In the morning, the monks let them leave with some more food and they went on their way. Dew dropped from every leaf, plunking into ready puddles. New-made waterfalls drained into a lake surrounded by hills. Trees sunk deep into the blue water, and fog covered the skies. The tide rose and foam whirled onto the shore. Thin clouds streaked across the morning sky. The earthen floor grew spongy as it lay soaked in rain.

They found the road again. It rolled forward past the trees and into a timeless vision. They balanced upon a cliff that led unto a grassy valley. David stood for a moment, and sat onto the ground. They watched the sun thin as clouds passed. They heard the birds chirp in the light of the sun... With a shout forward, Bernard ran down the slopes and into the valley. Osmond walked behind, the only one closest to Bernard. The rest waited, Darrell going behind them all. David shivered in the wind, but followed Bernard.

The long grass bent beneath their feet as they cleared a path into the valley. Bernard smiled at the sun, and gazed at the clouds. At times, something fell over Bernard, making him stop and contemplate, but he would continue. David followed closely with his bag tightened against his back.

Journeying up Pnoaphales, but resting after the sun flared, enveloping the sky in its inferno. David smiled at the sun, nodded to it. Once they had journeyed far enough, they sat against dusty monoliths. Bread crumbled as David twisted a portion from a loaf. He crunched it down, softening some pieces with water.

They lay in the yellow fields, and passed under the sun's eye. The Prophet watched over them all, with a great pupil surrounded by shattered blue spreading out into the world. The Prophet! He leaned toward the sun, with heat crawling through his body, and the cold fading away. The forests no longer blocked the sunlight. It went to them all, with rays, beams, in empyreal colors.

Soon, their journey ended atop the mountain. The Prophet sat above this world on Pnoaphales. What would he discover from the Creator of majestic mountains and seas? Everything. No more death for the world. Life had no end anymore. He journeyed for everyone. For Bernard, for Darrell, for the dead Denton, for life... Then, from the absurd chaos, order would arise.

David lay below it all, laying on these wheat stalks, laying with eyes closed, laying with visions passed in his mind's eye. Memories. Running and rolling down the hills. Laying under the sun. Talking to the Men of Deer and Laphanists, who talked around tables. How great it would be to go back in time... But, he lay in the stalks, with a beard falling down him.

They stepped up, picking at the stalks before them. The forest loomed over them, and the sun met midway into the sky. A bridge crumbled, leaning over an infinite abyss. They walked past it, and into a path. Tattered ropes hung on saplings. Leftover campfires lay with white ash and fire-eaten logs.

After the path, they reached a lake. Sprawling in its size, seething in water, spraying foam into the air. A man with his boat stood in it. A wonderful boat, he stood on. All painted in white. The floor curved in the center. Then a metallic plate stood on the bow, bent to form a shape resembling a swan's neck. Curling outward from the stern, a bent bronze plate stood. The ferryman's paddle waded in the water. Osmond walked to him.

"Money?", the man put out a hand, rough with blisters, covered in the salt of the sea and worn from the wooden oar.

"I've got a few...", Osmond pulled a few coppers out of his bag. Showing them to the man, "Here you are. I need to go to Pnoaphales"

"Sit." The man patted the boat. David stepped into it, sitting on the bow. All of them entered, one by one.

The ferryman held the oar and pushed against the ground, propelling it into the water, the boat skimmed across the lake, and the boat moved, without hurry, adapting itself to the lake.

The lake ahead bubbled, turned, and twisted as water flowed around poking rocks. Foam lashed out onto them, tumbling into the rocks, washing sand off them, eroding them further. Ice floated towards them, breaking off from cold areas. Fog rose in the air from waterfalls that erupted with the contents of the swamps above. Terraces of rough rock ran up the borders of the lake. Sparrows populated the cliffs with nests, flying above them in black and grey flocks.

The boatman pushed his staff into the water again, and the boat tore through the ice. He nodded his head to them and drove the staff down into the water again.

"Rickman, my name is, I drive this small paddyboat unto Pnoaphales, every day, down and up."

