Somewhere, drifting in the infinite æther, is a plane the likes of which few have ever seen. Few living beings have ever set foot on that place, and fewer still have spoken or written of its existence. Even if they had, their descriptions would have meant little to anyone else, for this plane is a world of shifting wonders. Most planes have ground, or sky, or often both, something that persists when its visitors leave. Not this plane. This plane twists and contorts itself, and no two planeswalkers, unless they arrive together, ever see the same plane. Everything there fades slowly once a ‘walker leaves, until it is gone forever, or until the ‘walker returns.

This plane has no earth. It has no sky. It has no water nor stone nor flesh. It is merely a space in the æther, a space that only becomes when it is found. And in the vastness of history, it has been found on only a handful of occasions: by the warlike Gobka Voss, by the lascivious Hforgar Trevnis, by the romantic Annalee V’ray, by the hopeful Jom Kirn. Others, too, have undoubtedly found and lost this world, but each time, the world was lost once they stepped away.

Planes are not unlike the people who inhabit them. They have their personalities, their temperaments, and their desires. Planes can be hostile and inhospitable, just as mortal beings can. They can be peaceful and nurturing. They can be quiet and tranquil, or loud and dangerous. And, like some people, planes can be accommodating, and eager to please. The moment a planeswalker discovers this plane, it alters itself completely to suit that ‘walker’s thoughts. Landscapes solidify into existence, sky, water, and stone form from the vacant potential of the Blind Eternities to mirror the minds of its visitor. Even life itself is conjured into existence in an instant.

In the very center of the plane sits its one permanent feature, a single mirror, set into a stone frame, where the plane’s names are carved. The only names the plane ever carried were as fleeting as its features, and were more telling of the planeswalker to which it catered than to the world itself. When Gobka Voss walked its blood-soaked plains, it was known as Voss-by-Rage, but that name faded with the soldiers it conjured for him to command. When the plane was one large pleasure palace for Hforgar, it was known as Trevnis-by-Lust. V’ray-by-Love was a world of flowers and courtships and whirlwind romances, and Kirn-by-Peace was an idyllic world that, despite being the same world once called Voss-by-Rage, had never known the bite of war. Only the mirror holds any record of these worlds.

How long the plane has existed, or how long it will continue to reflect the minds of those who find it, is a matter of speculation for those few who know there is even anything to speculate about. What form the plane currently takes, if any, is a secret known to no more than one person. The endless wonders found there are painted by the brushstrokes of the deepest mind. And all of the beauty, and all of the horror, found there, in the depths of a planeswalker’s mind, is proliferated throughout the entire world.

For better, or for worse.

Denner Fabellian sat at his reading table, a small, circular surface at the center of his library, the largest room in his modest Wreth home. He sat silently and still, marveling at the fact that he could sit still for as long as he wanted. His body was no longer ravaged constantly by the convulsions caused by Syl’s poison. He was no longer oppressed by constant, lingering pain that threatened to drive him insane, or render him unconscious, or worse. Thanks to Lady Nasina and her antivenom, and the help of the friends he was fortunate enough to have, Denner was, at long last, cured.

Of course, the pain was never completely gone. He did not feel it anymore, surely, but it was forever etched into the walls of his mind. His flawless memory refused to let go of each and every convulsion. It did not allow him to forget or even dull the pain he lived with every day of his life from the moment he had triggered Syl’s poison trap to the moment Nasina injected his hard-fought antidote. Those memories would be with him until the day he died, and even now, sometimes, the phantom of those pains seemed almost like the real thing.

Even if Denner could somehow manage to forget the pain in his mind, his body was a constant reminder. The Delver knew that he had very nearly run out of time, and the poison was beginning to do serious damage to him. His left arm was nearly paralyzed; it took a great deal of effort to move it, and he could carry virtually no weight in his left hand. His left leg was similarly weak, and although he could still walk, he found that he tended to drag that foot when he did. His left eye had been affected by the poison, and had gone blind, although Lady Nasina assured him that the sight and the color would return to him in time. She was less certain about his limbs, but there was time to find a healer. There was time now for anything.

Denner found himself smiling. It had been so long since he had allowed himself to truly hope for the future. From the time he was imprisoned by the Shorecerers onward, the future had been a dismal, even unlikely, prospect. At first, the best he could look forward to was freedom. Once Syl gave him that and then, ultimately, betrayed him, all he could see in the future was the showdown with the Dual-Walkers, a chilling and deadly circumstance, knowing what he had learned about them. And then, after his poisoning, all of his looking to the future involved the vain hope of finding a cure, something that seemed thoroughly unlikely for the longest time.

Now that Denner was well again, or as well as he was likely to be for some time, he hardly knew what to do with himself. A part of him wanted to seek out a healer, perhaps one of the greatest in the Multiverse, to fix his remaining physical imperfections. But, after living with death for so long, a single non-functioning eye and a couple of damaged limbs seemed strangely unimportant. Another part of him wanted to get back to his life before everything started to fall apart. He was a Delver, a man who sought knowledge above all else. Perhaps it was time to return to his studies. Of course, his studies had always been a scattershot affair, anyway. His learning had always been unfocused, picking up facts and information on whatever he happened across. That sort of directionless searching seemed inappropriate for Denner’s second chance.

Besides, Denner Fabellian had promises to keep.

He was only alive because of the help of his friends, and they could undoubtedly use his help in return. Penelophine had helped him find Fisco Vane. But what did she need help finding? Whatever it was, Denner suspected that even he couldn’t help her find it. Fisco had mentioned that Denner should swing by and maybe help him find others, but the Shark had not seemed to be in a particular hurry. Lady Nasina was undoubtedly searching for her own treasures, but what they were, Denner had no idea, and she was not the kind to share her secrets.

That left Daneera, Lukas Harran, and Gale. Denner wondered if Daneera was still searching for Kerik, as she had been when she helped Denner find the Glide Viper on Morvata. But Daneera was a gifted tracker, and Denner had already helped her find the Fae Crown, which she felt would help her complete her search, so Denner was sure she would find her man without his help. Lukas Harran was, undoubtedly, still looking for Gabrielle’s soulstone, but Lukas scared Denner. There was a darkness growing in the man, and Denner was not certain that finding his angel would stop it. Perhaps Denner could find the soulstone on his own and simply give it to Lukas, avoiding any issues with Lukas’s anger or paranoia. Of course, that would mean facing off against powerful demons, so perhaps that was not the best solution.

