, a concentrated force shoving against his back.

"Then I think you've got a few things to say to her," Anna said, her feet digging into the ground as she pushed Stenn.

Stenn dug his feet in deeper. "She's a ghost, Anna."

"Exactly. It means she died and there are still things left unsaid. Ghosts don't pass on for a reason."

"Sometimes it's better to just let these kinds of things go," Stenn said, bracing his whole body against Anna's pushing.

"You mean to just ignore things. Don't be stupid. You should just be happy you get the chance to say goodbye at all."

I should be happy... Stenn thought. At least he might still be able to reach out to her. Anna had to live with the space and silence in-between her, her brother, and her mother and father's ghosts.

"Lady Marianne Ennet," Stenn called out, unable to hide the traces of shakiness in his voice.

The ghost didn't respond.

Stenn called out again, louder this time. He bit his lip.

The ghost remained ignorant.

Once more Stenn called. It sounded more like a cry of desperation in his ears that time. He could hear it bouncing off of the high walls and ceilings of the Sanctuary. It hardly sounded like him at all.

Before the last echo faded, the ghost turned, the deep transparent nothings that were her eyes bore into Stenn and Anna. At least, Stenn thought they were drilling into him. The sight only made his spine shiver with renewed intensity.

"Do you remember me?" Stenn asked, trying to steady the shakiness of his voice. "Do you know who I am?"

The ghost only looked at him for a moment then disappeared into a flash of light.

Stenn lurched back as Marianne's pale form rematerialized not a hair's length away.

The ghost laughed. It was a full, almost warm laugh. If she were still wrapped up in skin and muscle, Marianne's laughter would have made Stenn respond in kind. Respond with gusto, in fact. Now, it only served to make the chill in his spine even colder.

"You startle just as easily as always, Stenn," Marianne said. Her smile was a sad one, but still a smile.

Anna smirked. "I like her," she whispered.

"I-" Stenn started. "I- No!" He shouted, circling around Marianne. "You're... you're dead! How can you just be... like you are... you're dead! We even had a funeral for you and Samuel. We just buried empty caskets, but we still did it anyway!"

"Calm yourself, Stenn," Marianne said, her hand coming up like a caring mother's. Stenn didn't let her touch him. "Believe me, I was the first to know of my... current condition." Her eyes went up to the black slime across the walls and ceiling. "I would wager anything, if I had anything left, that whatever made that is what made me what I am now." Marianne sighed. It felt like an icy winter breeze. "Don't look at me like that, Stenn. I am not as lost as you think."

"If you're a ghost," Anna said, looking about as fascinated as Stenn was uneasy, "doesn't that mean you've got something holding you here?"

"Yes, I suppose that's true. Aren't you a knowledgeable young woman, Miss...?"

"Anna," Anna said. "And yes, knowledgeable." She gave a smirk at Stenn. Stenn didn't return it.

"I am... waiting for somebody." Marianne looked right at Stenn as she spoke.

"Samuel," Stenn said.

"The old lord?" Anna asked.

Marianne nodded at them both. "The very same."

"Please, if you have any answers for us," Stenn said.

"I know that you are asking at least somewhat about all that you've seen when inside His shell. Strange as it may seem, sometimes there just are not many answers to give. You and I may not have even seen the same parts of the shell, given how truly grand and vast it is. But for once, the old legends and stories are not too far off from the truth. What you saw simply... is. Perhaps we all expected the same thing as you, though. Some kind of logic to it all, some sort of way for us to know that the shell wasn't driving us all mad. But He is a god and we are mortals. Imagine if an insect were to begin crawling inside of us."

"Actually, I'd rather not."

Marianne edged a bit closer, a bit too close for Stenn's liking. He wasn't afraid of her touch anymore, only of her eyes. He didn't think he could look into them and see only empty nothingness looking back at him. There could be anything from demons to angels lurking in nothingness like that. "There's something in here with us, Stenn. I'm sure you've seen the signs of it."

"You mean the black sludge?"

Marianne nodded. "It's something that doesn't belong. I know that's not very helpful for all of the questions that must be filling your heads right now, but that's all I can really say. I lost my husband to whatever horrible creature it is. I imagine that's how I died, too. As well as everybody else who came with us. There were more of us, you know. Nine in all. You may even know some of them. Rikmond, Hannibal, Rose, Bertram, Lucile..."

"Your retainers from the manor?"

"The very same."

"And are they...?"

"Dead?" Marianne said. "I can't imagine how they couldn't be. Some of them probably died trying to defend that little barricade they set up but... well, the creature still got past it, didn't it?"

"Meaning, it got past them too," Stenn concluded.

Marianne frowned, but nodded.

"Why did you leave with no word?" Stenn edged. "No nothing?"

"Don't take it as a slight, Stenn. You know that his lordship and I always tried to look after you. This time was no different. We knew that if you knew we were leaving for Garamoush, you would want to come along with us. But you had your own, new life to live. And now you're alive and we are not."

"... Thank you," was all Stenn managed to say.

"Ha. I'm glad to see you haven't changed very much, either. Excellent." Marianne looked up and down Stenn, as if she was a mother inspecting her favourite child. "When his lordship departed for His Shore, none of us could let him go alone. He protested, as he always did, saying that it was his choice to make the journey so he was the only one to have to bear its burden."

"Sounds very much like him."

"So I thought. But he was changing then, Stenn. Changing into a man I didn't recognize. Obsession is the word I would use, obsession with the idea that infinite knowledge of the world was held by an enormous sleeping tortoise. And all of it just waiting to be taken by whoever was brave or smart enough to try."

"But that's absurd, the legends-"

"You aren't the first one to bring those up. And you also wouldn't be the last one that his lordship would shun as a result."

"Desperation," Anna said, cutting in. "Something else I'm familiar with it. Stuff just doesn't make as much sense when you get desperate. A complete lie turns into the most obvious truth in the world."

"Poetic," Marianne said, her eyes showing her still lost in thought.

"I've been around him too much," Anna said, pointing at Stenn. "For a man who made his life around clobbering people, he sure talks like a librarian."

"Blame my Ministry education," Stenn said.

"But," Anna continued, "isn't it kind of, I don't know, a sin for somebody to go snooping around in His shell?"

"Why yes, young miss. You too are committing a sin by being here. But simple trespassing wasn't the worst of Samuel's sins. We all tried to convince his lordship that he was a Declarer- taught the lessons of humility, understanding, and servitude to a god and thus had no business trying to trespass into His territory. But it wasn't good enough for him."

"Let me guess, you followed him to try to dissuade him," Anna said.

Marianne nodded, and then her ghostly eyes turned to Stenn. She looked at Anna next and asked, "Is this a tale you're familiar with?"

"Almost uncomfortably so," Anna said. She motioned towards Stenn, "He's given up trying at this point."

Stenn shrugged. "She's even more stubborn than I am. It's hard to believe, I know."

Marianne's look, even without proper eyes, seemed to harden on Anna. "I can't exactly stop you either, young lady, but know that ambition has its costs. And sins are sins for a reason."

"Noted," said Anna, her lips pursing just a bit.

"Marianne," Stenn began. He had wanted to say it since Anna brought it up. "Goodbye," that was all he had to say. And yet... now here she was, holding a conversation with him like it was any other day. Was it really the right time to be saying goodbye? Stenn didn't know and didn't give himself the chance to think on it. "Where is Lord Ennet now?"

"... Somewhere," Marianne said. "He must be somewhere in this strange, ancient world."

"You mean he's still in here somewhere? Alive?"

"I know he is... he has to be. I refuse to believe that he died in a place like this. I refuse to... move on until I know for sure. Even when he was twice the age of some of the younger folk, he was still twice the man. He's out there somewhere..."

Of course, Stenn realized. A ghost was bound to the world of the living so long as something, or sometimes someone, held them there. Desire of all kinds served as an anchor for the spirits of the undead. It's their sole purpose to linger on to fulfill that desire...

"He's probably dead," Anna said, her voice low and gentle for once. "I mean, we were almost killed more than a few times in this madhouse and we couldn't have been here for more than a day."

... and to insult that desire will undoubtedly have some consequences, Stenn thought.

"He is not," Marianne said. "He cannot be."

"You'll need to move on," Anna insisted. For a moment, Stenn thought she was about to reach out to try to touch Marianne. However, the Lady Ennet tried to shy away, her hands starting to cover her eyes as if she had a headache.

"Anna," Stenn edged, trying to push her as gently as he could away from Marianne. "I know he's alive as well. That old man is nothing but determined."

"Are you serious?" Anna asked, her tone more serious. "Stenn, if Lord Ennet's even older than you, how do you think he's managed to last this long? You even wondered yourself how he thought he could make it down here. Whether or not he's 'twice the man' that everybody else is doesn't change any of that."

That was different, Stenn thought. That was before I knew I'd have to tell his loving wife the same thing.

"I will wait for him," Marianne whispered, her shoulders starting to hunch.

The lump in Stenn's throat returned. It would have pained him to see Marianne like this even if she was alive. It was no better with her being dead. Anna had a point. It was amazing that Ennet managed to make the journey this deep into Garamoush's shell at all, but if he truly was lost and alone out there, he was almost certainly dead. And yet...Every time Stenn thought of the man who had helped to give him his new life and had been his ally for decades dying alone somewhere in the long dark of Garamoush's shell, he couldn't accept it either.

"Trust me," Anna said, "I know what it's like to not want to believe. It's not worth lying to yourself so you can feel better. Or, you can just go on trying to pick flowers if you want."

"Insolent child!" Marianne shouted, her arms flailing outward. Her form shifted and shook like a cloud preparing to release a storm. "I have defied death to see him again! Why do you think you have any jurisdiction over me?!"

She isn't just a ghost, Stenn realized to his horror, she is a Banshee.

...Broken echoes

Of wailing voices and fate lament

Haunt the halls of Earth

'Till the sun is spent...

Stenn was quick to come between Anna and Marianne, his arms outstretched. It was all falling to hell around him and his body moved as if it was a castle wall, intent on keeping two forces of nature from colliding. "Anna-" He started.

Anna ducked underneath Stenn's arm and sprinted away from him before he could react. "Shut up, old man! You're not helping!"

...Touch her not

Her touch is naught

Life can hold no candle

To the cold that death has brought...

Marianne's rage was quickly climbing to a fever pitch. Her form had become blood red in color and torrents of wind lashed about like whips. The air itself was becoming spiked and hostile. All of the horrors of Garamoush's shell and the Ministry of Fate and His Greatness were nothing but old scars and bruises in Stenn's mind, but to see his old friend in such agony was a fresh new kind of wound altogether, one that dug deeper with searing pain and heedless strength. Stenn's old legs had started to shake.

"Lady Ennet," Anna shouted over the din, her voice clear and calm, "nobody's worth waiting an eternity for. This is no way to live... if you can even want to call it that. Even if your husband is alive out there somewhere, why do you think he's never come back to try to find you? If he isn't dead, then he still gave up on you. Don't wait and wish forever just to be disappointed."

"You speak as if you know," It sounded like Marianne had exchanged her words for fire. "How could somebody so young know what it's like to linger and hope? To damn the rest of the world, the world that has wronged you? Why are you here if not to try to take your loved ones back?"

Do not try to console

Eternity is her endless sea

Her grief is beyond relief

She is sorrow

She is the Banshee

"I know they're dead," Anna shouted. "I saw them die. And I see them die again every time I sleep at night. I'm here for the living. I'm here for the chance to make something out of all of this."

"Then what am I to do?" Marianne wailed, her flailing arms passing right through her body. "How can I touch life when I cannot even touch the dead?"