"Cold, is it? Sailing, by yourself, going on these lonely journeys, no one to see, no one to talk to?", Osmond asked, running his hand along the water.

"Never that sorta journey for me. I've worshipped the sea and its beauties, beginning as a child. To sail a ship, I've fantasized. In dreams, I continue to sail. For the sea is a blooming flower, which opens itself up for all people. It allows life to gaze upon its beauty."

"No, no, I thought it wouldn't...", Osmond mumbled, "Never a lonely journey, not in these waves, not in this type of sea, not in this type of ocean, no...."

David looked into the whorls of water and felt the winds rush into him. His heart pounded in him. David trembled and laughed quietly. A surge of something rushed through his body. His hands dipped into the warmth beneath the boat.

Into the sea, sailing into a new world of water, discovering the depths. Finally into a strange, new world of water, into the wild sea and the wild waves, into the calm and beauty... He remembered sailing, past a grassy shore, past flowery plains, and into the undulating waves and the calm air. He saw it now, inside the edge of his imagination. He saw it between the border of memory and mind. He remembered fishing for minnows.... He remembered running back home...

"Footprints...", David squinted. Multiple, side by side, going forward, unaffected by the lake. Each imprinted into the lake, each inside the water, moving with the waves.

Darrell paid no attention, staring at his reflection in the lake. But Osmond turned to catch a glimpse.

"Footprints. Then, the journey ends soon." Bernard nodded and leaned over the boat. It shook, rocking back and forth.

"Yes, soon we'll see him", David pointed, leaving one hand to drag along the water. "Right there, you can see. Past those waves, over there, in the water."

"I remember, now...", Rickman pushed the boat forward with the paddle. "He walked, a crowd behind him. They paid me many coppers for each ride. And this boat filled with thirteen people, all packed on all sides. Everywhere, they were. Like sheep, like ants, like crowds of dull people. But bright with colors, but all the same..."

The boat continued to follow the footprints, shaking a little as the lake turned chaotic. As the water dipped into whirlpools, as the waves smashed against the cliffs, foam erupted into the air. The wild, wild, sea. David dipped his hands into the empty water, empty of life, empty of plants, water extending forever, empty, for now. David pulled his hands out and lay against the boat. But the sea thrashed outward as the boat moved forth. Waves spilled onto the boat, forcing him to stand.

The shoreline dipped below the sea as it sailed out of the two cliffs. Toward Pnoaphales, a humongous mountain of green, blue, and red. Covered in jutting cliffs and populated with caves. A valley ran around the mountain. But, the mountain seemed insignificant to the sea that covered everything with blue and white. Surrounding Pnoaphales stood hills, they glowed green and white, spring air ran through the grass. Two monoliths loomed upward and leaned against one another in supports.

Small was the boat, to everything. Wailons swam below the surface of the water, swallowing entire groups of fish with a yawn. Every single fish, a person, to be swallowed by a wailon. Many fish, many people. But no consideration for a single fish. None at all.

Beside him, Darrell continued to stare at his reflection for the rest of the journey. He lay empty of everything. He seemed like a ghost in between life and death. He just stared, looked into the water, his focus ran past the fish and the floating kelp, past everything. His mind had gone from the world.

"The fish have arrived, Bernard. These silvery, sleek animals. Great automatic things, with silver limbs and silver lungs.", Osmond looked into the water, sketching the fish as they continued past him.

Bernard dipped a finger into the water.

"All swimming past us, silver scales, glowing... If I had a net or a fishing line. Maybe if I had a basket?"

"You'd never catch these fish. With a rod, I caught kelp. With a handline, I got rocks. With nothing, I caught nothing", Rickman pushed the paddle again, then he swirled it in the water. The fish ran out from under the boat. Away from them. Swimming deeper into the lake.

"You've scared them!", Bernard looked into the water, " I'll never get one now! Come on, come back, come back! Come on, all swimming away from us! And you've ruined Darrell's view too!"

"No, bother. Never looks up from the lake, your friend."

"Well, we'll see then."

"Then try, and see."