Then, of course, there was Gale. Denner had met planeswalkers before, like the Jakkard fox Antine, who had not learned how to planeswalk, but Gale was a special case. She was a planeswalker who seemed almost incapable of planeswalking unless she had some sort of an anchor or trigger to her ‘walk, like the shell she said she had found. But Denner had also never met a planeswalker so passionately connected to her home plane, someone who, out of all of the infinite planes in the Multiverse, truly only wanted to be on one of them. He remembered, as he remembered everything, the look in Gale’s eyes when she spoke of her home, of the sea and the sky, of the wind and the waves.

Suddenly, Denner made up his mind. He wanted to help someone, to do something good with the life that had been given back to him, and Gale was going to be the first. His first step was to return to Thorneau and find Gale, and try to teach her to planeswalk without an object to guide her. If that failed, he would learn everything he could about her plane and find it himself, and bring her something back that she could latch on to. Denner smiled again. It felt good, thinking that he could help someone who truly needed it.

With a smile still pasted on his pale lips, Denner Fabellian planeswalked away.

The world was in shadows. It looked, perhaps, like the sky was overcast, but it wasn’t, and besides, it was more than that. The people were shapes in the darkness, moving like a dark gas through the air, like a drop of oil through muddy waters. The market stalls were black, colorless. They did not move, but they were not solid. The streets and the walls were sheets of darkness, and she found her footing only because she had always walked through shadows.

She could not remember why she had come here. It was hard to remember. Bad to remember. She tried to know, not to recall.

Something had been taken from her. Something had been stolen, ripped from her without her consent. She did not want to remember. It would be bad to remember. But she knew. Something had been taken. Some things taken can never be replaced. She did not remember if this was one. She knew it was not. But other things…

She did not let herself remember. The past was shadows even she would not walk. She knew. She knew that she was here to find something. There was something here that she needed to find. She could not remember what it was, but she knew she would know.

She walked on through the market, the shadows passing by and around her. She ignored them. They didn’t matter. She could see something, now. It was a dull, silver glow cutting through the darkness, a tall rectangle of light in the shadows. She moved towards it, intrigued. Whatever it was, it was not darkness. It was not shadows. She did not remember seeing anything like it before. She did not remember. But she knew she had.

She approached the light. It stood before her and she before it, reflections of one another. It was a glowing pane of glass. A mirror. Cautiously, she stepped up to it, and in the glass, bathed in the silver light, she saw the girl she could not remember. The girl she knew.

She stared for a long time. She stared at the girl’s hair, dark and tangled, wild and unkempt. She stared at the girl’s skin, pale like cream and practically glowing in the shadows surrounding her. And she stared at the girl’s eyes, green, sharp, and alive. She did not remember those eyes. But she knew them.

“Who are you?”

The voice cut through the darkness, and for just a moment, she thought it was her voice. She said nothing. She simply stared at the girl in the mirror, waiting for her to answer. The girl simply stared. She stared back.

“Who are you?”

The voice came again, and she closed her eyes tight. The light of the mirror faded, and she couldn’t remember what the girl looked like. But she knew. She couldn’t remember what the girl’s voice sounded like, but when that voice spoke, she knew.

“I’m you.”

She turned and ran, brushing aside the shadows as she did. Some moved out of her way. Others didn’t have the time, and she bounced off them as she moved deeper into the market. She was shaking. Somehow, she did not know what the girl in the mirror had said.

But she remembered.

Finally, she stopped running. Catching her breath, she looked around. The world was shadows. She could no longer see the mirror. There was only the darkness. The darkness, she thought, and one singular point of light. It was not the dull, silver light of the mirror. It was a piercing, throbbing, red light.

It was coming from the face of a shadow, just a short distance from her.

She stared. She couldn’t look away. The light was terrifying. Revolting. Captivating. She could not look away. She hated the light. As the shadow moved, the light intensified. She could not remember what she had come here for. Something had been taken from her.

She could not remember.

She knew.

She knew.

Denner Fabellian noticed the young woman watching him, but at first, he put it out of his mind. While Denner was used to noticing pretty women, he was far less accustomed to pretty women noticing him. The first time he spotted her, he was convinced she had been looking at somebody else. Even the few women in his past who had expressed an interest in him had never openly leered at him. But, of course, he was on Thorneau, and if any society he knew of were going to objectify men, this was it.

It just seemed unlikely that it would be him.

So Denner continued to pick his way through the market stalls in Port Manteau. He was looking for a gift, any gift, that might have been appropriate for Gale. He knew she was still out at sea, because his Delver’s sense had found her immediately. But she was getting closer. Denner smiled. He knew that the best gift he could give was to lead her home, which he felt he could do with just a little more information about her plane. But in the meantime, he had been able to scrounge together a few spare coins, and was searching the stalls for an appropriate gift. He had been looking over the wares of a simple little jewelry shop when the woman finally approached him, sliding up silently beside him as he looked at the necklaces.

“Any woman would love to have one of these,” she remarked, lifting up a necklace with a small black pearl in the shape of a teardrop. “I had one myself once, but it was stolen from me.”

“I…I’m sorry to hear that,” Denner stammered as the woman pressed herself closer to him.

She smiled at him, though her green eyes never seemed to focus on his. “I couldn’t help but notice you,” she said, her voice low. “You’re different from these other men. I can tell.”

Denner forced out an awkward laugh. “Oh, I don’t know about that.”

“I do,” she assured him. “I can see it in your…” she paused, frowning. Then, with a barely noticeable shake of her head, she continued. “Face.”

Denner nodded. He knew she meant ‘eyes.’ Or, perhaps more accurately, ‘eye.’ He knew how he must look to others, his left eye only a milky white color. Syl’s poison had taken it from him, even if Lady Nasina was certain it would heal in time. The young woman clearly must have noticed, and Denner suspected it was why she would not look him in the face.

Before the Delver could think of something to say, the woman continued. “Do you live near here?”

