total, and no sight of the shaft through which she had entered Alskain Mar could be seen.
As her consciousness reassembled itself, she realised that the spirit of the shrine was still melded with her. She could feel it, tentative now. It sent a wash of knowledge, a recapitulation and something that she interpreted as an apology. The spirit had accidentally killed her, but only for moments. It had taken that long to absorb the nature of the girl, and to reactivate her biology, to repair the damage done to her sanity. Though she had died, she had not missed more than a couple of beats of her heart; her blood had barely time to slow.
Lucia realised with amazement that she was communicating with it. Or rather, it was communicating with her. She had known that it was hopelessly beyond her capabilities to make herself understood to a thing that was so alien, but she had never considered that the spirit might be able to simplify itself enough to descend to her level. Yet, in absorbing her nature, it had gained knowledge of her limitations and capabilities, and a rudimentary contact was achieved and held.
She crawled weakly to the edge of the platform, driven by a half-heard motivation, and knelt by the edge. Then she looked down into the water, and saw it.
There was no bottom to the lake any more. Though still as clear as crystal, it now plunged away to endless depths, from which the strange glow came. And down there, at some unguessable distance, the spirit looked back at her.
It had no form. It was like a dent in the water, hovering at the edge of Lucia’s sight, more a suggestion of a shape than a physical entity. Somewhere within it two oval formations that approximated eyes watched her with a frightening intensity. It flickered with the invisible convection of the lake, sometimes jumping for a fraction of a second to another place before returning to its original location, flitting fitfully about while remaining perfectly still. It seemed at once small and looming to Lucia’s eyes. She could not trust her perspective; it was as if she could reach into the water and touch it, though it appeared further away than the moons. Despite its best attempts at a manifestation she could comprehend, it still bent her senses just to look at it; yet look at it she did, for she knew that was what it wanted.
Awe and joy and raw terror clashed within her. She would never have believed she could ever achieve an understanding with a spirit such as this; but now that she had, she was committed to that contact, and there was no telling what kind of force she was dealing with. It could annihilate her mind in a fit of whimsy; it could keep her trapped here for an eternity as a companion; it could do something entirely beyond her imagination. She was still stunned and fragile from the mental impact of the spirit’s first touch, from her momentary skip across the surface of death; she did not know if she was strong enough to deal with what was to follow.
But there was no other recourse now. She had questions to ask. Slowly, she spread her hands and laid them onto the cold surface of the lake. She exhaled a long, shivering breath, and a plume of vapour rose around her.
Then she began.
TWENTY
‘I will not go back!’ Kaiku said, stalking around the rock-lined hollow where the travellers hid. ‘Not yet. Not while we still know nothing about those creatures down there.’
‘It’s because we know nothing that we have to go back,’ Yugi argued. He glanced up at Tsata, who was on lookout, crouched on the lip of a flat stone. ‘We have no idea what kind of defences they can muster. And we’re certainly not equipped to try and infiltrate them. What is it exactly you’re planning to do, Kaiku?’
‘It is not enough for us to return to the Fold with news of an Aberrant army hiding in the Fault,’ Kaiku said. ‘Why are they here? Who are they intended for? Is it the Libera Dramach, or somebody else? We need answers, not a report that will only breed more questions.’
‘Keep your voices down,’ Nomoru told them coldly.
They had observed the Aberrants and the strange Weaver-like newcomers for several hours before retreating from the edge of the cliff that overlooked the flood plain. Fearing the brightening day, they had pulled back to a