"You already have, you old crone," Anna said, her sarcasm not exactly finding a willing recipient. "You've already helped your old friend here. You've given him a chance to speak to you one more time. Imagine if he up and died and never got this chance? What if he lingered on for eternity? Waiting for somebody who would never come?"

Marianne's seething anger calmed to a slow boil, then a simmer, than it fell to only tepid discontent. The red color drained from her form and she sighed like the weight of the world was rolling off of her shoulders.

"Perhaps," she echoed, "Perhaps..." Marianne turned like the changing of an autumnal wind. She floated past the ruined white buildings, her head hanging low. She turned to Stenn and Anna one last time and said something Stenn couldn't quite catch. She pointed towards the farthest stone building, looking Stenn in the eyes as she did so. Then she nodded. Her form quivered and glowed, then it scattered into the air like fog.

"Lord Ennet has interesting tastes in women," Anna said as if she was making a remark about a funny-looking cloud.

Anna's bluntness snapped Stenn back into the present. The present in which he had his one, fated, final chance to say goodbye... and he botched it.

Stenn nodded and wordlessly walked, shoulders slumping, with Anna to the building Marianne had indicated. As always, Anna had stayed just a few steps ahead. Though they were both quiet on the outside, Stenn knew that both his and Anna's thoughts were trumpeting in full force. The young woman, almost unbelievably, had lost none of the energy to her steps, despite the events she just witnessed.

I'll bet she's just happy to finally have a real heading and a real chance to complete her task.

Meanwhile, Stenn's own head was filled with a raging thunderstorm in its own right- each new thought virtually incomprehensible from the last, but they all carried the same thick and heavy gloom all the same.

The building was really no different than any of the others Stenn had seen. He was put a bit more at ease when he didn't see any of the strange carvings tarnishing its clean white walls. On the inside a large table and collection shelves made from dark wood quietly announced themselves as being the only noteworthy fixtures. Even the wool awning was missing, possibly to facilitate better reading in the omnipresent light.

The shelves were loaded with tomes and rolls of parchment of every size and state of decay. Stenn had seen similar shelves of knowledge in the Granite Citadel, but they were always perfectly, if not a bit anally, organized. The contents of this small study were strewn every which way as if the person using it had to leave in a great hurry.

"Maps," Anna said with some excitement as she pulled a few rolls of the aged parchment off the shelves. "Bloody Hell, Stenn. They're all maps. And you said curtogrophers-"

"Cartographers," Stenn corrected.

"Cartographers," Anna repeated with some obvious difficulty, "You said they had no reason to be here."

At least we're not the only ones who don't belong here, Stenn thought as he wearily gathered up and scanned through some of the other documents as Anna rounded up the maps that seemed to strike her fancies the strongest. Not even his love of old documents and lore made an impact on the quagmire of Stenn's mind.

Anna had chosen four of the maps, all wrapped with identical lengths of red string. The way she was hovering over the table, investigating her finds, she looked like a general surveying the land of a battle-to-be.

"Was there an ulterior motive... uh," Stenn moved to clarify as anticipated Anna's confusion, "a hidden reason for doing what you did?"

"These maps are a bonus, Stenn," Anna said. "Even I have standards."

Stenn nodded. "Of course. Sorry for doubting you."

"It's hardly a new occurrence," Anna said with a dry chuckle.

Four maps were unrolled across the table. Two of them showed the shape of Garamoush's shell and were both identical, even down to the ink splattering and changes to various names and locations of hollows.

"Damn," Anna said, leaning over Stenn's shoulder. "Color me impressed. Lord Ennet knows his stuff."

"Or somebody he brought with him does," Stenn said. "I never knew Samuel to be a lover of maps, let alone a maker of them. Then again, it seems I don't know quite a few things about him." Still, it seemed more likely to Stenn that Ennet would have merely collected the maps rather than made him by himself.

"That's us," said Anna, pointing excitedly at the dome-like shape near the bottom of the map. They were practically resting on Garamoush's body proper from where they stood. It was hard to gauge distance just by using the map when His shell was almost impossibly large, but Stenn couldn't deny that he and Anna had come a very long way since first entering. It was no wonder Stenn's body felt drained to the point of numbness.

"Do you see the Wellspring anywhere?" Anna asked, impatience starting to edge into her voice.

Stenn scanned the map and all its identical copies. He figured that something as important as the Wellspring would have been marked in the clearest way possible, but nothing immediately stood out to him. Both documents were identical in every way, but none of them yielded even the slightest hint of the Wellspring's location.

The map makers did, however, mark with obvious paths more than a few ways both into and out of His shell. Where to access them, how Garamoush had to be lying, even rough travel time was all laid out. Stenn knew that Anna was looking everywhere but at them, so Stenn made notes in his head for the both of them.

When Stenn looked back at Anna, she was staring with worried eyes at where Stenn had just been looking. Her gaze followed the same escape routes that Stenn had traced out. She looked up at Stenn with the same worried eyes.

Anna shook the look off and hardened her expression. She almost angrily jammed her finger down onto the map where a large ink blot sat. "It's there. The Wellspring is there."

"I thought that was just a mistake," Stenn said. "Just ink that fell on the page."

"It's a pretty consistent mistake to make. It's on all of the maps. And look," she continued, her finger tracing across the paths and caves. "Look how close the smudges all are to His neck." She looked at Stenn with a hopeful, almost pleading expression, "you said that's where it is, right?"

Stenn frowned. "That's where the legends say it is. Take that for what it's worth." Which, as it turns out, may not be worth very much at all.

Anna looked resolute, though, her brow furrowing. "No," she said. "That's our heading. If it's not anywhere else, it's got to be there." She bit down on her knuckle. "It's got to be." She reached for the inkwell and quill that sat on the far end of the table and started to mark out paths on the old map.

As Anna began to take her hand to the maps of Garamoush, Stenn started to turn his attention to another pair of maps which happened to be of the whole country of Garaheim. The credo of the Ministry was written beneath the name of the land.

No more kings

No more lives

Of great men and women

And false gods

Only His words

Only His guidance

Stenn put his thoughts into the parchment and ink, if only to bring his mind away from the ghosts that were haunting it. His finger and eyes followed the rivers running southward from His Shore down to the city of Oxfield. The plains to the town's west were almost vacant aside from a spattering of abandoned castle ruins and the lonely more modern manor house that had sprung up to replace the old lordly holdings. Stenn quickly jumped to the Ennet family's Staringsun Manor, as if he half expected it to be just a figment of his imagination- a phantom fragment that may or may not have ever even been real. But there it was, with the small town of Smallslip-on-the-Hills living in its shadow.

When he found the quiet Dehry Township nestled in the southeastern forested hills, Stenn felt a flare of energy within him. It gave a small gasp of life to his old bones. That was his home now- his home so beautifully far away from the Ministry's Granite Citadel. It was the home he was going to be returning to. There would be no stopping him.

Stenn turned his attention to the other map. He couldn't quite place it, but something felt... off about this one. On its surface, it looked exactly as it should. It was an almost perfect copy of the other map down to the quality of the penmanship and the thickness of the lines. Almost. The manors were gone, replaced by the old castles, cities were smaller, and some towns simply didn't exist. Even the sacred ruins of Harbiton were represented as a still-standing city.

The Granite Citadel... Stenn thought. He started to look for the enormous building but there was only vacant hilly space where it should have been. Curiously, the name of Garaheim was missing from the map as well. The Ministry had given the land its name after it became the sole governing body after Garamoush made landfall. Instead, borders were drawn, creating places labeled as the Northern, Western, Eastern, and Southern Strains. Stenn raised his eyebrows at that. The old kingdoms before Garamoush's arrival were hardly ever mentioned by name in the histories. The Ministry wasn't keen on letting people know that they weren't always the ones in power.

"Well damn," Stenn said, "take a look at this."

Anna appeared at Stenn's side and leaned over the table. Her eyes ran about the map for a moment. "What am I supposed to be seeing?" she asked.

"History, Anna," Stenn said. "A map like this one doesn't even exist inside of the Ministry. Do you notice anything missing?" While Anna tried to answer his question, Stenn noticed that the two maps were almost identical, minus the two very large emissions. The coast of the sea still sat to the east, the deltas still held farming villages, and manors and cities were perched like birds of prey atop the many hills and plateaus of the countryside.

"Where's Garamoush?" Anna asked.

"Where indeed?" Stenn pointed to where His Shore would eventually come to be. It was still nothing but a coastline with high cliffs overlooking the roughest parts of the sea.

Anna looked up at Stenn. He could see in her eyes that she desperately wanted to get back to her own searching, but curiosity was starting to pull her away. "The Granite Citadel is gone too," she said, pointing to the foothills where the enormous grey citadel sat in the present. "This map was made before Garamoush even came ashore for the first time."

Stenn nodded. "The Granite Citadel was put up before Garamoush even went to sleep. So, this map's over two hundred years old."

"Hmm," Anna said. She humoured Stenn for a few more seconds, looking over the map, and then said, "Am I done here?"

"Oh, just go," Stenn said with a smirk.

He turned back to the map and hid his frown with his hand. That kind of map was something that the Ministry not only frowned upon, but also something they likely would have destroyed if they got the chance. The Ministry's leadership was none too fond of it being public knowledge that not only was Garamoush not always humanity's guardian, but also that the Ministry was not the sole governing body of the land.

And yet, here it was a heretical document in a heretical settlement that was once filled with heretical people.

I certainly have ended up in some odd places in my life.

Stenn couldn't deny his curiosity, so he went about delving into some of the older tomes. He passed through them quickly, his attention span only strong enough to give illustrations any kind of thought. Still, quite a few things in the old books struck him. There were schematics for pairs of the climbing gauntlets and boots as well as a very strange design for what looked like a tall stone pillar covered in faces.

The latter illustration was in a larger, frustratingly unnamed book that featured other, stranger illustrations of an enormous man with large wings and the head of a bird. That particular book was one of the most neglected Stenn had seen. Even the writing on the pages was faded and some of the illustrations were almost unintelligible. Still, the magnificence of the bird man told Stenn that it was once some kind of a god.

A book about a god inside of another god... I wonder what Garamoush would think of this.

Then a thought struck Stenn. He pushed the map to the side and began to leaf through the various tomes on the shelves, resisting the impulse to read deeper into each and every one. He was looking for very specific words, words written by a man who was either an enemy of the Ministry or simply not afraid of them.

Wellspring, Stenn read, finally. A thin, flimsy tome with no appearance of particular importance was the first to mention Garamoush's Wellspring by name. It was also, contrary to all that Stenn expected, not in a song, ballad, or legend. Instead, he found the word nestled in a multi-page theory.

"A theory of how to open the door..." Stenn said aloud.

Stenn was nearly knocked over by the force of Anna colliding into him.

"What, really? Where is it? What's it say? How do we do it?"

"Land's sake, girl, calm down," Stenn said as he righted himself. "Firstly, is the map ready to go?"

Anna nodded vigorously, trying to crane her neck to look at the thin old book.

"Including the paths out?"

Anna nodded again, but much more slowly this time. Stenn frowned, but ignored the discomfort he saw in her eyes.

"Well," Stenn said, laying the book out on the table, "it's only a theory, remember. This may or may not work at all. Although, I suspect you don't really care about that."

Anna was quiet for once, giving Stenn the space to continue.

"It's quite simple, actually," Stenn said. "It says here that either Garamoush chooses to let you into the Wellspring, or He does not. Meaning, you either get in, or you don't. It's not really up to you, me, or anybody else. In the end, it's Garamoush Himself who gets to decide."