Denner shook his head. “No, I live on…” He caught himself. “A long way from here. But I am staying at a tavern not too far, down near the wharf.”

The woman smiled wider and pulled herself even closer. “I do love a view of the sea.”

Denner noticed that the woman’s hand was still resting on the black pearl and, almost without thinking, he turned to the shopkeeper. “I’ll take the necklace.”

The vendor smiled at him, glanced at the woman, and nodded. “I should think that wise, monsieur,” she said. She handed the necklace to Denner, who moved to hand it to the woman. She did not accept it, but rather lowered her head, as if indicating for Denner to put it on her. He did, struggling a bit to slip the chain around her unkempt hair. When he finally managed it, she pivoted in and rested a hand on his chest, just over his heart. Denner hoped she couldn’t feel how fast it was beating.

“I hardly know how to thank you,” she said softly.

“You’re…welcome,” Denner stammered.

She reached up and placed a hand behind his head, and then pulled him toward her. She leaned in, as if she were going to kiss him, but she stopped short. Instead, she whispered to him. “I should very much like to look out over the sea. Can you think of any place we can do that?”

Denner smiled. “What’s your name?”

The woman blinked, several times in rapid succession, and for a long moment said nothing. When she did, she shook her head dismissively. “What do names matter?”

As she bit her bottom lip expectantly, Denner decided they didn’t matter much at all.

Gale practically danced through the door of the Splintered Oar, humming a tune to herself as she crossed the wide floor toward the bar. Captain Valerie, after having dismissed the crew of the Mourning Reign for an extended fortnight’s shore leave, had pulled Gale aside and told her of this tavern. Owned by a former sailor under Captain Valerie (who was herself the primary investor in it) the Splintered Oar served as a convenient meeting place for Valerie’s various former acquaintances. Almost anyone who had ever sailed with the Captain knew that this was the best place in Port Manteau to find anyone else who had done so.

And, although it had only been for a day or so, Denner Fabellian had sailed aboard the Mourning Reign.

Gale knew that the chances of Denner living through his poison were slim, and that the chances of him coming to find her were far more so. She knew that not everyone prized their word the way they should, and it would not be the first time someone had lied to her. But Gale had heard more than her share of old sailor’s stories, and she had learned to know what she could believe and what she could not. Denner’s words, however pained, had rung true.

As she walked toward the bar, Gale glanced down at her newest mark, the sextant on the inside of her right calf. It was a reminder of everything Denner had promised, and everything she expected. Denner, whatever else he was, was a Delver. A navigator. A seeker. Even if he never returned to fulfill his promise, maybe his name on her skin, beneath a navigator’s instrument, would lead her, finally, home.

Gale arrived at the bar and, leaning over it slightly, whistled to get the attention of the man tending it. He glanced over, smiled, and moved to stand across from her. “Well, hello, there, Madame. May I get you a drink?”

“Yes, a strong one,” Gale laughed. As he was pouring, Gale nodded in his direction. “Are you Roland?”

The man eyed her suspiciously, but assented. “I am. I think I’d remember giving my name to you, though, and I don’t. So, would you mind telling me where you came by it?”

“Captain Valerie told me to find you here. She said you’d take care of me.”

Roland smiled and slid the drink to Gale, then leaned in close over the bar. His voice was barely a whisper. “In the hold, just below the main hatch, behind the ladder’s second rung down, what word is carved into the wood there?”

Gale’s eyes narrowed at the man. “There’s nothing carved there. The captain would carve up anyone who carved up her ship.”

Roland grinned. “No question there!” He agreed, then clapped his hands. “Very good. Sorry for the test, but I can’t afford to be giving out the Mourning Reign discount to anyone who comes in and drops the Captain’s name.”

“Ah,” Gale said, taking a sip of her drink. She quickly set it back down. “I thought I asked for something strong.”

Roland laughed heartily, and pulled her glass away. “What’s your name, sailor?”

“Gale.”

“Well, Gale,” Roland said, pouring her a new glass from a different bottle. “I think you and I are going to get along just fine.”

“Good,” Gale said. “Because I’ll be staying here for a while.”

“Oh, yeah? How long is the Reign in port?”

“Captain’s given us a fortnight’s leave.”

Roland whistled low. “Valerie must have had a lucrative run. A bunch of the crew will probably be staying here. Let me get you a key before they’re all gone.”

“Thanks,” Gale said, sipping her new drink. It would do for now, until she found the strongest stuff this port had to offer. “So, Roland, I’m hoping to have a visitor while I stay here. Would you mind keeping an eye out for him for me?”

“No problem,” Roland said, flipping through his large registry book to see which rooms were open. “What’s he look like? What’s his name?”

“According to Captain Valerie, you already know him. Do you remember the man who was in here a while back? The one you told the Captain about?” She leaned in closer again. “The one who could find anything?”

Roland looked up from the book. “Denner Fabellian?”

Gale nodded. “That’s the one. He and I have some business, and he said he’d try to be back this way. I’m hoping I’ll be lucky and it will be in the next fortnight, but…”

“He’s already here,” Roland interrupted.

Gale froze in mid-sip. “He is?”

Roland nodded. “Just showed up yesterday. I was surprised, ‘cause I didn’t think the Mourning Reign had come back, but he said he’d only been aboard for a day or so. I didn’t ask questions.”

Gale set her drink down and stared hard at Roland. “Is he here? Now?” Her voice was intent, her heart racing.

Roland looked around nervously. “Uh, well…”

“Well what?”

“It’s just that…”

“What?”

“Well, he came in no more than twenty minutes ago, but…but he was with a Mademoiselle. They looked as if they didn’t wish to be disturbed.”

Gale felt a pang of something. Annoyance, or perhaps impatience. Gale thought on the feeling for a moment before she realized that it was something different, something deeper. “Roland, tell me about this woman. What did she look like?”

“Well,” he started, clearly uncomfortable. “She was young, short, beautiful. Dark hair, but a bit wild, like she hadn’t brushed it. She had really nice eyes, green, but even when she glanced at me, they didn’t seem to actually look at me…”

If Roland kept speaking, Gale didn’t hear. It was impossible. There was no way, she knew, that Vasco’s ‘little pearl’ could be here on Thorneau. But that description, it couldn’t be a coincidence. Gale felt the color drain from her face as she became more and more certain. Finally, she reached across the bar and grabbed Roland by the shirt.

