The water is pure. Untainted. You drink deep, then send the pail back down for more.

  Food. Water. A way to carry your supplies. You slide to a sit with your back against the well as Wotri joins you. You offer him a drink from the pail, which he gladly accepts.

  “What now are your plans?” he asks when finished. The pail is small compared to the size of his mouth, and much of the water is left to drip from his dark nose. He licks it with his tongue.

  “I suppose Crynn would be our next destination,” you say.

  “Is it?”

  There’s something about his tone you don’t quite understand. You let it drop. There’s enough on your mind.

  “I have to stay the night, though,” you say. “Just one night, that’s all.”

  Wotri stares at you with his star-filled eyes. “And why is that?”

  You want to say it’s to rest. You want to say it’s so you can recover from what you saw in the cabin. The truth, though, will suffice.

  “Because I have my duty as a Soulkeeper.”

  *

  It is a gruesome task, but thankfully Wotri is willing to help. Road by road, and home by home, you find the bodies the wolf king has slain. Without cart or stretcher, you rely on your gloved hands to drag the bodies mutilated by tooth and ruined by black water to an enormous pile in the center of Westwall.

  Not all need dragged. Some are small enough to be carried.

  Though you don’t count an exact number, you suspect nearly three hundred bodies are in that enormous pile by the time night falls. Wotri helped with over half, lifting bodies between his teeth far more gingerly than he assaulted them that morning. You wish you had more time, and far more helping hands, but this will have to do.

  A glance at the sky. You have two hours. Best get to work.

  You go from body to body, all of whom lay on their backs. You will not use snow, nor blood, nor cut the symbol with a knife. Instead, you use a thick tar-like substance from the smith shop you’ve half-filled the pail with. A quick dip, and it coats your fingers. One by one, you draw the downward pointing triangle of the Three Sisters, along with the circle at the bottom.

  Each and every one of these bodies possesses a soul, and you will not leave them unattended in ruined bodies. They deserve to be lifted in Anwyn’s hands, and you will do your best to grant them that gift.

  Body after body, triangle after triangle. The tar grows thicker on your thumb, the symbol more rushed and ugly as you press along. It has to be done before the reaping hour. The thought of staying another day here is too much for you to bear. You have kept sane through constant movement. To lose that among a village of the dead? Surely you could not endure.

  No. Cowardly thoughts. You have your work, your responsibility, and you will do it no matter how long it takes. Let the world end. Your faith will remain strong.

  Wotri lays nearby and quietly watches. There is not much else he can do.

  At last you are done. You stand and stretch your back, groaning as it creaks and your muscles spasm. So much bending over. So much squinting in the fading light of the setting sun.

  “Do you seek to honor your dead?” Wotri asks as you trudge to join him.

  “Honor them, and usher their souls to the stars,” you say.

  “How so?”

  You frown at the wolf.

  “Through the reaping ritual. Do you not remember it?” When he shakes his head, you decide to explain. “When the reaping hour comes, I will preside over the dead, and offer my prayers to the Sisters. Through the ritual, and the drawn marks upon their foreheads, I will empower Anwyn to take the souls of the departed into her hands, to carry up to the stars, and then across the void to join them in their paradise.”

  “And if you do not perform this ritual?”

  “Then often the soul remains, to await the final call at the end of the world.”

  Wotri turns his attention to the enormous gathering of dead bodies, lined up in columns and rows in the center of town.

  “That the Sisters would have need of you to perform their allotted task?” he says. “What fate befell the Cradle, I wonder, to harm them so? Or perhaps it was our own imprisonment that burdened them.”

  You don’t like the presumption that the reaping ritual should not be necessary, given that the history of it predates even the earliest writings available to the Keeping Church. Neither can you deny the obvious fact that its need has grown tenfold just over the past years, though. You cannot discount the possibility there was a point where the reaping ritual went from being a ritual act of grief and honor, to something required by the Sisters to aid them in the harvesting of a soul.