"It's just a theory," Anna grumbled, crouching up onto a nearby stool and gathering up her maps. She rolled up the two edited maps of Garamoush and bound them with twine.

"Just a theory..." Stenn echoed. He turned to the front of the book, looking for the author's name. There was probably something more legible there before, but the only thing that remained was "Fre----k of Har---on." The name, if it could still be called one, wasn't the slightest bit familiar to Stenn, so he let it pass.

Looking at Anna now, bunched down on bended knees, Stenn thought that she might have jumped up then and chased after that appointed spot like a charging horse. He was quicker in standing up, though.

"But before any of that..." he said.

Anna looked up at him, her lip being bit in obvious impatience. There was still a flicker of anger in her eyes. Stenn couldn't place where it came from or where it was directed, but it was there nonetheless.

Stenn pointed towards the shadowed corner of the building. The bedroll didn't look like the most comfortable he had ever seen, but in his time protecting Ministry pilgrims and traveling Declarers, he had gone weeks with only the earth as bedding. When Anna spotted it too, her eyes and shoulders seemed to slump in anticipation.

"But we're so close," she said, looking up at Stenn like a hungry dog.

"Close to collapsing," Stenn said.

The two locked eyes for a moment, Stenn feeling patient. He could see the sleepiness radiate out from the young woman. Her whole body seemed to be getting pulled to the floor.

Anna yawned first.

"Ha," Stenn laughed. Then he too yawned. "See? What good would it be to speak to Garamoush if you're falling asleep mid-sentence?"

"It's not far," Anna said again, remaining defiant.

"And it won't be getting any further away," Stenn said.

Anna sighed, her eyes looking from the bed to Stenn to the map to her new pair of leather boots. They didn't look like they had been properly broken in yet- they stood out in stark contrast to their wearer. Anna stood, her knees popping like they were as old as Stenn's. She wordlessly walked over to the bed and gently collapsed on it. She coiled up like a cat, nestling herself into the furthest corner of the structure.

"I'm not used to all this," Anna said, slowly sprawling out across the straw and blankets. "There wasn't very much room in the orphanage."

"More than one to a bed?" Stenn asked.

Anna nodded.

Stenn chuckled. "We're in the same boat, then. When I was training to be a Knight there was never enough beds for us all. Then again, after twelve hours of punching, shouting, and getting punched and shouted at, most of us didn't much care. But I eventually just forwent the bed altogether. At least when you sleep on the ground you don't have somebody elbowing you in the eye."

Anna rolled on to her back. "I remember when I tried that," her voice trailed off. "It was the first night I was in the orphanage in Oxfield after my parents died. Hanged. They threw stones at their bodies." Anna ground her teeth loud enough for Stenn to overhear. He thought he was going to have to steer her off of the path of her spiraling mood. But, she stopped herself, closing her eyes for a moment. "The first night, I just slept on the floor, I couldn't bear to be near anybody then. I walked all the way to the far side of the room, away from everybody else. But then, I couldn't sleep. I just felt like walking more. So I walked right out the door and tried to run away. I don't even know where I ran to, come to think of it. Maybe I was looking for my brother, Aiden. I don't know. But eventually, I came to a field. It was huge. Huge and flat. That hollow with all the grass makes me think of it, actually.

"Well, the only thing that stood out was a tree. A big, old, gnarled tree. I decided to sleep there that night. I thought it would keep me safe, safe from the Ministry, from the keepers of the orphanage, from the stones and the ugly shits who threw them." Anna sighed, shaking her head. "That was stupid, of course. I chose to sleep under the most obvious landmark for miles. The search party found me before sunrise. I guess I should have been flattered that they came looking for me at all. But, for a while, it was just me, the tree, and all of the stars in the world." Anna reached out, as if he was trying to grasp at the stars she was remembering. "I thought that my brother was somewhere in the world, but I just didn't know where. But I knew, I knew, without any doubt that if I could just get up to the stars, I could see everything. I could see the whole world. There was no way I could miss him, then."

"That's very noble of you," Stenn commented. He wouldn't wish Anna's life on anybody, but if only all youth were so ingrained with purpose but still so alive with fantasy, the world would only be made brighter as a result. Eym's the same way, Stenn thought. Maybe not as cynical about it all, but that spark of wonder is there. Stenn nearly smiled. And don't think I've forgotten about show you those stars, Eym. I promised you and your mother, didn't I?

"Stupid, more like," Anna said. But even after they dragged me back to the orphanage, I was flailing and screaming like a fish yanked from water. I wanted those stars so badly, to stand on top of one and look down on everything. Like a god."

"Like a god," Stenn echoed. He wondered if Garamoush ever wanted such things, such impossible things. Or maybe He just wanted to live the life of a human for once. There was probably a certain charm in sleeping for less than a century as well as having people simply leave you alone as you slept rather than always rambling and praying to you.

Anna balled herself up again and rolled to face away from Stenn. "There, that's another little part of my story. I never told anybody else that before."

"Not your friends at the orphanage?"

Anna snorted. "There were no friends there. Still, I guess I regret having stolen from them."

"You stole from them?" Stenn asked. He felt a little bad having always suspected Anna of thievery, but it hardly did him any good to hear that he had been right all along.

"You think they just give out knives and leather boots to orphans?" Anna asked. "Oh well. I got a laugh out of doing it; they'll miss their stuff more than they'll miss me."

"You did what you had to," Stenn admitted.

"Mhmm," Anna said. "I tried to make friends, I really did. But I ended up with people I just hated less than others."

"Wow," Stenn said, chuckling, "you must really not hate me."

"I guess I don't," Anna said. Stenn didn't know if she was trying to hide a smile on purpose. Stenn contented himself, though, thinking that she was. Stenn yawned then sprawled out on the straw. "What about Garamoush?" Anna asked. "What if I ask Him to help me find my brother and He just tells me to... go home? Go back to the orphanage and forget I was ever here."

"The thing about gods," Stenn said, "as I understand them at least, is that they're supposed to be smarter than us. If He really is a god, I wager He wouldn't say something so stupid, something so human, to you."

Anna was silent for a moment then said, "What did you say your surname was?"

"Fenner."

"I didn't know Bartholomew Fenner had a son."

Stenn chuckled. "He doesn't. I'm just his son-in-law. I didn't even have a surname until I married his daughter. How do you know him?"

"He was... nice to us at the orphanage. I heard that he gave a lot of his money as charity to keep the place running." Anna's fingers started to idly twiddle and her feet started to flap about, apparently in discomfort. "So I'm glad that, out of all people in the world, I have a Fenner here with me, even if you're not one by birth. If old Bartholomew accepts you as a part of his family, that's still something."

Yes, Stenn thought, yes it certainly is. It was a day neither Tania nor I ever thought would come. The old man could hardly get enough of him now and he had taken to Eym like a flower takes to the sun. Honestly, the man seemed a mite less ancient and weary every time his family was near- all of his family. The promise Stenn made to his daughter ran through his mind again. It felt like a fresh wood being added to a smoldering fire.

"My daughter told me to do the Fenner family proud before I went to go search for you. I suppose I've satisfied those wishes of hers. She's about half your age, maybe a bit more, in case you're curious."

Anna just nodded. "Stenn?" she asked, still not turning to him.

"Hmm?"

"Can you tell me the legend of Cross-Eyed William?"

Anna looked at him then, her big brown eyes full of equal amounts of doubt and hope. He had seen those same eyes before. He saw the in Eym on His shore as she doubted even her own place in life and her destiny. But Stenn didn't think that Anna needed him like Eym did. Anna didn't need saving or guiding. She only needed a voice to encourage her and a friendly presence to stand behind her. He could be both those things, he thought.

"I thought you said you heard it already," he said.

"I have. I just... want to hear it again."

Stenn smiled again. Somehow, this felt different than the usual bedtime stories Stenn would give to little Eym. He knew his daughter listened to hear her father talk and to hear the stories he told. But Anna was different, different from so many others. When Stenn saw her he saw the soul of a heroine in a young woman's body. These stories weren't just stories to her. They were an inspiration. Hope to try, Stenn remembered her telling him. "Of course," he said, "I know it by heart, you know."

"Don't gloat, old man," Anna said.

Stenn began the recitation, starting at the boy's birth and the mule kick to the head that crossed his eyes. The story flowed easily from his mouth and he soon found himself simply making up the parts he couldn't remember or parts he didn't think were interesting enough. As he spoke, he didn't feel like he was deep in the shell of a god. He felt warm, content, in good company. For a moment, it felt gratifyingly close to normality.

Then, what seemed like only a moment later, Stenn's world became dark as he collapsed back onto his bed.

# Part 4

Stenn awoke with a shiver running down his spine. He thrashed about, almost violently so, trying to grab at the feeling as it crawled down his back. He found that his blankets had been tossed about. Through his blurry vision, Stenn caught sight of Marianne's ghostly form standing nearby.

"Lady Ennet," Stenn said, trying to quickly rise. His bones cracked and popped in complaint, so he was forced to go a bit slower.

"I must apologize," she said, eyes locking with Stenn's.

"You mean for last night?" Stenn asked. Then he trailed off and thought for a moment. "I think it was night, anyway. It's a bit hard to tell time in here." The grogginess of sleep hung heavily over him and his vision was still a bit blurred.

"Not for that," she said. "I do not regret how I acted. I would have done it a thousand more times if I given the chance. Your companion may have had a point somewhere amongst all of her youthful rhetoric, but my rage was my own. I am not ashamed of it."

Stenn began to stretch, pulling and tugging at all of the muscles that were rebelling against him. "Yes, she certainly has a habit for riding one's nerves, doesn't she?" Stenn stood up. He looked over at Anna's bed.

"I must apologize," Marianne said again, "that I could not tell you sooner."

The bed was empty and still in a messy state. The small pair of gauntlets and boots was missing. The least faded of the maps had vanished from the pile. Stenn couldn't catch his breath.

"Where is she?" he gasped.

"I don't know," Marianne said. "But I think both you and I know where she's going."

The Wellspring.

Before Stenn's thoughts could catch up with him, he was running all about the little building. He was already used to the space being cramped, so with Anna gone, the interior felt uncomfortably empty. He strapped his own gauntlets and boots on so quickly and tightly that it was making his limbs go numb. He readjusted the leather and belts with an unsteady hand.

"Calm yourself, Stenn," Marianne coolly insisted.

"I will be," Stenn panted. "After I find her."

"You're panicking. What do you think you'll accomplish like that?"

"It's making me move faster, isn't it?" Stenn offered. It's terrible reasoning, I know, he thought. But what else am I supposed to do? Stenn had imagined that one day he would be feeling the same clutching at his chest as part of his journey into fatherhood. He realized that, one day, Eym might get lost in some dark woods or in the streets of some foreign city. And yet, he never really thought he be prepared for the feeling. Looks like I wasn't wrong. He adjusted his boots and gauntlets one last time and splashed some water on his face. He finally stopped as he stood at the Sanctuary's exit, his chest still heaving.

"Imagine if you were to find her looking like that." Her pale form materialized in front of Stenn, her arms crossed and her head down.

"I don't think I'll have to worry much after that point."

Marianne only shook her head slowly. "Maybe being far from the living has given me a strange and distant perspective from what you know, but it is much easier now to see the mistakes made by people every minute of every day. Imagine if Anna saw you how you are now. You would look like a madman. She might even think that you were going to haul her back here in your rage."

"I gave her my word that I would see this through to the end."

"Words are often forgotten in the heat of the moment," Marianne said.

Stenn knew she had the right of it, if only a little bit. He tried to calm himself but didn't think it was doing much good. "Did you see Anna leave?" Stenn asked.