“Which room, Roland?”

“I…I can’t…”

“Now, Roland, now! There’s no time!”

“But room numbers are…”

“If you don’t tell me, he’s a dead man!”

“You’re going to kill him?”

“No, she is!”

Roland went pale. “R…room 22. Top of the stairs!”

And without another thought, Gale was running.

Denner Fabellian had never thought he would enjoy being tied to the corner posts of a bed, but the woman was very persuasive. When he had led her to his room at the Splintered Oar, she had almost instantly lost all pretense of shyness. She kissed him passionately, pushing him against the wall just inside his door for several long minutes before leading him by the hand over to his bed. She pushed him down onto it and slowly removed her cloak, revealing a more complete and pleasing view of her figure through her tight, corseted dress.

She allowed Denner to admire her for a long moment before crawling on top of him and kissing him again. Before he knew it, she had pulled Denner’s tunic off. Denner was self-conscious. He had never been a muscular man, and his long fight against Syl’s poison had left him in considerably worse physical shape than before. But the woman did not seem to mind. She merely kept kissing him, running her hands through his hair and over his bare chest. She clearly knew what she wanted, and Denner simply allowed her to take control. After some time had passed, she straightened up, straddling his stomach.

“I want to try something,” she said seductively, producing a length of cloth from behind her back. She reached for Denner’s right arm, and he let her take it. Smiling knowingly at him, she carefully and expertly tied one end around his wrist, and then brought that arm up over Denner’s head and tied the other end to the post. There was a part of Denner that grew concerned, terrified at giving up too much control, but he knew that even if this woman was a thief, which seemed likely, he had nothing of value to steal. And if she turned violent when she realized it, he was still a planeswalker, and could simply leave.

And, of course, there was always the possibility that she was genuine, in which case Denner had no plans on leaving.

The woman was still moving slowly as she produced a second length of cloth and sensuously tied up his left arm. Once she was done, she leaned down and kissed the restrained Delver. Suddenly, though, during the kiss, Denner felt her entire body tense. A moment later, she broke off the kiss and, very slowly, she straightened up. Her body language was entirely different now. Her flirtatious smile had been replaced by a predatory one, and her eyes, for the first time since they had met, were staring directly at his.

Or, more specifically, at his one working eye.

“You thought you could fool me,” she said, her voice deeper and darker than before. “You thought I wouldn’t know. But I know.” Reaching behind her back, the woman pulled out a thin, needle-like dagger and brought it up to her lips. “I remember.”

Then, slowly, she moved the dagger toward Denner, the tip pointing at his eye. The Delver panicked, trying to kick her off of him, but with her entire weight pinning him down and his arms bound, he could not. As she stared at him, Denner swore he could see something, something beyond her eyes. He had no idea what it was, but somewhere deep inside him, he felt that if he could find it, he might be able to stop her.

If he could find it.

Suddenly, Denner’s Delver sense clicked in his mind, and though he had no idea what was happening, he could practically feel himself being pulled through her eyes, and into the shadows beyond.

“Sometimes,” her mother was saying to her, “when things get too scary, and everything feels like it is going to crash in on you, just close your eyes.”

“Mama?” She asked, confused.

Her mother smiled. “I know it may seem silly, but it’s like this storm.” A flash of lightning broke the darkness outside the farmhouse, and the girl jumped, hugging her mother closer. Her mother tightened her own grip on her daughter’s shoulder. “Just close your eyes, dear,” she repeated. “Sometimes, the things we see are just distractions. It gives you too much to focus on. But when you close your eyes, it’s only you.”

“But I don’t like the dark, Mama,” the girl said, shaking.

“Well, then, imagine that I’m there, too,” her mother said. “Imagine I’m there, glowing like an angel, to show you everything that’s real and true. No lies, no shadows…” a clap of thunder sounded, and the girl shook. “No danger,” her mother added.

The girl closed her eyes tightly and held her mother even tighter. “Thanks, Mama.” A cry went up from outside, but it was covered by the noise of the storm. “What was that?”

Her mother shook her head. “I think it was just your father, trying to tell us something. Nothing important, I’m sure.” The girl’s eyes were closed, and she couldn’t see the worried expression on her mother’s face.

The mother loosened herself from her daughter’s grip and went over to the window, which looked out over the farm. At first, she could see nothing. The storm and the night hid everything from her view, and the soft light of the oil lamp in the girl’s room did little to cut through the darkness. After a moment, though, another bolt of lightning cut through the sky, and the mother’s eyes grew wide. She staggered backward and grabbed her daughter by the shoulders, pulling her up to her feet and moving her over to the nearby closet.

“Stay here,” the mother said. “No matter what happens or what you hear, stay here!”

“But Mama…”

“Veluca Orms, don’t you dare make a sound!” There was desperation in the mother’s face. Quickly, she dropped down to her knees and embraced her daughter. “Stay here, and keep your eyes closed tight, okay? Just remember, when you close your eyes, I’ll be there for you. You will remember that, won’t you?”

The girl nodded, tears streaming down her cheeks. Her mother kissed her on her forehead, shut the closet door, and ran out of her room.

And Denner Fabellian, trapped somewhere between someone else’s dream and their memory, heard what the girl heard, as a thundering sound that was not thunder shook the house. He heard the screams of pain and terror from below, and the cruel, inhuman laughter. And he heard as a closet door was ripped from its hinges, and the girl was pulled from it, kicking and screaming, by a cyclops, with evil in his eye.

As the Delver returned from his vision, he could see the point of the woman’s dagger no more than an inch or two from his good eye. But he was looking beyond that, at the eyes of the woman astride him, the eyes he had seen in the past. In her past.

“Veluca,” he said, no more than breathing the name.

The woman above him froze instantly, a strange expression crossing her face. Her sinister smile faded, changing to a look of confusion, or shock. Denner shared it.

“Veluca,” Denner repeated. “What happened to you?”

She stared at him, then at the dagger clutched in her hand, and then back at him. “I…I don’t…”

Before she could manage any more, the door to the room burst open and crashed hard against the wall. “I knew it was you!”

