“What just happened?” the man standing beside her asked.


    Megan said nothing. She didn’t know, nothing made sense since she’d come down here. But she did know she was going to hold on to Henric’s lightstone until he woke up.


    “What did he say, right before they both collapsed?” the man Henric had called Niles asked again.


    She knew the answer to this one. “Muzum ala thebeth. It’s the same thing they said just before they collapsed.”


    “All three of them huh?” Niles said. “Why didn’t you?”


    Megan shrugged. “I don’t know.” Megan really wish he’d stop asking questions.


    “Erit! Ven?” a voice called down the tunnel. Another torch flickered against the wall ahead.


    “You know, a day ago I was running away from torches on these walls,” Niles said. “Now I’m glad to see them.” He stepped forward and called out “Ho! Watchmen! This way.”


    They came to the pile of bodies where Henric, the two watchmen, and that thing lay blocking the water’s flow.


    “Lord Aldrimar!” one called out and knelt down, checking Henric.


    The other turned, and Niles waved at him. “His sisters are here, and their friend.”


    “And who are you?” the watchmen said, eyeing Niles skeptically.


    “DuErden,” said Niles.


    The watchman’s jaw almost dropped.


    “We don’t have time to stand around, go get their uncle!”


    And the guard did. “Sir Zakaran! Sir Zakaran! We’ve found your nieces, and the duke is here too!” He turned back and ran down the tunnel, shouting the whole way. Megan let out a perverse chuckle at how strange that sounded.


    “You think he’s ever met Zak?” Niles said, almost conspiratorially, and it brought another laugh up out of her.


    “I know he hasn’t,” said Megan. “But we shouldn’t joke, not right now.”


    “Why not?” Niles asked. “There’s nothing else we can do but wait.”


    “The miss Megan is right,” said the watchman. “This is no time for levity, the duke and his sisters cannot be woken in a place like this.” He gestured all around himself. Then he bent low and put his arm beneath Henric’s legs “We need to get them out of here.”


    “No!” Megan and Niles shouted at once.


    “Lord Henric was very specific that they not be moved,” Megan said.


    “Nonsense,” the watchman said. “They’re not safe here.”


    Faster than Megan would have believed, Niles was at the man, sword at this throat. “Your duke’s instructions were very clear. Do not move him, or his sisters. I will not allow it unless his uncle orders otherwise.”


    Three more watchmen came around the corner. “Sir Zakar-” one was saying to the others, but stopped at the scene and his hand flew to the blade at his belt.


    “What in the damn- Why are you stopped?” Zak asked as he shoved his way through the watchmen. “Niles, what is going on?”


    “One of your men is trying to move your nephew,” Niles said. “He told us not to move him, or either of the girls. Quite sternly. Didn’t he girl?”


    Megan nodded.


    “Good,” Zak said. “That was smart of him. Don’t move me either. Your friend told me a bit about how you met my nephew in the woods and that thing you fought. He’s going to need help.”


    “Zak,” Megan asked. “What is going on? What was that thing? How could I kill it, and it still be up walking around?”


    “It’s a Dead thing Megan, like from the stories,” Zak said.


    The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.


    “So there’s a necromancer?” she asked.


    “I don’t know,” Zak said. “I don’t have time to explain, I’m sorry. They need my help.” He drew his sword from his belt, closed his eyes, and said the words before collapsing.


    ***


    Henric had still not grown used to the stillness of the River. Though water moved at his feet, the fog did not. He had already wasted a Vade into the fog for nothing, almost no disturbance at all.


    Accompanying the stillness was silence. Thick and heavy like the fog, even the splashes of his own footsteps sounded soft and far away, hanging dead in the air without even the faintest echo.


    But this time the still and the silence were not accompanied by the cold. Death''s chill was notably absent, and Henric felt warm in spite of the icy water washing past his feet. It came in waves, pulsing like a heartbeat.


    "Addie! Zia?" Henric called out, but even that still and heavy in the air. And there was no echo. He had thought he’d heard them when he first crossed over, but he had been too focused on the degreth to chase after them.


    Then something moved in the fog, and Henric turned toward it, reaching for his sword but coming up empty. Of course.


    The degreth leapt out of the fog at him, knocking Henric off his feet. Its shifting, shapeless maw came for Henric’s neck, but a reflexive punch knocked it back. Henric wasted no time, and began to form the binding around the monster.


    “Where are my sisters?” Henric asked.


    It thrashed against his binding and quickly broke free. “Give it up, foolish boy. I will have you, and then both of them too.”