"I did not. I was... inconsolable for a time after speaking with you two. I had drifted out of the Sanctuary for some time in order to recompose myself." Stenn took notice of Marianne's voice for the first time. He was surprised that he somehow hadn't noticed it before. It sounded... sober. As if somebody had just woken up from a dream to find a cold, grey reality filling their waking world.

"What will you do now?" Stenn rested his hand on the round white stone door. His arm was practically thrumming with anticipation, despite his efforts to keep his energy in check.

"I do not know," Marianne said. "I do not think there is much more for me here. Perhaps I will drift through the world of the living dead for some time. Perhaps I will simply retire again and think on your belligerent companion's words."

Stenn sighed. "Marianne," he started. His thoughts seem to jam up against themselves. Secretly, Stenn had hoped that this time wouldn't come. It was hard enough to see Marianne as a member of the lingering dead, but for them to both have the composure and the time to say "goodbye," was something else completely. Stenn might have laughed if the situation was not so grim- laughed at his own childishness. A single word was defeating him when he had already overcome a zealous young woman and a world hell-bent on killing him. "Come with me," was all he could say.

"And do what?" she asked, drifting past Stenn. His spine crawled again in that all-too-familiar chilling way. "What place do I have at your side and on your adventures when I could be anywhere else in the world?"

Stenn swallowed. "Because you might have a chance to see him again." Marianne made a sharp turn, her hair cutting through the air like a sudden breeze through smoke. For a moment, Stenn thought he saw the reflection of Samuel Ennet in her eyes.

"I cannot," she said. "I should not. Perhaps it is better I do not know his ultimate fate. Maybe eons from now I can pass on to the other world without knowing. And then he may have been waiting there, in the world of the dead, all along. Eternity is a long time; our years apart will be but seconds in the end." She wasn't even looking at Stenn now and her voice was becoming softer and quicker. It was like she was trying to explain it to herself, not to Stenn.

"Then we shouldn't say our farewells right now," Stenn said, breathing a little more easily. "Just think," he added, his hand starting to push open the round rock slab of a door, "eons may not be much compared to eternity, but that won't make all those years pass any quicker."

Marianne nodded, her arms crossing more closely around her.

Stenn nodded back at her then passed through the door. He broke into a run before the slab shut behind him.

Another non-sun was casting its light. This one was much closer to Stenn than the previous ones and was notably dimmer. Stenn had seen this new hollow on the map; it was longer but shorter than the huge grassy sphere from earlier. However, there were surprising new details that were nearly tearing Stenn's attention away from his quest.

The fields and grasses had given way to full trees. They stretched to at least twice Stenn's height, but he could see trees three or four times his height peaking up above the tops of the others. Their trunks looked to be the same boney material that sprouted from Garamoush's orange bile. Even as Stenn rushed past them, he could see that their gnarled trunks were twisted like woven rope.

The vegetation was evidently growing taller and stronger the closer one got to the Wellspring. At least, Stenn assumed as much the old fables never spoke much about Garamoush's... vegetation, but it only made sense that the closer one was to the Wellspring, the healthier His inner world became.

Stenn stopped at a crossroads, panting heavily. The only way he could find the forest of strange trees even somewhat navigable was by the narrow paths of hard-packed dirt. The flesh and bone of Garamoush were curiously missing from this hollow. At least, bone in the most literal sense, Stenn thought. The bone trees, their bark, if it could still be called bark, was a strong shade of white and the branches somehow even sported leaves. Stenn had passed through them as he had run. They were deep blood-red and damp like they were always covered in morning dew. The branches that held them, though, despite their strange material, bent and snapped like any others.

"Of course," Stenn said to himself. He looked both ways at the crossroads, scanning the tree branches. Stenn had broken more than a few as he ran, Anna probably wouldn't have been much more graceful. At least, Stenn was hoping so. It was true that if he proceeded right for the Wellspring, he probably would have run into Anna eventually. But if something happened to her in-between where Stenn was standing and the door to the Wellspring, he would only know once it was too late.

Stenn wiped a bead of sweat out of his eye. He hadn't been running for too terribly long and as old as he was, he wasn't so out of shape that he would be panting and sweating like that so easily. This was different; this was the panting and sweating of fear.

Finally, after some searching and probing down both paths, Stenn started to follow a small trail of subtly broken branches and fallen leaves.

Stenn stopped, bending down to catch his breath. He was still wiping away the sweat from his eyes.

"Anna!" He called out.

Nothing came in response.

Stenn called out again. He was, again, met with nothing but silence.

"Excuse me," a voice came. "Are you lost? Or, somebody you know is lost? Anna, was it?"

The voice sounded familiar, but there was something... wrong about it. It sounded almost too familiar, like an overcompensating imitation of something Stenn knew perfectly. Stenn turned to face the voice. The foliage and the shadow it cast were still thick and heavy, but Stenn reasoned that whoever was speaking would stick out like a painting in a prison cell. He scanned the landscape of whites, reds, and blacks, until he realized that he didn't see anything out of the ordinary at all, or at least anything ordinary in the relative sense.

"Are you... are you unwell?" The voice asked.

That time Stenn was able to follow the sound perfectly. He thought he was looking at another tree trunk. But tree trunks don't blink and speak with human mouths, not even in Garamoush's shell. Stenn knew that the idea of seeing a face in a tree's bark was only supposed to be figurative- a little bit of fantasy. This face, however, obviously was very much real.

Lord Samuel Ennet's gaunt and pale face stared out at Stenn from a particularly thick snarl of branches and leaves. Stenn couldn't even see the rest of his body; he was just a floating head amongst a cloud of white branches and red leaves. Stenn didn't break eye contact, but he gently jabbed one of his gauntlet's sharp hooks into his side. He hid his wince well, but it wasn't from the pain. It was from the realization that he wasn't dreaming.

"You're supposed to be dead," Stenn said.

"Am I?" Samuel Ennet blinked then looked about, his bright green eyes dancing with life. "No, I don't think I am. At the very least, I am not now, nor do I have any plans of passing soon."

"But I- your-"What can I say? Stenn asked himself. Do I just tell him that I talked to the ghost of his dead wife or that the whole world has given him up for dead? Stenn never really prided himself on being a glowing conversationalist, but he still had at least some standards.

"But...?"

Stenn managed to suppress an "uh" and responded, "... You were gone for so long. We all assumed the worst." At least it wasn't a total lie, Stenn thought. It wasn't so much that Ennet was missing for over half a decade, it was that he was missing inside of Garamoush for over half a decade.

"Who are these 'we' and where can I give them a stern talking to?" Ennet laughed. It was a laugh so painfully familiar to Stenn that it felt like the face in the trees simply couldn't have been the real Samuel Ennet. It was some kind of trick of the mind or a clever trap. The airy and jittering breaths and the almost comically upturned mouth, it was all too close to be right. There was just something Stenn couldn't place that made his spine shiver. And shiver it did, often.

Ennet's laughter subsided. "But I digress, I'm surprised to see you here too, Stenn. I did mean to write to you, but, ah, the postal service here is somewhat lacking." The face smiled again. When Stenn last saw Ennet, he wasn't fully bald or anywhere near as pale. However, he let it slide; it was the least of his questions now. "We shall have to catch up on our adventures after we see to your own predicament. I will offer whatever assistance I can."

Stenn wanted to slap himself. This bizarre reunion had caused him to neglect the very reason he was there. With his dawdling, Anna's trail might have gone cold in that time. For all he knew, this face in the trees was only some kind of sick illusion in this new hell that Stenn had fallen into.

Of course that's what it is, thought Stenn, making his mind up, maybe I'm just projecting my worries. Or maybe he's just another ghost like Marianne. Not worth thinking about anymore right now.

"I would appreciate that," Stenn said, as quickly and coldly as possible. "Somebody very... dear to me is lost in here. A young lady. A strong and stubborn young lady."

"Is this the mysterious Anna you mentioned?"

Stenn nodded.

"Why, it would be an honor to help my dear old friend with his predicament!" Ennet proclaimed, showing the strength of his trained Declarer lungs and voice. "I shall call out to you should I find hide or hair of the young lass. I trust you will do the same for me?"

"Of course," Stenn said, his patience for this fake Samuel Ennet just about out. Stenn was confident he could still find Anna's trail if he moved quickly enough. If he started running as soon as the fake Ennet had left him, Stenn would almost certainly reach Anna before the Ennet doppelganger. That was going on the assumption that the face in the trees wasn't just some fever dream or illusion.

"Very well then. I shall search through these trees and in the eastern part of the shell while you examine the west side." The face bowed and then shuffled off into the trees. When it moved, though, it sounded... heavy, as if the face was carrying something wet and weighty, like sacks of mud, behind it.

Stenn shook his head and ran what he assumed was westward in this strange world, as quickly as he could. Luckily, Anna's trail of broken branches and fallen leaves hadn't been dispersed by the cold wind that quietly swirled about.

Stenn ran as quickly as his legs could carry him. His mind was blissfully quiet during that time, but one question snaked its way into his head. One that was even stronger than the question of the sudden appearance of the Samuel Ennet doppelganger. Why did she leave? Stenn remembered back to their examination of the maps. Was it in my look? Stenn wondered. Did she think I was going to drag her out of here, now that we know a way out?

"Didn't I say I would be standing with you to the end?" he asked the wind as it rushed past him, as if it was going to carry the question straight to Anna. She told him she was always trying to be stopped by "people like you." Stenn wondered what that really meant. Doubters? Bullies? Adults?

Stenn didn't know, but he wasn't going to stop now to solve the question. I'll just ask her myself, he decided. He kept following the trail, going faster now.

Stenn leapt over a shallow ravine that had been carved into the ground. Stenn had seen some smaller ravines earlier in the hollow, but now they were becoming more and more common. All of those cuts and shallow ravines in the ground he saw before had been empty, however. They didn't look like they had ever even held water or anything else that was comparable. The ground always looked like it had been torn away by some sort of force of decay. Now that he had a brief second to think about it, the ravines did not look too much unlike the decay Anna had pointed out that had struck some of the caves and the giant grassy sphere. In fact, they were almost uncomfortably similar.

Worse still, the ravine that Stenn was running towards was full of what looked like the uncomfortably familiar black sludge. But there was nothing for it, Stenn knew. He could almost certainly jump the gap if he ran at full speed...

Then the black sludge started to move.

Stenn barely stopped himself from falling headlong into the black mass. Only the metal spike at the feet of his boots saved him from the mass that wasn't just moving. It was rising. It was like an enormous worm was wrenching itself from the ground. The mass continued to pull itself from the ground until it stood over twice Stenn's height. It was a shadow given form, dark and impossible. A huge bleached and broken ribcage sprouted from its chest and protruding bits of boney spine jutting out of its back like stalagmites. The worm-like figure dripped and oozed sludge and Stenn almost gagged from the smell- an unholy mixture of a funeral pyre and a swamp.

"I haven't found your companion yet," said the monstrous worm. It has to a dream... I have to be dead. This... this can't... The mass turned. "But I shall not give up so easily, Stenn. You may be sure of that." The pale face at the top of the worm, itself surrounded with a cowl of squelching black flesh, smiled. Its smile, its voice, it was all Samuel Ennet. Even the way the horrific... thing rubbed together in nervousness its two bone scythes, which were undoubtedly its arms, was Lord Ennet through and through.

The sole breath of air that Stenn was able to breath was for Anna's sake. At least, Stenn thought, his eyes still running in panic all over Ennet's new body, if he's here. He's not with her.