Both Denner and the woman looked over at her. Gale was staring daggers at the woman, and had drawn a literal one as she advanced into the room. The sailor narrowed her eyes to slits as she practically growled. “I never forget a snake.”

Even before Gale launched herself into action, the woman screamed a primal scream of terror and rolled off of Denner. Gale rushed forward like she had been shot from a bow, but the woman was faster, crashing into the wall and vanishing in a puff of shadows. Gale was there half an instant later, and, as she realized the woman had escaped, put her hand through the wall. Her scream, not of terror but of fury, was somehow more frightening than the other woman’s had been.

Gale, breathing heavily, leaned her head against the wall for a long, long moment. Then, finally, she turned to Denner, who was staring upward, shaking more from what he had seen than from what had nearly happened to him. “Are you alright, Denner?”

Denner continued to stare. When he spoke, his voice was broken and soft. “I have to help her.”

“What?” Gale exclaimed. She moved over to him and cut his binds, a bit more roughly than she would have had to. “You may not have been paying attention, but she was about to kill you.”

“You don’t understand, Gale, she…”

“No, you don’t understand!” The Sailor interrupted him. “She’s killed before. She killed a good man, a kind and wise man, who I respected very much. I will not let that go unpunished, and I sure as hell won’t let her do it to you, too!”

But Denner shook his head. “You don’t understand. Neither do I, really, but she didn’t mean to.”

“Didn’t mean to?” Gale could not believe what she was hearing. “She cut his damn eye out, Denner! She was about to do the same to you! She didn’t mean it like I never meant to go to sea!”

“The things she’s seen, Gale…” Denner managed. “The things that were done to her…I can’t even begin to imagine…”

"She's a snake, Denner Fabellian. And, if a snake lets you get close, it's only for one reason: so that it can strike."

“She’s lost, Gale. I don’t know how, because I’m no mind mage, but when I was looking for a reason why, somehow, I saw. I saw into her, Gale. Into her mind. They call her Blink, but that’s not who she is. The girl, Veluca, is still in there. She’s lost, Gale, and I might be the only one who can find her.”

“What about me, Denner?” Her expression was an amalgam of anger and desperation. “I’m lost, too, remember? You made me a promise. You were going to navigate me home, remember?”

“Of course I remember,” Denner said. “And I will. But you have time that she doesn’t have. When I spoke her name to her, she responded. I don’t think anyone’s called her that since she was a child. I think she’s forgotten who she was before…before. I can help her remember. But I need to get to her, while its still there. Before it’s gone again, and maybe forever.”

Gale slumped down on the bed and Denner pulled himself off of it, struggling to put his tunic back on. “Dead men make poor navigators, Denner Fabellian.”

Denner stopped, a tear coming to his good eye. “Gale, please! It could take me weeks to teach you how to ‘walk properly, to lead you to your home. If we lose Veluca now, she could be lost forever, and whatever she’s done and whatever she’s tried to do, she doesn’t deserve that! She doesn’t deserve what was done to her, what was taken from her! I’ve been given a second chance. If I can’t use that to give one to someone else, then…”

Gale stood up then and covered Denner’s mouth with one hand. “You talk too much, Denner Fabellian.” She lowered her hand and kissed him. When she pulled away, she looked him deep in his eye. “Whatever happens, even if that perfect memory of yours fails you and you can only remember one thing, you remember that you made a promise, and that I expect you to keep it.”

Denner nodded slowly. “I’ll remember.”

The Delver took a deep breath, and vanished. Gale took one herself, and sat back down. She ran a hand through her long hair and, wiping the beginnings of tears from her eyes, began to sing.

Denner stepped out of the Blind Eternities and into a chaotic nightmare. The ground seemed all hard, black rock, and yet the farther Denner looked into the distance, the more it seemed like the rock merged with the sulfurous sky. The Delver’s head began to hurt just trying to decipher the illogical landscape. Denner disliked this world immediately, but this was where the girl had gone. Both her æther trail and Denner’s Delver sense confirmed it, and even now, Denner could sense her nearby.

But if this were the kind of place she chose to make her home…

Denner put the thought out of his head. Whatever else she was, the young woman was in pain, and that was something that Denner knew about. He was, perhaps, the only one who could find her, and the only person who could find a way to help her. He had spent his life looking for people and things, because that was where his skills and talents lay. But he was a Delver, a seeker, and perhaps, there was a point to the abilities he had been given. Perhaps there was a deeper purpose than he had suspected before.

Turning away from the blurred, indistinct horizon, Denner focused solely on the ground directly in front of his feet and began to pick his way through the inhospitable terrain. What he found turned his stomach. After only a few feet, Denner came to an opening in the ground, like a sinkhole or a peat bog. But inside was a vast vat of blood and gore, bubbling up like a cauldron. The sight was horrid, and the scent nearly enough to make the Delver wretch. Denner nearly collapsed, but forced himself to continue on toward Blink.

The rest of the landscape was equally disturbing. Entire rock walls were covered with the sludge and viscera, and while luckily none ever fell on him, the sky itself seemed to rain the stuff down to the hard ground. More than once in his trek, Denner had been tempted to flee from the place, to give up on Veluca and return to Gale in Thorneau. It would have been easy. But in doing so, he would have damned Blink to a lifetime of this, and that thought sickened Denner even more.

As Denner crested a small rise in the rock, he stopped dead, his heart practically grinding to a halt. Directly in front of him, hovering silently in the air, was a gigantic eye. It was nearly as wide around as Denner was tall, had no protective casing of any kind, and was staring directly at the planeswalker. From the eye’s spherical surface dripped the same fluids and semi-fluids that permeated the landscape, though the creature seemed not to notice. Then, slowly, the eye began to approach.

The eye stared at Denner and he stared back, but the sight was too terrifying for Denner to flee. He wanted to. He wanted to turn around and run, or to planeswalk away, or even to collapse to the hard ground and cover up for any vain hope of protection or mercy. But his body would not respond. Reflected in the massive iris of the evil eye was every fear, terror, and horror Denner Fabellian had ever known. And slowly, methodically, they were closing in on him.

“Leave!”