  “Have you ever performed a ritual for so many?” Wotri asks, pulling you from your thoughts. You look upon this field of the dead and shake your head.

  “Never before,” you say. “And I pray, never again.”

  You feel the whisper-touch of otherworldliness brush across your neck. The air grows still. The stars seem to shine that much brighter. It is time. The reaping hour has come. You clutch the pendant of Anwyn underneath your shirt and take a deep breath.

  “By Alma, we are…”

  Light blasts your eyes, interrupting you. The symbol of the Sisters flares like blue flame, burning across the tar you used. It shines from each and every forehead, and with so many, it is nearly blinding. You hear a strange noise in your mind, like the ringing of a bell, yet its sound comes from everywhere and nowhere. Wind blows across you, sudden and cold from the west.

  First a few, then dozens, and then hundreds of thin blue pillars shine across the foreheads. The sparkling, burning white star that is their souls lift from their bodies, cleanly separating. The sight leaves you breathless. So many. There’s so many. Memories. Emotions. Entire lives, shimmering in a spiritual, physical manifestation the Scholars and Mindkeepers still debate to this day.

  And then they rise to the heavens, slow at first, then faster, faster, falling stars in reverse order to join the dark canopy above the world.

  Your fear fades away, and you walk toward them, your arms wide and your head tilted skyward. You watch the great burst of lights, and you bathe in the wonder washing over you. Never before have you felt Anwyn’s presence so keenly. There is sorrow in the death, and yet glory in the miracle awaiting the end of one life and the beginning of another.

  The black water may have turned the world foul, but your goddesses remain with you, ever watchful, ever waiting the end of your days. In this, there is comfort, as you watch the parade of souls leap to the stars.

  The reaping hour ends. In their absence, the town is dark and quiet. You shiver, overwhelmed by a sudden, gripping dread and loneliness upon your heart.

  “What now?” Wotri asks, and you cannot express how glad you are to hear his voice.

  “Now, we burn them.”

  13

  You spend much of the next day going home by home, inspecting for anything useful to be added to your rucksack. You find a few more sealed jars, these of rhubarb, to give yourself a bit of variety. Sadly you find no flamestones, but you do add another knife to your collection, along with some rope, eating utensils, and most exciting, a bedroll for you to actually lay on when night comes.

  “No more sleeping on my coat with a rock for a pillow,” you tell Wotri upon finding it. He only snorts and continues his own search for things that might benefit you.

  Come the afternoon, the two of you stand on the road east of the village. Your pack is heavy on your back, and you adjust its weight in preparation for travel to the much larger town of Crynn.

  “Are you ready?” you ask.

  “Forgive me, Robin, but I have held my tongue too long,” he says in answer.

  You arc an eyebrow his direction. “How so?”

  The wolf king stares west. “I will not be going with you any farther.”

  His words are a dagger between your ribs. A dozen responses flit through your mind.

  “Is that so?” you say, pretending not to be as upset as you are.

  “Take this as no insult, Soulkeeper,” he says. “But the mountains we have crossed mark the limits of what was once my domain. I will go no farther. I have a responsibility to reclaim what was mine, and scour the extent of its breadth to reform my kingdom.”

  So far as you know, Alma’s Crown marks the farthest extent that West Orismund has settled. Everything beyond was supposed to be wild and untamed, and perhaps that was exactly what Wotri hoped to find upon his arrival. Assuming, of course, the black water had not washed it all away and turned his subjects into monsters.

  “Travel will certainly be less safe without you,” you say, if only to fill the sudden, awkward silence.

  “Hence why I kept with you so far as Westwall,” he says. “But you have food, supplies, and a destination. And for what it is worth, know that in my heart I believe Viciss’s destruction will not have traveled much farther. You will find safety soon. You need only keep the strength to find it.”