The creature couldn't have been anything or anybody else but Ennet. The inflexions, speech, and face of his old friend were all there. Somehow, it made more sense in Stenn's mind that way. Something was telling him that Garamoush wouldn't tolerate some kind of shape-shifting demon living inside of His own shell, so Stenn was able to put that possibility out of his head. But then, why was He tolerating Ennet?

Maybe He isn't, Stenn speculated, thinking back to just how much Garamoush was Stirring of late. Perhaps it's not unlike how a dog rolls to get a flea off of its back.

If Stenn's mind had been telling him that something was wrong about Ennet from the beginning, which it was, then his body had taken a turn trying to tell him the same thing. His whole body practically convulsed with a shiver every time he looked at Ennet's towering worm body for more than a few seconds.

And I told this man about Anna... Stenn thought. He shuddered to imagine what would happen if he didn't find her first. So, he chose not to. He wouldn't let Ennet find Anna first. At least until Stenn found a solution to the whole unnerving situation.

"Do you know where your companion of yours was bound to? If it was even anywhere in particular."

Stenn bit his lip. It would set his mind at ease for a short while if he sent Ennet off on some wild goose chase to the far end of Garamoush's shell. But, if on the off chance he did find Anna first, Stenn would probably never even know it.

No, Stenn thought, it's better I keep an eye on him for now. I'll figure out how to explain it all to Anna later.

"The Wellspring," Stenn said.

"The Wellspring?"

Stenn turned. He had never heard Ennet sound so... offended. And yet, when Stenn was brave enough to look at his face, the old lord was smiling. At least, his mouth was. His eyes remained sharp and accusing, his small pupils focused like a wolf on a wounded fawn. "What bombast," he clamored, "what youthful vigor. We must applaud her and give her due and proper credit."

"Yes," Stenn said, distracted but already moving. "That." He was making good progress in believing the lie that he had started feeding himself. This worm... thing may be Ennet. It may not be. But what really matters is that it's not going to be a threat...

...For now. Stenn's metal-clad fingers clenched into a fist. He never thought he would have so few objections to remembering his days as a Knight, but he started running over several different, nearly-forgotten techniques from back in the day. Just in case it came to blows. This Ennet thing knew where Anna was now. I will not hesitate, if it comes to that.

Ennet was close behind Stenn, uncomfortably so. His hideous body looked like it was soaked in steaming tar the way it squelched and left trails of black sludge behind it.

The trail was becoming easier to follow now, perhaps because Stenn was intent on finding Anna above everything else in the world, perhaps because he simply wanted to look at anything else but Ennet. Still, he edged to ask, "Are all of those trails of..." Stenn paused, thinking that calling it "sludge" or "disgusting horse shit" might be considered insulting. He chose just to ignore the choice altogether. "Well, are they from you?"

"Yes," Ennet sighed, "An unintentional consequence of my new body. I admit, it pains me to see the beauty of His shell defiled so."

Stenn recalled how the sludge not only made the beautiful hideous, but it absolutely destroyed anything it touched. Even the ravines throughout the forest must have been carved by Ennet's residue. "I suppose you were also responsible for breaking the barricade outside of the Sanctuary?"

"The Ruins, you mean?"

Only Samuel Ennet could argue semantics when he has the body of an enormous black worm. "Yes," Stenn said. "The Ruins."

"You may place the blame on my companions for that," Ennet said, his bitterness clear to hear. "Their paranoid minds told them that His shell was a dangerous place." Ennet laughed. Stenn cringed. "So they felled the trees in the Ruins and the timber we had carried with us and sought to keep 'something terrible' out. Even my own lady wife was too worried to think clearly."

Stenn felt another cold shiver run across his spine. But this time it was uncalled for. There was simply a sudden need to shudder running up his body like his spine was coated with ice. It felt... familiar? This was not the first time it had happened either. When Stenn had first seen Ennet, there was a shivering that had gripped him that felt different than one of fear and revulsion. It just wasn't until now that he had realized it.

Stenn was about to respond, but Ennet continued, his tone becoming darker. "They doubted me. They doubted our cause. We were lucky; we only had a short distance to go to reach the Ruins. We passed right through this forest, in fact. I told them all that we had come for research, for knowledge, but they were always afraid. The more confident I became... the more afraid they became. It was as if they feared the progress I was making. I was turning the legends into reality. I read of the Banshees, studied the Worm, shouted to Garamoush while He spoke... and they doubted me."

Most probably wouldn't have picked up on the subtle changes in a man's voice when he sounds sleepy and unassuming by default, but Stenn had known Ennet for decades, so it wasn't hard to know that the old man was being serious. And serious he was, his tone flying about the various ranges of "subtle" from subtle vulnerability to subtle insanity.

"And what do you do now?" Stenn hadn't even begun to realize that he was walking again. The branching paths of the earlier forest had been combed away to host only a single, wide path. If Anna had come that way, there was no possibility Stenn could lose her trail. However, it was strange that the trees seemed to be losing the very thing that made them trees. As Stenn progressed, their bark became glass and their leaves were crystalline and almost blade-like. He took special care to duck under and around them.

"I wait," Ennet said, sullenly. "I came here with the express and sole purpose of studying humanity's great guardian god. But, try as I might, I was denied entrance to the Wellspring. Whether by words or by weapons the door would not open to me... You know the door of which I speak, yes?"

"The mountain in the Mountain?" Stenn said, recalling part of the old story.

Great Mountain of knowledge

Great god of the sleeping

Opens His door

To the truth that we seek

Parting mountains

Inside of His Mountain

Past there lays the Wellspring

From which His divine tongue

Finds its words...

Stenn always found it a bit unfitting to call Garamoush's shell the "Mountain," no matter how clear of a comparison it might be. Mountains usually stayed in one place. "Yes, I do. It's... a fickle door."

"To say the least," Ennet snarled. "Perhaps it was because my, indeed all of our, presences here are... frowned upon. Perhaps Garamoush knows us only as sinners and not as scholars. So, to answer your question, I wait. I wait for something to happen. Since this new body came to me, I have shed the obsession and greed I felt before. They have been... internalized." Stenn caught his and Ennet's reflection as he passed a crystalline tree. Ennet's new body seemed almost like solid darkness, utterly devouring the man Stenn once knew. "They have become a part of me."

Stenn couldn't help remembering some of the lines of one of the more famous poems from the long-dead poet Klaus Semleson. He was a noted pessimist and one of the Ministry's first to write about the nature of Garamoush. The Worm of Man, it was called, and Stenn felt as if he was living part of the poem.

...Beware the man with only greed

He who plants the seed

And tills for still greater

Misdeeds

A man becomes a worm

A worm becomes the Worm

Obsession darkens

Soon madness harkens

Beware you tempered men

When to lust, virtue falls...

Stenn stopped, but Ennet continued on as another rumbling ran about the hall. Stenn braced himself against the oncoming Stirring, but it didn't come. He sighed and caught up with Ennet, who didn't even stop for a moment.

"This isn't right," Stenn said- more to himself than to anybody else.

Ennet apparently decided to enter into Stenn's one-sided conversation anyway, however. "There are many things you could be saying that about, Stenn."

You say that as if it was some big secret. "Garamoush's Stirring, I mean. I admit, I've lost track of time since I came into His shell, but it couldn't have been a full day yet. He's Stirred five times today alone. Five. For a creature that sleeps for decades, that much movement is like if we all started doing summersaults in our sleep." Though, I use the word 'we' loosely in this company, Stenn thought, the image of Ennet's grotesque body slowly burning into his skull. "It's not right."

"Hmm," Ennet said. "I confess that I have come to ignore His mighty movements beneath my feet. Even when I still had feet, I paid them little mind. However, it is strange that you bring that up," Ennet started to move again, Stenn quickly pulled ahead of him. "You see, some of my companions said the very same thing. Garamoush was to Stir maybe thrice every few months, but the longer we stayed, the more he Stirred. Most curious indeed."

For a moment, Stenn thought he had caught another glimpse of Ennet being uncomfortably close to him yet again. Instead, the blackness that rested right above his shoulder stayed. It festered, even in its reflection.

An entire length of the crystalline forest had been carved away, as if acid had eaten through everything it was able to touch. Only the black sludge that was cementing itself unwelcomely into Stenn's head remained. He could smell it from where he stood. It smelt like Ennet, like death, but stronger and omnipotent in its reach. Stenn could feel his eyes starting to water.

"What is that?" Stenn asked.

"Ah, it is merely one of my favourite haunts. I concede, my renovations were a bit overdone, but such is the price for an ambitious and hungry mind. One cannot stop at 'good enough.'"

Stenn wished Ennet had, however.

The forest had given way to what would be aptly described as a festering swamp. Its thick and tar-like waters popped and oozed like pus from a wound. Even the remarkable trees- the trees whose bark was practically stone that was as strong as granite- looked blackened and sickness-ridden. The whole forest seemed to be carved into a cave in its own right. The ceiling was made higher, the floor made lower. It was like an enormous, craterous wound.

The revelation that came to Stenn was so quick and so obvious that he hated how dim he had been to have not seen it before.

But just to make sure...

"One of your favourite haunts?" Stenn asked, not taking his eyes off of the black, diseased abyss. "There are more?"

"Quite a few, in fact," Ennet said with sickening indifference. "I merely enjoy this one due to its proximity to the Wellspring. There are other, roomier ones, but a man must have priorities."

Stenn cringed, thankful that his expression was concealed. The fact that Ennet still considered himself a man when he looked, smelled, and moved like he did sickened him.

"And they were all made by you?"

"All made by me." There was almost a hint of sadness to the pride that filled his voice.

Stenn nodded. It was undeniable now. He couldn't begin to imagine how the Ministry was reacting to seeing Garamoush toss and turn like he was possessed with nightmares. No doubt they would be pouring over old legends, tales, and past Declarations in search of an answer they would never find. Instead, the answer would be obvious if they had taken their heads out of their own asses an hour or two.

"If you stabbed a man who was awake," Stenn imagined telling the worried and sleepless Declarers, coming unto them as a deliverer in ill-fitting clothes and possessing a very sour mood, "he would lash out. If you stabbed a man who was asleep, he would also lash out. Garamoush is neither on the verge of speaking nor Waking. He is dying. He is dying and He cannot reach the infected wound nor can He show it to us. You idiots." Stenn added the last bit for his own enjoyment, but he couldn't deny how hard it would be to refrain from saying that if he was given the chance. Even if given the word by Garamoush himself, Stenn doubted that the Ministry would go into His shell to remedy the problem. In a terminal case of irony, the Ministry would be so afraid of violating something sacred that they would let that sacred thing wither away and die.

Stenn shuddered and closed his eyes as he turned away from Garamoush's grotesque wound, a small pain in his head growing steadily larger. Eventually, Stenn found he was able to breathe again. Partially due to the swamp being moved far behind him, partially because the crystal trees had finally given way to open space for the first time in what felt like hours.

"The Wellspring," Ennet breathed.

Stenn didn't even feel surprise when he saw the Wellspring's hall. The feeling of knotting in his gut was closer to disgust. Garamoush's strength must have been strongest there, ridges of bone stood out in stark defiance of the steaming black sludge that Ennet was no doubt responsible for. As the old story said, the door indeed had more in common with the side of a mountain than any kind of actual door. It was a single slab of shined dark bone that set itself apart from the white bone that surrounded it.

"One almost wouldn't recognize it," Ennet continued, his voice full of wonder, "if it wasn't for the way it speaks to you." Stenn raised his eyebrow at Ennet and he took the point rather quickly. "Listen. Listen hard." Stenn found it a bit hard to focus on anything but the monster hovering over his shoulder, but he let his eyes close and his ears open.