Startled by Blink’s shrill cry cutting through the chaotic landscape, Denner shook himself from his terror-induced paralysis. The eye was bearing down on him now, and Denner had only a few seconds to enact a plan. He conjured an illusion of himself turning and running, then projected an image of the ground beneath him over his true self. The evil eye, mercifully, was deceived, and hovered off in the direction of the illusionary Denner. The Delver’s illusions had never been very strong, and this one, he knew, would fade quickly, but for now, it had tricked the eye.

“I still see you,” Blink screamed out. “Leave!”

There was a sob in her voice, and it broke Denner’s heart. She was close now. Denner looked around the valley he found himself in, a bowl-shaped depression in the hard rock and blood of this world. The sky seemed almost to be closing in on him as it undulated like a living, or dying, thing. At the lowest point of the valley, he saw a rock structure that was perhaps twice as tall as he was, and behind it, he could sense Blink. Denner took a deep breath while trying to avoid smelling the foul air around him, and made his way to the bottom.

As he rounded the mirror, he saw a pitiful sight. Blink was there, huddled and shivering in front of a small fire she had apparently built. She would not look at him, nor at anything else, it seemed. She sat with her back against a tall mirror that, somehow, was set into the rock itself. Some of the blood and viscera of the plane had pooled around Blink’s bare feet; she had removed her shoes while seducing Denner and had not grabbed them again. Her cheeks were streaked with tears.

Denner took a cautious step toward the woman, but the moment he moved, she spoke, her voice shaking. “You shouldn’t have come.”

“Veluca,” Denner said softly. “I want to help you. Please, let me try.”

The dark-haired woman shook her head. “I’ll hurt you. I…I always hurt them.”

“Do you want to hurt me?”

Again, she shook her head.

“I don’t want to hurt you, either,” Denner said. He was holding his arms out open in front of him, trying to show her that he was unarmed. He took one more step forward, and she didn’t react. “I…I saw what happened.”

For the third time, she shook her head. “Always watching.”

“I don’t pretend to know what you’ve gone through, Veluca, but you don’t have to go through it again. You don’t have to go through it alone.”

She started rocking gently, forward and backward. “Evil hides behind one eye,” she began to recite.

“No,” Denner urged quickly. “The cyclops that attacked your family, they were evil, yes. But that doesn’t mean…”

“Always staring,” she interrupted. “Always watching.”

Denner risked another step. The mirror was to his left side, and he made sure to keep it that way. His left side had been the most ravaged by the poison and, if he had to defend himself, he had the best chance of doing so from his right side. “Veluca, please listen to me. It’s not too late. It won’t be easy, but we can…”

“That tattooed woman wants me dead,” Blink said suddenly. “She’s always wanted me dead. I’ve seen her, watching me. Always watching me. Her and that damn dolphin.”

“Dolphin?” Denner asked. Then, casting his perfect memory back to Gale’s marks, he saw an image of her dolphin in his mind. It had only one eye showing. Denner went down to his knees as he got within an arm’s reach of Veluca. “She’s not going to hurt you. No one is.”

She turned to him then, fresh tears streaming from her eyes. “I’m scared.”

Before he could respond, she closed her eyes tight and moved in to hug him. She pulled herself close, her right cheek against his, and she whispered softly in his ears. “Thank you for coming,” she said, and squeezed him. “Thank you for trying.”

“You’re welcome,” Denner said. “But there is still a lot we need to…” His sentence was cut off by a pained grunt and a sharp pain in his gut. Slowly, Veluca pulled away from him, her face impassive. But, as she looked down at her hand, wrapped around the handle of her dagger that was stuck in Denner’s body, she seemed surprised. Shaking, she turned her head to her right and looked into the mirror. Denner, in shock from the pain, watched her bright green eyes grow wide as she stared into the mirror.

“What…” she whispered. “What have I done?”

She looked around, confused, first at Denner’s face, and then at the blade in her hand, and then at the mirror. Her hand was shaking when she let go of the dagger. She backed away slowly, then scrambled to her feet and screamed. She turned and ran then, for only a few steps, before vanishing in a cloud of blood and shadows.

Denner coughed, and wrapped his hand around the dagger’s handle, but he lacked the strength to pull the blade out. Instead, he just lay back, glancing at the mirror as he did. To his shock, he saw in the mirror that his left eye, previously milky white and blind, had started to regain its color. Then his eyes simply closed.

Gale paced back and forth across Denner’s rented room in the Splintered Oar. She was wringing her hands as she moved, alternatively muttering and humming to herself. The song she hummed was a tuneless thing, a primal thing, something she would probably never have sung on the open sea. A heavy storm was building outside, darkening the streets of Port Manteau, but Gale barely noticed.

All she could think about was the dead.

She thought about the crew of her beloved cutter back home, and listed off the names of the crew in her head. She thought about them often, and the fate they had not deserved, the fate she, against all logic, reason, or desire, had escaped. She thought about Vasco, captain of the Blazing Star. Apart from his murderess, Gale had been the last one to see him alive. He had been a good man, and a fine captain. A good captain should die aboard his ship, but not like that. Never like that.

And now, she thought about Denner Fabellian.

The Delver was not dead, she knew. Not yet. But he believed that he could help that woman, that murderess, to change. But, as her first captain, a man named Spire, had told her, never try to tame a shark. It is their nature to devour, and they will, regardless of your best efforts or intentions. Denner Fabellian had jumped head-first into the shark’s native waters in the hopes that, while drowning, he might talk the shark out of eating him. Denner Fabellian was a good man, and soon, Gale knew, he would be another on the long list of good men who did not deserve what they had gotten.

Absently, Gale traced the mark of the dolphin on her triceps. I’ve saved men drowning in shark-infested waters before, Gale thought.

As Gale was pacing around the room, she slowly became aware of a slight itch on her right leg. She ignored it at first, but it grew in intensity. Finally, she reached down to scratch it, and pulled her hand away. Something had burned her. She looked down and stared, in panic and wonder, at her newest mark, the sextant on her right calf. It was on fire. They were not true flames, but a strange sort of light dancing on the ink. It burned with a blue-green light, a color that looked much like the sea near shore, where the seaweed packed tightly beneath the waves. Gale stared at the light for a long time. She was confused, bewildered, and a little scared, but more than anything, she wondered why her leg only itched, when the pain should have been excruciating.