    Henric tried again, this time focusing all of his energy, and his buzzing warmth into it as well. Even as he poured and poured, he still did not feel the chill of Death. As the degreth thrashed against the white band that was forming around its midsection, it let out its most horrible shriek yet, worse even than those it made with the assassin’s rotting lungs. The circle completed, and now all Henric had to do was hold it.


    The nightmare lashed again at the circle, but shied away just before it touched, and decided to scream again instead.


    “Stop it,” Henric said. “I have you now.”


    It drew back and looked him over. “For how long, I wonder?”


    “As long as it takes,” Henric said. “I won’t be letting you go. You’ve caused me and mine enough trouble.”


    “Such certainty.”


    But Henric was certain. He turned the flow of heat far down to a trickle, and still the degreth shied away from the binding. Time was not his worry. Instead, Henric thought back to Zakaran’s journal and what it said about a banishing.


    A banishing, like Sam’s vades,could force a thing back, possibly even back beyond the waterfall at the river’s end, but then there would be nothing to stop it from climbing up again Except luck.


    What he really needed, was to kill this thing.


    Zakaran had always talked about cutting his monsters apart with his sword, but Henric’s own hadn’t crossed over with him. One of these days he was going to figure out why that was. As it stood, the best he could do was hold it there. If only...


    Something splashed behind him. Henric turned as much as he could without breaking concentration on the monster, and it wriggled against him.


    “Zak?” Henric was surprised to see his uncle, sword in hand.


    “Henric! Praise Vara you’-” He stopped when he saw the degreth thrashing in the shallows against Henric’s binding. “How? Where are your sisters?”


    “I... don’t... know,” Henric grunted through the strain of holding down the degreth. He held out an arm and said, “But they’re out there, I can feel them. Find them. Leave the sword.”


    Zak looked at the blade in his hand and then back at Henric. “Where’s yours?”


    “It didn’t cross over.”


    The sword changed hands, and it felt right. It gave off a surprising warmth in his hand, but that didn’t surprise him at all. Surprisingly familiar, as if he’d fought with it a hundred times. But it was Zak’s sword.


    And it had been Father’s sword.


    Henric swung, cutting away at the degreth, making a shriek out. “What are you still doing here? Go.”


    Zak did. Henric heard him splashing away into the fog, calling out for his sisters. What in Gara’s name did those girls think they was doing down here. Didn’t they understand how dangerous it was? How could they? They’d never told the girls anything about Death or the Book. Now they were here, unready, and they might they might be stuck here forever.


    He wrapped his binding tighter, and cut across the degreth’s chest. Its scream almost echoed. “What were you going to do to them?”


    It grunted a low, beastly grunt. “Eat one and inhabit the other.”


    Henric cut again. “What then?” It only cried out in pain, so he cut it again. “What were you going to do then? You might as well tell me. It’s going to be your last chance.”


    “Find.. god,” the creature spat out.


    “God?” Henric laughed. The creature had practically stopped fighting against the bond, but Henric drew it tighter still. “And what would you tell this god of yours?”


    “Nothing. Offer.. sacrifice.”


    “Which would be?”


    “You.”


    Henric was unprepared for the degreth’s sudden thrash, and loosened the binding. It slipped free, but before it could slip away into the mist Henric brought his sword down on top of it.


    The momentum of the cut and creature conspired to cleave what Henric hadn’t already cut away. A clean rend of the soul, not even a binding was necessary now. Already what was left of it was beginning to disintegrate into the icy water at his feet, swept away to Judgement.


    The cold hit him all at once, like stepping out into the cold winter from the warmth of a room with a fire lit. Henric shivered, and looked around. Where were Zak and the girls? If it weren’t for the water’s flow, he wouldn’t even have been able to tell which direction Zak had run off. Deep breaths brought faint traces of his uncle and sisters ... downriver.


    Resting the blade on his shoulder, Henric carefully made his way, following the current deeper into Death. By the time the water was above his waist, he couldn’t stop himself from shaking at the cold of it.


    “Zak!” Henric called out. “Adelin! Zia!?” There was no response but empty air.


    Wait. Henric concentrated and drew up every bit of heat he had to still the chattering of his teeth. Yes... Faintly, he could hear a the sound of something moving through the water behind him. And it was coming closer.


    Henric Aldrimar didn’t know what he expected to come out of the fog, but it certainly wasn’t a canoe.


    “There you are,” said an old voice out of the fog.