The subtle sounds of a language Stenn couldn't understand crawled into his mind. It felt like the sound had moved past his ears and was burying itself into his subconscious. It made Stenn almost thrum with the deep, incomprehensible words. Maybe it was just a learned reaction at that point, but Stenn felt like he should be shivering, retching, or running for his life. Instead, for the first time since he had last seen Anna, Stenn felt at warm inside, even at ease.

"Be careful." Stenn was snapped back into reality as he shivered again. It wasn't the voices coming from the door, but instead it was the voice of a worried woman.

Stenn opened his eyes and threw his vision around the massive, cavernous room. The voice that spoke to him didn't seem to speak to Ennet. Stenn caught sight of Ennet's eyes a few times; they were just as full of confusion as Stenn's were.

"It's nothing," Stenn said. He quickly concocted a lie. "I just thought I heard His voice... it said something to me..." Stenn turned his back to Ennet, to hide the sweat gathering on his forehead and the biting of his lip. "Something in the human tongue." There had never been a recorded case where Garamoush spoke in the human tongue, elsewise the Declarers would probably be out of a job, and Ennet would certainly know it was a lie... Or at least he would if he hadn't shut himself away from the world for over half a decade.

"What?" Ennet said. The amount of venom in just Ennet's single word made Stenn's whole body brace itself, as if preparing for a blow. "What did He say?"

When Stenn turned to face Ennet, the pale old man was smiling. It wasn't even the kind of murderous smile with death on its teeth. It was a smile of genuine curiosity, something almost childlike. Stenn didn't want to apply any sort of expectations to a man-creature-thing like Ennet, but the way his mood changed like the weather wasn't something Stenn would have anticipated.

"That I was in good company," Stenn said, lying through his teeth.

Ennet kept sliming. "You see? He truly does know all, doesn't He? I don't suppose He mentioned anything about your missing companion, did He?"

"No, He did not."

In the silence, Stenn knew that sooner than he had hoped, this unholy worm creature by Stenn's side would be his enemy. Stenn knew far better than Ennet that Anna's unique brand of youthful stubbornness would never yield. She was not going to stop just because a worm monster stood in her way. She would, by some scheme from her dogged brain, try to find a way into the Wellspring. Stenn braved a look up at Ennet. His face, lost in thought, did not betray the deeper insanity that Stenn knew was waiting just below the surface. Ennet would never let Anna in to the Wellspring alive.

Ennet sighed. Stenn couldn't tell if it was in frustration or relief. Either way, he began to curl his inhuman body into what Stenn wagered was a comfortable position.

"Then we must wait, as before. If your companion is still coming, she will be here soon enough, I am sure."

Provided you haven't scared her away first, Stenn thought as he looked out at the twisting trail of black muck Ennet left behind him. But Anna had braved a cave whose very walls were cut away by the black sludge before and never batted an eye. No, Stenn knew that she wouldn't stop even if there were a whole horde of Ennets between her and the Wellspring. Not while she was so close.

So, Stenn sat. He dug the tips of his boots into the last bit of flesh and earth before the bridges of bone over the black mire began. He tried his damnedest to keep one eye on Ennet and one eye out to the crystalline trees, watching for his enemy and his friend, respectively.

He thought back to Marianne. Would she approve of Stenn trying to turn his Knightly skills against a Declarer? Would she approve of her old friend fighting against her beloved husband, even though the latter was hardly even recognizable now? Stenn could at least be at ease in knowing that she might never have to seriously consider those questions or even know that they were being considered in the first place. Marianne was likely far away from Stenn and Ennet. She might still be back in the Sanctuary, or she might have left Garamoush or even the mortal plane altogether. Either way, she wouldn't have to see what became of her husband.

Stenn knew there could have been another novel's worth of old stories and legends passing through his head at that moment. But for once, there was nothing. He watched the light shimmer and shift along the crystals as if it was immune to the anxiety of the living. His mind became sharp as the crystal edges that turned the light into blades. He pushed the questions that were inherent to the mind and to the mind in danger to distant corners. There was only the present and the mission it gave him.

No justifying, no Cross-Eyed William. No rationalizing, no Banshees. No understanding, no Worm of Man. Time was probably passing by Stenn, but he paid it no attention.

"He's looking at you."

Stenn's spine immediately started shivering. He kept himself from looking around. Denial had only gotten him so far, so he pulled it off like soaked clothing. He knew she wouldn't reveal herself now, with her husband-turned-monster so close. Marianne, Stenn thought, trying to hide his deepening frown, do you wish you stayed now? Is this living Samuel worse than a dead one? Only more silence and cold gave answers to his unspoken questions. She came for closure, no doubt, but Stenn wondered if she had thought it would have come in the shape of a sludge-coated worm sporting the pale face of a man who was all but dead to the world.

"Stenn," Ennet said, breaking the silence, but not Stenn's concentration. "If I may ask, what... what did it feel like to have Him speak to you so?"

Stenn didn't look up at Ennet as he spoke. "I'm sure you know. I've been talked at by Garamoush for years but you're actually able to understand him." Stenn didn't like having to keep up his lie. Not as a matter of principle, but if he made even one fault in logic, the whole castle of smoke would fly away with the wind. And the wind was still strong where Stenn sat and Ennet loomed.

"In that regard, I am no different than you, Stenn," Ennet said. "It is true that I can understand Garamoush in a language that most cannot, but we Declarers are not conversational partners, we are... eavesdroppers. We catch words that would be said regardless of whether or not we were there. What you experienced was different... nigh-impossible, even."

Stenn did not waver on the outside. At least, he didn't feel himself twitching or frowning. He couldn't be entirely sure if Ennet was catching on to his lie, so he acted quickly. "What does it matter? Garamoush's very existence was probably thought to be impossible before He first wandered ashore." He asked, hoping it would divert Ennet's fanatical obsession.

"It matters," Ennet started, taking the bait and getting lost in his own introspection, "because I have been studying in His shell for five years. I have poured over every tome and book that has been written about Garamoush. I have heard His words from within His own shell. They shook me to my very soul and for years I would fall to my knees and cry, cry with joy, cry with frustration, cry that I was so blessed to even have the chance to be so near Him. Yet He never spoke to me. He never knew I had only come to bless the world with more of His knowledge..." Ennet trailed off.

Stenn's heart and body jumped when Ennet's bony scythes stabbed into the ground. Stenn instinctually rolled out of the way, crouching low to the ground, expecting some kind of attack. Ennet, however, only stared off into the distance, his pale face turning a bright shade of red. The lord's eyes seemed even greener in that light. They shone brightly as they devoured all they saw.

"I knew I was lucky to be where I was. My companions were of the same mindset, I do not deny. But what is luck compared to control? Luck is something fate gives you on temperamental whims. Control is something a man can take with his own mind and hands. Where was the drive for grappling with fate amongst my so-called allies?" He turned to Stenn, his long black body squishing and releasing a new assault of the stench of decay. "Where did it go? Why they did they stop trying to learn His secrets? There was still so much more to learn from Him for the good of all humanity. If only we could be as Him, radiant with knowledge, we humans would not even be at the mercy of his whims. The whims of temperamental fate."

"Because they were comfortable," Stenn said. For once, he was confident in his answer. "Because they knew that they would be gambling if they took a step outside of their Sanctuary. They were afraid it would all turn into-"

"-Ruins."

"Exactly." Stenn sighed, his mind wandering back several years without his bidding. "When I was thinking of leaving the Ministry, I was just as afraid. From a lord's servant to a respected Knight, it was a good life all things considered. But I knew it wasn't right for me to stay. I was a Knight and that's all I was. I don't know if I hated what you call 'luck,' but I knew that I needed something more to my life. A little bit of, well, control."

"And here you are, in the shell of a god," Ennet said. He chuckled and, for the first time, Stenn did not feel revolted by it. It sounded almost exactly like the old lord he had respected so much. "How strange the journey of life is. It's only afterwards you get to see just what kind of ruins you've made out of your sanctuary. Or vice versa. And it's up to you to root out the ghosts that live in it. The work never ends, does it Stenn?"

Stenn's finger's clenched, his weathered muscles tightening around his old bones. His knuckles ached even thinking again of the Knight he was, of the ghosts he had been rooting out for years. But still they stayed. "It never does," Stenn agreed. Stenn wondered if Ennet could have known that his own ghost was hovering somewhere near he and Stenn. He wondered what he would say if the pale white shape of Marianne appeared right before him like an oncoming nightmare. Would you hate fate for taking her from you or would you think she was just another soul without the drive to gain control?

Still, Stenn had to smile, if only for a fleeting moment. Again, Anna was above them all. Stenn felt his ghosts running through his bones. Ennet was making ghosts of good people. But Anna, young and wild Anna, she had chased out the ghosts of her parents years ago. She was chasing something new. A child had moved past what old men still could not.

Stenn watched the crystalline trees with renewed intensity.

There was a shaking beneath Stenn's feet. But it felt different than a Stirring. It felt like the rumbling he had felt in the deep of the forest. Ennet, of course with his enormous body, felt it too. But, while Stenn was looking about the ground and bracing his body in case the worst should happen, he caught sight of where Ennet was looking. And he caught sight of how Ennet looked. Stenn had seen more life in the face of a corpse than Ennet's as he stared at the Wellspring door.

The door was opening, like the side of a mountain being split in two.

"Why... why her?" Ennet practically sounded on the verge of tears. "Why a child like her?"

In the flood of pale blue light that obscured everything within the great chamber, a silhouette strode out. Her long hair flowed freely and a familiar pair of maps was slung over her shoulder. Anna stood straight and strong as a pillar, looking every bit as mighty as the door she stood in front of.

Stenn bit his lip as he smiled, but the urge deep in his chest to shout out was almost unbearably strong. Damn her, Stenn thought, damn that rash, impatient... fantastic young woman. Stenn wondered if Anna's parents would be proud of her to see her now. Of course they would. I am.

Anna started to jump and fling her free arm into the air and point in Stenn's direction, her features still obscured by the light behind her. Stenn raised his hand in response, smiling more freely now.

"Anna-" he started. He ended with a cry.

Stenn knew there was strength in Ennet's bone "arms," but he never once imagined how quickly it could bring him low if it came to blows. He didn't have to imagine any longer. He held his gut and gasped for air.

And Ennet's voice, if it could even be called one, was unlike anything that Stenn had never heard and he suspected that nothing in the world could replicate just how it sounded. He could not even find words for it. It was the purest fusion of pain and rage. It rent the air, it drained color from skin, and it did not faze Anna at all.

Ennet reared into the air, but Stenn was back on his feet before he could make begin charging at Anna. The old lord barely grunted as Stenn drove his sharpened metal fingers into his flesh. Stenn's fingers sank deep into the spongy material like it was been sucked into mud. Stenn drove the metal tips of his feet into the ground and wrenched his arm backwards. The steel claws caught globs of black flesh and ripped it clear of Ennet's body. Ennet groaned but didn't look back at Stenn. His bone arms were still clawing forward as he tried to pull himself from Stenn's grasp.

Ennet began to growl and squirm, like a dog trying to shake off a flea as Stenn drove his claws into him again. This time, though, Stenn's grip was fleeting from the beginning- Ennet was starting to wrench free of his opponent's grasp and the monster was too restless for Stenn to get a second strong grasp. With a flick of the end of Ennet's body, Stenn was thrown away and sent rolling.

Stenn was up again just before Ennet could get out of his reach. This time he was standing, this time he was ready. He leapt onto the back of Ennet's worm-like form and delivered a punch to Ennet's exposed spine that would have been bone-shattering back in Stenn's youth.