Then she noticed that, just below the sextant, Denner Fabellian’s name, which she herself had written on her body with the magical ink from the Tower of Tears, was also aflame. Unlike the sextant itself, though, its light was not bluish-green, but a blinding gold.

“Denner,” she said, as she took one step toward the door. Her foot, however, did not land on the floor’s hard wood. It did not, in fact, land on anything.

On Gale’s home plane, there was a large stretch of sea known as the Maurora. When trade ships wanted to save time on the Spice routes and skip some of the stops along the coasts, they would cut across the wide open Maurora, cutting days and even weeks off the route. But in the Maurora lived vast schools of jellyfish that floated carelessly and aimlessly on the ocean currents. When the sunlight faded, and the darkness claimed the sea, the jellyfish nearest the surface would begin to glow lightly, like hundreds of flickering stars just beneath the surface. Gale had always loved sailing the Maurora, and sitting on the yard, just watching the jellyfish float in their strange colors of blue and green and gold.

Gale had been stung by a jellyfish once, and it had burned, in almost precisely the way her leg burned now.

Gale felt now that she knew how it felt to be those jellyfish. She felt like she were being carried by the current, as though caressed by the very ocean itself. All the world seemed to fade away as she floated, a living mass of light and color on the waters of reality. It was incredible. Intoxicating. And she could hear the songs, not of one sea but of all of them at once. They sang their songs to her and in her fiery frenzy, she sang back, until one by one, the melodies fell away. When the last of them did, Gale felt the water around her change into hard stone beneath her feet, and the light that she was collapsed back into her.

And when she opened her eyes, she saw Denner Fabellian lying there, his back against a strange mirror, a dagger stuck in his gut.

She rushed toward him instantly, surveying the damage. The Delver’s eyes were closed, and his right hand was wrapped weakly around the murderess’s needle dagger. She laid one hand on his chest and felt his heart beat, though it was not a strong one. Gale grimaced, grabbed the dagger, and said, “This is going to hurt.”

Without waiting for a reply, she pulled the dagger from his body. Denner’s eyes shot open and he screamed, but Gale was already working, trying to stop the blood that was gushing from the wound. As she worked, she felt Denner’s right hand come to rest atop her left.

“I wanted to help.”

Gale did not even glance up at his face.

“I know you did.”

“Before I died,” Denner continued, his voice painfully weak. “I wanted to help somebody.”

“Save your strength, Denner,” Gale said. The wound was not stopping.

“Before I die,” Denner said again. “Gale, tell me about…” he stopped, coughing. “Tell me about your home.”

“There will be plenty of time for that later,” Gale said. “When you’re patched up and healthy and we’re both on our way there.”

“Please. Was there…was there a place there? A place you went as a child? To watch the sea?”

Gale tried to fight back tears as she worked, but decided that her talking was the best way to keep Denner from doing so. “There was, actually. Just a bit north of my village, there is a tall cliff that rises from the water. At its highest point, it juts out over the deep, and from there you can see forever. The clouds dance like debutants, teasing the waves below. The water there is turquoise and azure, or emerald after it rains. The place is known as Seeker’s Point. There was always talk of a lighthouse there, but the ground would never take it. The ground was too soft. Every spring when the rains would begin, the flowers would cover that hill. It was always a beautiful place to…”

Denner, suddenly, was laughing. It was a raspy, forced laugh. Gale glared at him. “What’s funny?”

Denner smiled. “You talk too much, Gale.” Then he put his right hand behind her head and pulled her close. He struggled for a long time to speak, and when he did, she could barely hear him.

“Bury me at Seeker’s Point.”

Then he pulled her, not in for a kiss, as she expected, but right out of the world, the world that the mirror recorded under the name Orms-by-Gore.

In a pitch-black corner somewhere, Veluca Orms sat, one arm clutching the opposite shoulder, the other wrapped around her waist. She was shaking, rocking, and trying to fight back tears. When she couldn’t fight them anymore with her eyes open, she closed them, as tightly as she could. There, she saw a light, and the figure of a woman walking toward her.

“Mama?” She asked.

The woman came close and bent down over her. With her eyes closed, Veluca could see her, the bright green eyes, the dark, wild hair, and the hands, stained with blood.

“I’m you.”

Veluca opened her eyes and, alone in the darkness, wept.

The very instant Gale stepped back into reality, she began to weep. She felt Denner’s arm around her drop, heard the soft thud as he hit the ground. She felt the life leave his body, and she knew that whatever he had done would be the last thing he would ever do. And although Gale would mourn him, that was not why she cried. She was standing at Seeker’s Point.

She did not weep because Denner had passed, but because he had kept his promise. She did not weep because Denner was lost, but because he had found her. She did not weep to hear Denner’s dirge, but because the song of his death was the song of her life.

Denner Fabellian was dead, and Gale would never forget him. She did not lightly write another’s name on her body, and would always remember who he was, and what he had done, but it was not for Denner Fabellian that Gale wept. They were not tears of sorrow that she shed; they were tears of joy.

Gale was finally home.

I will compare this story with Illarion's demise for obvious reasons. I pushed for edits on that story on pacing grounds, but I enjoyed it both on cerebral and instinctive levels. This one... not so much.

From a narrative standpoint, it kinda feels anticlimatic. Denner has jumped (limped, really) through all sorts of loops to survive the venom; to be completely honest, I wasn't too fond of the gotta-catch-em-all Poison Creatures edition, but it gave Denner the chance to (re)encounter people, to see them interact and discover new things about each other and the rest of the world, and that was A-ok.
People die in all sorts of manners, sure, but from my point of view, is like someone who has fought years against cancer is finally, completely healed, only to get mauled by a wild dog he was trying to help out a hunter's trap a week later. It can happen, but it sucks supremely. Gale's return is a wonderful event, but couldn't that poor Delver have a decent breather before getting splattered by Fate?