  You swallow down a stone that has suddenly lodged in your throat. Your first meeting with Wotri was certainly not the most pleasant, but much about the world has changed since then, as has his form. And whatever dismissive attitude he might have first shown has since softened.

  “I will miss you,” you say. Anything else would be dishonest.

  Wotri turns toward you, and his eyes close as he leans his forehead toward you. His fur presses to your chest, and you lean your own head against his, taking in the softness.

  “Perhaps this will be our final meeting,” the wolf king says. “Perhaps our paths shall cross again. I pray they do. Though our time together was short, I found you amusing, Soulkeeper, and better company than I expected.”

  “And I found you so much more proud and arrogant than I thought possible in a wolf.”

  You make sure to grin wide when he pulls back, ensuring he knows you only jest.

  “And yet you were exactly as stubborn and annoying as I expected of a human,” he says. Before you can react, he licks you, his enormous tongue coating your face and hair with his saliva. You groan and wipe your eyes with your coat sleeve.

  “Farewell, Soulkeeper Robin,” he says. “May the moon ever shine upon you, and light your path.”

  And with that, he trots northward, to where, you cannot say. Perhaps he will find his subjects in the forests of Murkmud, if they were spared the wrath of the black water. You only know that your path to Crynn awaits you, and that you will travel it alone.

  Alone.

  “Chin up, Robin,” you tell yourself as you take that first step. “You traveled this whole way to Elkwerth, and you can make it back to Londheim the same.”

  At least the road has two clearly marked ruts from wagon wheels, sparing yourself the wrath of the corrupted grass. You walk within them, one foot after the other, and tell yourself you will be fine. You need no other companion. You need no protection of the wolf king.

  You aren’t sure if they’re lies, but they feel like lies as the miles steadily pass, and you leave the mountains of Alma’s Crown behind and enter the gently rolling plains on your journey southeast.

  *

  The days pass uneventful. Your nights are cold but quiet. At no point do you encounter other travelers, nor find sign of them. You tell yourself that is a good sign, that people might have survived and immediately headed east for safety. You tell yourself Crynn would be the obvious bastion for everyone in the far northwest corner of West Orismund, the place all would go who could not safely reach the capital in Londheim. If anywhere survived, it would be there.

  So it is with painful trepidation that you stand before the field between you and the walls of the city.

  “What happened here?” you wonder aloud.

  The space between you, a good quarter mile of distance, is entirely ash. Fire has consumed it fully, of such strength and fury only blackened dirt remains for hundreds of yards in either direction of the city entrance. Strangely enough, it seems to have focused solely on the grass, and left the buildings untouched.

  Somehow it caught fire, you think, and remember the ease in which a rotted branch had caught flame when you used it for firewood. If a branch burned so easily, then how might a swaying field of grass?

  The proof is before you. Not a hint of the grass remains, but that is not what inspires your horror. No, what does is the bodies you find amidst the grass.

  They number in the hundreds. They are nothing but skeletons, their flesh burnt to ash, their blood, charred away. They lay in various poses, aimlessly scattered throughout the grass. Some were crouched, others collapsed onto their backs, and still others clearly died on their hands and knees.

  You walk through the desolation, your head on a swivel. None move. None live.

  Why were you here? you wonder. What would possess so many to wander just outside the gates of the city? Why wouldn’t they take safety within its walls?

  You pause just outside the city. Your fear has grown with each passing step. Perhaps these people lingered outside because they were twisted and changed by the black water, as the people of Elkwerth and Westwall were? Or maybe they had fled, because whatever was now inside the city was worse?

  You stare through the front gates off the city’s outer wall. Within is a similar sight as Westwall, just on a larger scale. Homes are collapsed onto their sides due to rotted supports and walls no longer able to support the weight of their roofs. Their sides are blackened and warped, and even from here, you smell the now familiar moldy scent.