Whether by the steel of the gauntlets or by sheer desperation, it could still shatter bone.

Ennet howled in fury. He spun and twisted in a way Stenn had not thought possible and he moved quickly to stay atop his enemy. He quickly and silently thanked the thick steel of the boots keeping Ennet's corrosive body away from Stenn's skin. Soon he was looking Ennet straight in the face. His jaw was clenched so tight his jawbones jutted like spears from the pale skin that was turning crimson in anger.

"Did you not expect your victim to fight back this time?" Stenn asked, falling into the stance of a Knight. It only took a confrontation by a demon bent on deicide to make it so, but Stenn finally felt right calling what he was about to do "Knightly."

Ennet probably tried to speak, but his rage wouldn't let him. Only spittle flew out where words should have been. His boney scythes soon followed. Stenn had braced for them, but the unnatural terrain betrayed him. The gauntlets absorbed most of the blow, but Stenn's feet slipped on the slime covering Ennet's body and he again was thrown clear.

Stenn skid to a halt and readied himself for the next attack when it came. And come it did.

The pair of scythes was whistling death as they flew past Stenn's head. Ennet's livid fury was fueling him beyond what Stenn had expected the old lord to be capable of. Clumsy though they were, the boney weapons rent the air and split the ground with each swing.

There were no opportunities to strike, no weaknesses or openings to take advantage of. There wasn't much strategy that Stenn could see in Ennet's attacks, but rage was pushing the old deranged lord onward and his assault was just enough to check Stenn's calm and measured style.

Time melted away in the battle as Stenn wove to avoid the madman's strikes. Bone scythes and steel armour occasionally met, but their interactions were fleeting, like a pair of spurned lovers.

Of all the things Stenn's mind could have been doing at that moment in time, wandering should have been the last thing. But, his eye still caught a spark of movement and he turned to see it. Anna was jumping up and down, apparently to get Stenn's attention. Once she had it, she pointed down at the ground, started to crouch and-

Then Stenn nearly howled in pain. Ennet's latest clumsy strike had impacted Stenn's gauntlet and the metal caved in, digging into his arm.

Stenn rolled to avoid the next swing but in that time took Anna's point. He dug his metal claws and boot spikes into the ground. And just in time- the ground began to lurch in that familiar, sickening way.

Braced for the all-too-well-known sensation of spinning, Stenn had to quickly, and with some scrambling, adjust for a Stirring unlike one he had ever experienced. The world did not roll right or left, it started to stand. Garamoush was starting to stand.

From where Stenn clung to the floor as it rapidly became the wall, he could see Ennet's bone arms flailing about in rage as his body started to bend backwards. The unnatural tar that oozed from his body seemed to be helping him cling to the bone bridge separating him and Anna, but he was quickly losing his grip.

Stenn cringed as he heard Ennet start up another round of screeching. This time, words started to find their way, sounding almost accidental, into his incoherent ramblings.

"You cannot taunt me like this, wise one!" He screamed, his weapon-like arms failing to gain a grip even as they clawed at the air and bone. "You can't kill me so easily, you liar!" Ennet's voice, tone, even his whole personality, seemed to change in the flux of his desperation. "Please forgive me, I only wish to learn from you!" Garamoush continued to rise and offered Ennet no such forgiveness. "If you will not be my god, then you will be a corpse!"

Stenn had heard the sound, the great concussive sound so many times it felt like a breath of normality amidst the hell that was His shell. Garamoush's voice was like a chorus of thunder, each new blast rippling across the tense air. Ennet stopped his pursuit, craning his neck to listen.

If there's any time to strike, Stenn affirmed, it would be now. He started throwing every last ounce of his strength into his climb.

"Listen, children," Ennet said, "and do not mistake my words." It was a common practice for a Declarer to orate to a scribe as He spoke. Ennet must never have been able to shake the old habit. "There is a sickness inside of me. It is a sickness that threatens to pull me away from you, my children. Two of your kin, by fate, fell into my shell and do battle with the sickness now as champions of righteousness."

With such clarity and precision to His words, Stenn had to wonder if Garamoush was even still asleep. Perhaps Garamoush's unconscious mind was merely acting on its own and telling the world what it had been keeping to itself for so long. He may be able to see the future, Stenn thought, but it doesn't take a god to know that His death would be the apocalypse in all but name.

Ennet started to shake as he orated. Stenn slowly grew closer. He was always keeping an eye at the bridge to see if Anna was cresting over the next boney ridge.

"The sickness within me is sin. The heroes that fight it carry no darkness in them. Do not mistake my words. Should I live until tomorrow, the efforts of the heroes were successful. By righteousness and strength, they have saved my life. Should I live until tomorrow, keep them well and remember their deeds."

Stenn knew how the last part went. Declarers always ended their Declarations in the same way.

So say I, in truth.

"So say I, in truth," Ennet echoed.

In the breath of silence that followed, Stenn looked skyward. He was expecting Anna to come catapulting into the fray soon- as she always did.

"A sickness? A sin?" The trembling in Ennet's voice was practically strong enough to rival Garamoush's. "Has He not known how I long for Him? For His voice and His knowledge?" Ennet's pathetic whimpering gave way to his other, wrathful side, "He may be a god, but I am still the Worm! I am a sickness made by His own doing. I am the sin inherent in his life! I am the Worm! In corpses I crawl!"

He knows his literature, Stenn soberly thought.

...Beware you tempered men

When to lust, virtue falls

For he is the Worm

In corpses he crawls.

Ennet turned quickly, quickly enough to make Stenn's body go rigid. The vicious, green eyes of the old lord bore into Stenn. "And I may make a corpse of you yet, Garamoush, but not yet. Not quite yet."

Ennet curled around like thick black smoke and shot towards Stenn, his scythes swinging and stabbing with every haggard breath he took.

Stenn's mind raced. His thoughts collided with each other. His head pounded. His palms were sweating. The knowledge of how to breathe escaped him.

Ennet's blade stopped. It stopped close enough for Stenn to smell the raw scent of Garamoush's flesh that lay caked on its wickedly sharp tip. The old, mad lord cackled and sputtered.

"Are you watching, Garamoush? Can you see your heroes? Can you see how heroically they cower?!" Ennet waited, craning his inhuman body and neck to listen. "What? No response? No proclamation?" The tip of the scythe hovered closer to Stenn's face. Ennet wasn't even paying attention to Stenn; he looked far more interested in yelling at a creature who was far above responding to his childish tantrums. "Well, if you care for these heroes as much as you seem to care about me, then they will not be missed!"

In one mighty and defiant shout, Ennet raised his scythe again at Stenn. Stenn knew that the angle was perfect. There was no way Ennet could miss plunging the scythe straight through his back. But he braced for the blow all the same. Even if it would only give him a few more moments to think of Tania, Eym, and Anna, he needed the peace of mind all the same.

"Look out, old man!" Anna shouted.

She was clinging to the floor-turned-wall by her gauntlets and boots like a spider. She pulled one arm free and drew her knife and its grey metal turned glorious silver in the light. Stenn wondered if there was anything as glorious, magical even as Anna- of her yelling, clinging, jumping.

Anna sped downward with a hoarse, high-pitched battle cry. She landed square on Ennet's shoulders and started stabbing near her feet. The great monster howled and screamed and his thrashing head just avoided getting skewered by Anna's vengeful knife. Although she missed Ennet's head, Anna's blade started making impact with the dark flesh around where Ennet's neck should have been.

Stenn sucked his breath in between his teeth. It was hard to see from his angle, but there must have been more of Ennet deep underneath all of that sludge, as the black slime was starting to mix with the red blood of a human. Ennet only swung about more violently, his scythe arms burying themselves into the wall at random, coming so close as to shear some of the hair off of Stenn's head.

Anna stabbed twice, maybe three more times down at Ennet, her strikes getting less accurate each time. With another wrathful cry, Ennet's thrashing flung Anna off of him. Stenn's body shook with fear and frustration as he saw Anna start to fall and he was stuck clinging to the wall, unable to move quickly enough to try to catch her.

Anna had avoided being thrown like a rag doll when Ennet shook her off. She was quick to put that bit of luck to use, raking one of her gauntlets across the floor-turned-wall until she slowed enough to hook her other gauntlet and then her boots into the wall. Despite her strength, Stenn could see she was exhausted, or at the very least shaken. Her arms and legs shook as she hung to the wall.

Ennet, meanwhile, had evidently decided to ignore his two opponents now that they were some distance away and in hardly any position, physically or otherwise, to launch another attack on him. He slinked up the wall, thick blood and black pus streaming out of his wounds as he went. He wound about like a man drunk, his pathetic whimpering and feeble shouting still managing to overcome the rumbling of Garamoush.

"Bloody hell," Anna shouted, maneuvering clumsily but quickly along the floor-turned-wall until she was near where Stenn was clinging, "why won't he die? What is he anyway?"

"Have you ever heard of the poem, The Worm of Man?"

"Not that again," Anna growled. Despite her shaking limbs, she started up after Ennet. "Shorthand it."

"Ambition does ugly things to a person," Stenn said, struggling to move his bigger, heavy limbs quick enough to keep up with Anna. "Ugly enough things to keep them alive when by all rights, they should be dead."

"That's Samuel Ennet?"

"What's left of him."

Anna looked down at Stenn for just a moment. Stenn could see the concern in her face, but her eyes were the same as they always were- sharp and wolf-like. They were the eyes of the young woman who had tried to slice Stenn's throat earlier- eyes with no mercy. "Well, I know he's your friend and all but I still wish he'd just curl up and die already."

Stenn had at last started to keep pace with Anna, but he knew that Ennet was quicker. "Friend?" Maybe it was the father coming out in Stenn, but he could not stop his mind replaying Anna's brave heroics over and over in his head. Except, they always ended with Ennet victorious and Anna dead. The rage only boiled up further in Stenn when he thought of his wife and daughter, alone on that plateau near the Granite Citadel. They would be left alone to sit up on it with no husband and no father to tell them about all of the beautiful stars. That's assuming that the world is even still anything like it is now if Ennet was able to kill Garamoush... Stenn swallowed hard. "They're going to have to make a new level of hell to send him to."

"I thought you said he helped you in the past. Helped you a lot."

"Bugger the past. We're dealing with him as he is now." Stenn could feel the clenching of his fists like he hadn't before. They were not cracking and popping with bad memories. They were not sore with regret. They were strong and so was he. He didn't need to be a Knight to protect what was important to him.

Stenn climbed quicker. Anna matched his pace perfectly. Ennet's wound was making him wheeze and flounder about like a drunken man. They were all nearing the bone bridge that ran straight to the Wellspring door. Stenn wasn't sure they could follow Ennet over the bridge as easily- his and Anna's gauntlets couldn't grip the smooth bone very well, so climbing up it after Ennet would be almost impossible... worse yet, despite Ennet's wound, he still moved quickly and he was nearing the Wellspring's door quicker than Stenn would have liked...

But Stenn had Anna at his side. Failure was nothing but a pessimistic fantasy now.

"If you're still here, Marianne..." Stenn started. A familiar, now almost comforting, chill ran up his spine. "Say your goodbyes now because we're not letting him get away.

The chill hit Stenn stronger now and then it passed. The chill didn't go far, though- it stopped in front of Ennet, forming into a pale woman with the saddest expression Stenn had ever seen. He had seen a lot of sad faces in his line of work. And yet, she stood with confidence. Immune to the petty laws of reality, Marianne stood on the wall with her feet firmly planted. Her straight back and strong shoulders made her seem every bit as tall as Ennet.

"You let yourself get fat," Marianne said.