...Ok, I just stopped crying. Time for a personal tangent.
I struggled all my adult life (which is not much, admittedly) with motivation and self-loathing. Pressure stresses me a lot, and I have very little discipline. I'm 4 exams from my degree, and things are so **** slow. Thing is, if I feel the reward is little compared to the effort, my brain derails me at every possible moment. The joy and satisfaction of passing an exam last nothing compared to the months of lectures, the weeks of nonstop study, the days of stomach-churning and the hours of panic as the exam date grows near, and only the latter part remains in my memory.
So when I arrived at the end of the piece is like someone said to me "listen, you'll get your degree and a month later you'll have a brain trauma and forget everything you'll learned. Oh, and your title will become invalid because database crash shenanigans."
"Dafuq is wrong with you, get out of my face."
Of course I've got nothing against you, Raven, and it's clear that my human functions are not especially clear and in peak conditions now, it's just to explain how I felt.
(To be completely transparent, if some kind of divine messenger was to say me those words, my reply would be "Can't you just overdose me on morphine or something right now, so we skip the really stupid part?")
So, long story short: these kind of stories are the one that make me scream (or look disapprovingly, at least) at the world when I hear them on the news. It's not exactly what I look for in fiction.
Let's return to more rational points.

I felt Illarion's themes were more related to merry-go-lucky feelings; he certainly had his share of bad and heartfelt moments, but he himself felt like a spectator, he defines himself a tourist. So in that tone, it's morbidly fitting for him to die almost casually stomped by a monster, in a narrative trap he never saw coming, like a sideline character. Denner's last arc, as I see it, was all about fighting for your life while trying to help anyone else in the process, and it almost feels like he stopped fighting. Example: he was certainly tired and in pain, but could a single stab (by a very thin dagger) completely prevent from 'walking to safety?
The whole thing feels senselessly short compared to the almost hopeless agony he already faced and survived. One could argue that it closely resembles the "atonement by death" cliche named in that thread.

Pacing: I don't think the current division in sections is optimal, to be honest: while I don't doubt Gale's first willing 'walk is great, the magic was completely lost on me, skipping a word every three to find out what actually happens to Denner. It's possible my previously mentioned brainstate worked against me on this, but the marvel and novelty of the moment was marred with too hard of a cliffhanger, especially with the ending confirming the importance of the stakes. I get the "even in death, something beautiful" aestethic, and I usually appreciate it, but I found the sudden change of pace to be jarring.

Word choice: maybe it's me writing 3rd persons very close to the observer, but I feel Veluca shouldn't be called Blink in Denner's chapters. He has never heard the name, if memory serves right, and even if he did he would never use the name related so tightly to her crimes. Even with a more omniscient POV, the name Blink feels a bit out of place while Denner is basically jumping straight to hell (in more senses than one) to save her.

I have to admit, I was really bummed when Tevish wrote that piece, because I had had this story in the works for a while, and I was concerned that people would connect the stories too much. That's not what you're doing, by the way, but it was a serious concern of mine, and delayed the release of this story a bit in the hopes of creating separation.


I certainly understand this. I'm sorry my story hit so close to home in that respect. I will just say that my personal opinion, as someone with a couple of degrees to his name, I've never felt that passing the test or seeing the grade on the paper was the point. It absolutely takes a long time to get through schooling, but in doing so, I believe the experiences and the struggles help shape the person you eventually become. I don't want to sound too trite here, but I genuinely do believe that it is the journey, not the destination, that really matters.

You mention here that, to you, Denner's poison arc was about fighting for his life while trying to help others, and I think that's certainly true. But more than that, to me anyway, the arc was about Denner becoming a complete - and hopefully a "good" - person. He became poisoned to spare the rest of the Arbagoth Eight from having to do so. The poison arc begins with Denner looking out for himself, and helping others only in barter for their help. As his arc progresses, though, his perceptions begin to shift. In "Navigate Harsh Waters," Denner did not need to show the crew of the Mourning Reign the location of the Tower of Tears. He did so because he thought it was right. In "Title," he certainly did not have to go with Daneera to the Murkwisp Crypt. She even told him that. He did so because helping her recover the man she loved was more important to him in that moment than saving his own life. Even in this story, Denner does not have to follow Blink. He does so because he realizes how lost she is, and having come so close to losing himself, the risk of saving her was, to him, worth his life.

To me, the poison arc is not about life and death, but rather a difficult, torturous maturation that finally turns Denner into the man he always could have been, but never really was.

* * *

One last thing that I want to say about Denner Fabellian, and this is probably going to sound a bit harsh, so I'll put it in a spoiler within this spoiler. Everyone should feel free to skip this, if they want:

I get that, and that resonates with the "the journey is the meaning of it all" view you mentioned, but I just think Denner deserved a break. But that is a somewhat minor point, or at least one that is more related to an overarching worldview in which I'm afraid we'll bound to differ.


And I totally get that. But one of the things that frustrated me is that Denner seems to immediately give up after receiving a potentially minor wound; I'm going to reread that particular piece, but I get the feeling he simply stops fighting. He doesn't try to 'walk to safety, he doesn't try to help Veluca with a last word, his strength simply fails him. And after all the pain he powered through, even considering the meta reasons and putting aside the differences of worldview, I feel like Denner is lacking the strength that he has showed time and time again, and I don't get the reason because since the stabbing his POV is completely detached (a stylistic choice that I don't dislike per se) and we don't get behind his eyes again.

Again, I blurted a lot of words for a simple concept: I can't find in the piece the reason to justify the death of the same Denner I read power through a suffering that would break me more times that I can count. (hope that sentence is readable) There's some small step it lacks for me to accept it as fitting.

(speaking about insecurity, that made me think about Elphimas and the similarities you drawn between the two)

To be fair, Denner deserved WAY better than I gave him throughout his entire arc.




In my mind, he's bleeding out, probably with a punctured organ, and the strain of planeswalking would simply be too much for him. But I'll reread that section. I probably didn't make that very clear. If there's a way to do it without taking us too far away from the narrative, I'll include it.


I mean, you already know that I think Elphimas fits into that same category of "too much going on," but at the same time, making Elphimas an oldwalker helps with that A LOT. Oldwalkers had a scope of power far beyond anything the neowalkers could conceive, or at least the potential for it, and considerably longer to accumulate skills and mana bonds and so forth. So while it's certainly not my favorite thing, Elphimas is frankly more justified in-world than Denner is.