"Darrell?", Bernard asked.

Darrell didn't answer, sitting in contemplation, not talking, just staring at the lake.

"What about the fish?"

Darrell continued to look.

"Darrell?"

"What?", Darrell turned, "What is it?"

"The fish. What about the fish?"

"The fish...", Darrell said, "...I don't know. Nothing about the fish...no....nothing..."

"The fish. Haven't you noticed that the fish... The fish have been... Rickman has .... He's scared of....", Bernard gestured into the lake.

Darrell nodded, shaking his head, resting his hands.

"No.... Not much... not many. I don't know about Rickman. No, I haven't seen anything."

Darrell continued to stare into the lake. Looking into the shimmering water, looking into the sun's reflection, looking into the deep blue.

Evening came, the moon appeared, shimmering, and leaving a column of white on the water. But the currents distorted the moon's reflection.

"The day ends quick, evening already!" Rickman pushed the boat forward with another push of the paddle.

"Need to hurry then, need to hurry...", Rickman muttered.

Osmond nodded.

"The night comes with its dangers. Animals, the chaos of magic, many things. Far from Avera, they ward off the dark with the grotesque. Each hung on their doors to ward off the Abysian creatures."

"Not that, a serpent wakes at night and devours wailons, fish, all things. So large and titanic. When I first journeyed out with a grand boat... The boat was my father's, and my father's father, and so on, and so on... Then I encountered it. Foolish, was I, to sail at night. That encounter left me with this paddyboat instead..."

"Snake? Serpent, rising above waves, leaving land ravaged." David waved his hand in the water and stared into the water. A dark shape moved below him.

"Yes, but we'll get there," Rickman pushed the paddle deep into the water. "Yes, alright, we'll get there! Just wait, wait, just wait...."

David pulled out his hand and saw a wave erupt from the lake.

"...How'll we know?! How'll we know?! The snake, the snake comes at night... Why didn't we go earlier? Why, why, why?!", David pulled his hand out of the water, grabbing it like a fish out of water, wringing it dry, "The snake is down there, and it's dark, getting darker still!"

"Nothing to fret, nothing to worry about. The snake arrives when he's hungry, and I've seen it, examined it. For I've sailed these waters for many years. And, we won't be late, a small island lies ahead. We'll stay there for the night, then wake in the morning. "

"We-... Okay...Alright. Alright, then... Alright...", His mind soothed itself with its rhythmic chantings. He said it again, quieter, repeating the words," It'll be alright then, alright... alright..."

"No worries'', Rickman pushed the paddle, again the boat glided forward, "No worries at all. Go to sleep, for we'll arrive in the morning. It'll be a long night. A long, long night."

David relaxed, leaning back, calming himself, into sleep, tired from the day. He closed his eyes, sleeping, into oblivion. Gone were his thoughts, gone was his energy, gone were his burdens, gone were the weights he carried.

He slept. Light entered. The Prophet, standing in front of him, every detail imprinted itself into his eyes, every edge, curve, line, glowing blue, red, and gold. Yet again, the same dream, all the familiar details, again and again, dull in its colors and shapes. He waited for it to finish, waited for it to stop, waited for the ending. He watched as the Prophet turned a little, not showing his face, but shifting. Shifting as light burst, filling his vision again, then...

"Wake up! Wake up!", Bernard shook him, "We've reached the island!"

He stood up, in the night air, on a small island. Populated with trees in the middle, hundreds of vines crawling on the ground, crabs sidling along the sand, and a sandy shore with cones of rock emerging out of the sand. They'd taken the boat onto the shore already.

He turned to look at Pnoaphales. Only one more day, then onto Pnoaphales, lined with precipices and columns of rock, with clouds surrounding the top, carved by the rain, touched with snow. All of it, inconstant in the environment, with trees in deserts, areas of grey basalt, and hexagonal towers of granite.

The lodestar shimmered beneath the moon, with rays lighting the island with white. He strode toward straw-woven blankets and a fire. He stared into the deep blaze, watching it flicker and waver. David lost focus, and fell asleep, falling into slumber.