"F-fat?" Ennet sputtered. He laughed. He laughed the laugh that had a bit of the real, human Ennet still in it somewhere. But, Ennet knew, Anna knew, Marianne knew, and soon the whole world would know that there wasn't enough of Samuel Ennet left in there to try to save. "I have... uh, transformed. This is the price, no, the gift of knowledge, my dear."

Marianne was unmoved.

"I never even got to see what you looked like," she said. "I only felt you as you broke into your new home and slaughtered all of your friends, all of your friends and your own wife. You felt like death."

Ennet's boney arms stabbed randomly about, like the limbs of a lost and frustrated dog. He was not moving on. He was not ignoring her. It was like he knew that this new challenger could not be struck down and absolutely could not be reasoned with.

"You say you're the Worm," Marianne said, reaching out to Ennet, slowly approaching him. "It's your own corpse you're crawling around in."

Ennet slunk away from his wife with a speed that made Stenn flinch. But Marianne continued. She sunk her hand into Ennet's dark and horrible body. The whole mass shook and quivered from spine to tail.

"That's what it was like," Marianne said. "That's what it was like to feel your transformation." Ennet almost doubled over. Stenn and Anna were both close to him now. There was fire in Anna's eyes. They would get it right this time. The chase would finally end. "Was it worth it?" Marianne asked.

Ennet rammed his boney arms into Garamoush's flesh. He bent down and howled, flailing about as if he was trying to reach the cold within his chest and his wound at his neck. "It was right..." he muttered. "It was what I deserved!" he shouted. Clawed gauntlets raised, Stenn and Anna were poised to strike. "This is what I deserved all along!"

The old lord managed another, "This... this... this..."

And then he fell.

He peeled away from Garamoush's body, his shuttering stopping with black and red blood still streaming out from his wound. It had coated Ennet enough to turn the whole front of his body the sick color of a man skinned. He fell long and he fell fast. His impossible shape broke itself on the wall of bone below. It landed with the sound of any human's body- a wet, snapping, terminal sound.

Stenn sighed, his exhausted arms no longer wanting to support his heavy body. He dug his gauntlets and boots deeper into Garamoush's flesh and simply hung there, his weary mind barely awake and alert. As he started to drift from consciousness, he could feel Garamoush start to lie back down onto His stomach. The world's righting itself, Stenn thought. And in more ways than one.

Stenn knew dozens of prayers by heart, but his clouded mind couldn't find the words for them. So, he made up his own new ones. He prayed for those that died in the Sanctuary, Marianne included, for Anna's parents and for her brother, for the wife and daughter that Stenn's heart ached for, and for the old lord who had once been his friend. He offered no prayers for the creature his friend had become. After that, Stenn felt the world stop moving altogether and he let himself relax until he collapsed into sleep.

Out of all things, it was Anna's light footsteps that roused Stenn from his sleep. Consciousness came back to him slowly and a pounding headache slowed his thoughts. Exhausted though he was, Stenn was happy that he hadn't bashed his head like the first time he fell unconscious inside of Garamoush. It's a nice change of pace, Stenn noted. From where he lay, Stenn could see that he hadn't moved since the fighting ended. The soft blue glow of the Wellspring's door still emanated from the far side of the room and the forest of crystal trees was visible in the distance. Anna bounced on her heels, stretched out her legs, and, once her patience had evidently run out, began to prod Stenn with the heel of her boots.

"Up and at 'em, Stenn. You're not dead, are you?" Stenn knew Anna was asking it in jest, but there was real concern in her voice. With that, Stenn decided it would be a good time to rise.

Stenn cracked and popped his back as he stood and even managed a tired smile. "Dead?" Stenn said, "I survived you didn't it? And what's a demon compared to that?" Stenn put his hand on Anna's slim shoulder. "Good job, by the way."

Anna smiled and nodded. "You were decent as well, old man."

It feels good to have stable ground underneath me again, Stenn thought. "Is He still asleep?" Stenn asked.

Anna shrugged. "No idea. I figure that when He does finally Wake, the first thing He'll want to do is take a walk to stretch His legs. It's what I would do."

"Maybe He's waiting for us to leave first," Stenn suggested.

Out of the corner of his eye, Stenn caught sight of what looked like a shifting white cloud and he felt a familiar shiver run through his body at the same time.

"Speaking of leaving..." Anna said.

Marianne's pale form swirled and shifted in front of them both. She extended her hand and he and Anna tried to take it. Marianne smiled her sad smile, content in just imagining what a friendly touch would feel like.

"I would like to thank you," she said. "But that would not be nearly enough. But... I am glad. I am glad for the first time in all the many years I have been lost. So... there are no other words for it, I'm afraid. Thank you." Her form started to shift and change again, like dust being blown away by the wind.

"I have only one request of you both, however. If I may be so selfish as to make it."

Stenn and Anna both nodded.

"Do not let the world forget. Do not let it forget what kind of a Worm a man can become. There only needs to be one sad story such as this."

There were no words between them, but Stenn knew he and Anna agreed.

"Should I finally say 'goodbye' now?" Stenn asked.

"So long as you keep the memory of what I said alive," Marianne said, "I'll never truly leave." Marianne smiled again. "What a time to rediscover my fondness for theatrics. Of course you may say 'goodbye,' Stenn."

Stenn smiled back and shook his head. "I'll just say 'hello,' then. I'll say 'hello' every time I remember you and what you've said."

"That will do, Stenn," Marianne said, her sad smile having a bit of warmth in it for once. She turned to Anna. The two women seemed to lock eyes for a moment. Then they both nodded at each other as they smiled.

Marianne gave Stenn one more look, and then vanished. The coldness of her presence left the room and the sound of a sigh rang in Stenn's ears. Stenn extended that improvised prayer again to Marianne and made a vow in his mind. A vow to never let her words scatter into the wind.

For a moment, they were both silent, then Stenn looked at Anna and said, "Feels weird seeing the world at an even keel again." He cracked his back and smiled wearily.

Anna returned the smile, combing some of the hair out of her eyes. Hers looked half-dead from exhaustion. But still, she was carrying one. "I like it," she said. "I'm kind of growing fond of this feeling of weird."

"The world out there's going to be some kind of boring then, I'm afraid," Stenn said with a chuckle. Stenn looked at the Wellspring door. There were no voices coming from it and there was no blue light from within. Ennet's sludge had all but drained away as Garamoush was standing and Stenn could almost see parts of His flesh and bone beginning to poke defiantly out of the remnants of the gunk. Stenn started to remove his gauntlets and boots.

"I don't think He'll be Stirring again while we're still here," Stenn said.

"Ennet said we're His heroes, after all," Anna said with another smile. She removed her own armor. "I think He's taking a fancy to us."

"He certainly has to you," Stenn said.

"You mean the Wellspring?" Anna said. She hesitated. "I don't know if He'll like this, but... do you want to know what He said?"

"You mean He actually spoke to you?" Stenn asked. "As in, with words? How did you understand him?"

Anna's eyes started to drift, as if her gaze was following something beautiful. "No, there were no words. Just... thoughts. And images, I suppose. If you could even call them that. It wasn't like anything I've ever felt. It just... was." Anna looked back at Stenn, her earlier question still written on her face.

Stenn shook his head. "It's not for me to know. Besides, it's a bit early to be jeopardizing the new good relations you have with a god, don't you think?" Stenn put his hand on Anna's shoulder. He wasn't entirely sure why he did it, it just felt like the right thing to do. She didn't try to move away, nor did she glow with pride. If anything, she stood taller, as if meeting an equal. "And what does it matter if you got what you came here for? He did tell you what you needed, didn't He?"

Anna nodded, but Stenn saw it in her eyes before then. There was nothing like that life and that energy deep within her that he had even seen before. Anna pointed to her head, "All in here. He made sure I could never forget it."

"And why would you want to?" Stenn asked. "You're going to send me a letter sometime, right? I'll be damned if I fought through hell and never meet the man that brought you down here in the first place."

"We'll see," Anna said with a cheeky smile, "your personality is a little... what's the word?"

Stenn smirked. "Abrasive."

"I was going to say something like noble, but if that's not your cup of tea..."

The two of them laughed.

"Why did you leave?" Stenn asked as delicately as he could. "Why didn't you wait for me? I told you we were in this whole mess together."

"I know you did," Anna said. She was chewing on in the inside of her lip, but her eyes didn't break contact with Stenn's. "When I had left the Ruins... or, Sanctuary, whatever you want to call it, it was already too late to turn back. I knew you wanted to help, but I couldn't help think that you never wanted to be here. I thought you had somewhere else you would rather be."

"Is this because of the map?"

"The map?" Anna raised her eyebrow. "Maybe that's part of it." She looked down at her feet. "I know you've got a family, a wife and daughter. What I am compared to them? I didn't think you'd be able to stay if your freedom was so close."

Stenn only shook his head and smiled. "Did you get hit on the head during all the excitement? You're the single most important thing to me in this whole damn shell. Garamoush Himself hardly compares."

Anna smiled too, picking her head back up.

"Besides," Stenn said. "It all worked out for the best, didn't it? I mean, you got to speak to a god. Personally."

"It was... pretty fantastic," Anna said.

"That's it? Just 'pretty fantastic?' People have written entire ballads about what they think the experience is like. Two words hardly do it justice."

"Well, you know by now that I'm not one for all those fables and legends," Anna said. "But that's really all it was. It was... indescribable. I heard His voice at the door and He let me in. Just like that. I asked Him my question. He responded. It was... simple."

"He let you in. He chose you," Stenn said, chuckling, "Maybe it wasn't just a theory after all. Maybe He just knew that about us already. If anybody knew what had been happening the whole time we've been in here, it's Him. He wanted this to happen."

"No," Anna said, straightening her back. She looked taller now somehow. Stronger, too.

"We made this happen ourselves. Garamoush just knows a really good way to say 'thank you.'"

Despite it all, Stenn still found his eye drifting to the festering black pits of decay that Ennet had created. "Did He say if He'll recover from all this?"

Anna smiled and crouched down to the ground. She put her hand out onto the earth and flesh beneath her. "He didn't say anything about that, but He's a god, right? Isn't that what you've been telling me all this time? I think He's got the strength to pull through."

Stenn nodded. "If we had the strength to pull through, He does too."

"Exactly," Anna said, looking up at Stenn. In all his old, confusing years, Stenn had never seen the picture of relief painted so clearly on a person's face. Anna's eyes shined and even her face, still spattered with bits of blood and flesh, was as glowed with an inner fire that would cow an ox. Stenn only hoped that he could look just as fulfilled, because he was certainly feeling that way.

"I notice you're missing the maps," Stenn pointed out.

As if noticing for the first time, Anna looked about but just shrugged half-heartedly. "It's no problem for you," she said. "I know you practically memorized them both when we were working on them. Honestly Stenn, I can't be expected to do everything."

Stenn shook his head and smiled. "No, of course not, how silly of me." Stenn's dry throat hurt when he chuckled but he hardly paid it any mind. "But imagine the load of horseshit we'd be in if you were wrong. What if I just happened to forget everything on those maps?"

"Well, you didn't," Anna said. "Now draw that damn map already. I've got a brother to find."

Stenn smiled and squatted down, his bones silent and smooth for once and quickly traced out the map of Garamoush's shell into the dirt. It ran smoothly out from his memory into reality. He indicated the closest path out. It seemed almost dream-like to not just be looking at the path to return to normality, but to be talking it out and standing up, seeing just how small it looked when one stood up straight and confident. It was stranger still to be walking down the paths with a companion whose importance could overshadow any legend or story ever written.

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