  Nothing good awaits you within, you tell yourself. For a long time, you stand there, looking, but you see nothing. No people. No signs of life. You hear no rattle of wheels, no shouts, no hint that this once bustling hub of travel connected all of the frontier lands of West Orismund contains a single survivor.

  You want to stay. You want to search. But your food is limited, and you feel you will find nothing but corpses inside…if not worse.

  “To Londheim,” you mutter to yourself, and skirt wide around the city. From there, you’ll have to travel dozens of miles east, but at least the road, once you reach it, is large and well-maintained. You walk with your head low and your heart lower. When you reach the road, it takes you a long moment before you glance aside and realize something is amiss.

  The decayed grass has burst and dissipated for several feet on either side of the road. Footprints, dozens upon dozens, mark the dirt. You see wheel ruts, too, from wagons or carts. The sight sets your insides to trembling. You’d almost given up hope, but there is no denying the evidence before your eyes.

  Survivors.

  You follow after them, now with a clear goal in mind. You’ll catch up with them. You’ll end your solitude. Among other people, you’ll be able to discuss the insanity of the changed world. You’ll grieve together the lost and the dead, and shudder in mutual horror at the newly come dangers.

  A spring enters your step. The hour is late, but you find yourself jogging more than walking. Perhaps they’re only a few miles ahead of you. Perhaps you might even catch up to them.

  So focused are you on your haste you don’t notice the change at first. In many ways, it is everything you would expect before you, only the realization doesn’t hit immediately. You crest a hill, and splayed out before you is a sprawling valley. Near the center is a small pond, its waters sparkling with the light of the stars glinting into view as the sun sets. A few trees sway in the gentle evening wind, forming a circular copse around a third of the pond. Their leaves are lit a faint blue by the shine of the moon.

  Green. Blue.

  Not gray.

  “The black water,” you whisper, and turn about. “It ended.”

  Not a hundred yards behind you, the grass is still blackened and rotted, but with a sudden, unexplainable limit, its passage simply ends. Nothing beyond suffers its touch. The grass is a faded greenish yellow from the approaching winter. The trees are healthy and strong. When you inhale the wind, it carries no scent of rot.

  Your legs go weak. You collapse to your knees, and a thousand prayers to the Sisters rattle unspoken through your mind. Exhaustion and relief war within you, so you want to laugh as much as cry.

  “It ended,” you whisper again. Saying so seems to make it more real, more believable. “It ended. The black water ended.”

  The world lives on. The lands of the east, Londheim and beyond, the Oakblack Woods, Steeth, Oris, the Kept Lands…they were spared, surely they were spared.

  You stagger to your feet, and you remember once more the caravan of survivors up ahead. If you hurry, you can catch up to them, for surely you are much faster than any mixed group of survivors. You walk, then jog, then run.

  The world is suddenly alive, the stars unusually bright, and the thought of sleep, a million miles away.

  14

  Despite the tribulations of the past few days, your exhaustion, and dwindling supplies, you jog far more than you walk. A singular need drives you, and that is to catch up to whoever these survivors are. You’re tired of being alone, and Wotri’s absence hangs heavy over you the first night you unroll your bedroll and camp in the center of the road toward Londheim.

  You set no fire for fear of alerting whatever might be out there in this new world. Just your bedroll, and your coat. Sleep comes, slow to arrive despite your exhaustion, for with every rustle of wind you imagine wolves prowling with spider-legs curling out from their spines.

  It is on the second day you see them in the distance. Hundreds of people, together forming a caravan of survivors. Your elation knows no bounds. The horrors of Crynn feel like a lifetime away. Your jog becomes a sprint, and you cross the remaining valley in less than an hour to finally reach the tail end of the caravan.

  A family of five riding in a wagon pulled by a donkey are the first to greet you.

  “Did we leave you behind?” an older woman among the family asks, grinning wide. You grin right back. You haven’t felt this happy in months.

  “Just a little,” you say. “Had to run a bit to catch up is all.”