the swamp about midday, solid ground abruptly giving way to algae-covered stagnant water. A pall of fog hung over the water, stretching out under the branches of sparsely spaced, ancient cypress trees, their trunks flaring just before they reached the water, looking like a hundred roots clustered together, all wrapped tightly with a single outer skin of bark.
Hector found a branch and reached out into the water, searching for solid ground under the thick, bright green algae.
“It’s only about two feet deep.”
“Right here at the edge,” Horace said. “There’s no telling how deep it gets farther in.”
“Or what’s in the water,” Ayela said. “It’s said that the black waters of the gloaming swamp are deadly.”
“We’d better get to work,” Isabel said.
It took the better part of the afternoon to build a small raft capable of supporting their weight. They found three relatively large limbs that had broken from nearby trees and used them for the base, lashing smaller branches in the eight-foot span between them, forming a platform. It wasn’t pretty and it was far too heavy to carry over much distance, but it floated even with the four of them aboard.
When it came time to push off, Shadowfang simply sat down at the edge of the water. Isabel smiled at her friend. She knew she could force him with her magic, but she also knew that it would take greater effort to control him and he would be far less useful within the confines of the swamp than he was in the jungle.
“Goodbye, Shadowfang,” she said, releasing him from her will as they shoved off into the murkiness. He roared once and disappeared into the jungle.
Hector and Horace used stout poles to propel the unwieldy raft through the water, leaving a trail of disturbed algae on the surface, marking their passage.
“That’s unfortunate,” Isabel said. “I was hoping we would vanish without a trace, as far as the enemy was concerned anyway.”
“Hopefully, the Regency won’t arrive until the algae has had a chance to cover our passage,” Hector said. “But I don’t think it matters much to the Sin’Rath.”
They poled their way through the mist until darkness started to fall.
“I haven’t seen a scrap of dirt big enough for a camp,” Horace said.
“Me neither,” Hector said.
“I guess we’re sleeping on the raft,” Isabel said. “How deep is the water?”
“Three to five feet,” said Hector.
“We should tie off to a tree for the night,” Isabel said.
“What was that?” Ayela asked, pointing off the side of the raft into the water.
“I didn’t see it,” Horace said.
“Looked like a snake to me,” Hector said. “And it was big.”
Isabel reached out with her mind and found it, imposing her will on the reptile and finding it to have a distinctly different, and quite distasteful, mind. At her command, it rose up out of the water, displaying itself to them.
It was glistening black, easily a foot thick in the body and probably twenty-five feet long. Its fangs looked long enough to pierce completely through a man’s forearm.
“Well, what shall we call you?” Isabel said.
“Ugly?” Ayela said under her breath.
“More like terrifying,” Hector said.
“How about Scales?” Isabel said. “Yes, I think I like that. Scales it is.”
“You aren’t really going to keep that thing around, are you?” Ayela asked.
“Of course,” Isabel said. “What better guard dog could we ask for in this place?”
The snake slipped back into the water, leaving only disturbed algae to prove it was ever there.
“Scales will stand guard, but we’ll all take our turn at watch as well,” Isabel said.
“I don’t like this place,” Ayela said. “I’m starting to understand why nobody returns from here. Without your magic, that snake could have easily taken one of us underwater and disappeared.”
“Probably,” Isabel said. “Unfortunately, this is the only way to get where we need to go. Hopefully, we won’t encounter anything more dangerous than a giant snake.”
Hector and Horace nodded, looking at each other.
Night fell, shrouding them in darkness so void of light, Isabel might have imagined that this was what the netherworld looked like … if she didn’t know better.
Ayela left her jar of glowing lichen with Horace, who drew first watch. The lichen didn’t provide much light, but it was enough to prevent them from accidentally stumbling off the raft into the murky water.
No one slept well. The swamp was eerie and foreboding, occasional sounds of small animals moving about were muted by the heavy mist hanging over everything like a burial shroud, only serving to make the sounds more haunting