The night was dark, with a thin moon shedding not nearly enough light to ease the nerves of those on watch. The stars drifted overhead. At times they were obscured by thin clouds that only deepened the waiting shadows. And when dawn finally came, they stared anew at the cliffs of stone and sand waiting for them.

“In retrospect, the Sink does seem a fitting name,” Sojo said. They stood atop the cliffs, staring at the desert floor far beneath them. The curving walls stretched into the distance to either side, containing within them a sea of rolling waves and subtle currents writ large on the sandy floor.

“It looks like the sea after a storm,” Mirrel said. His voice was quiet, and his eyes were glazed over as he gazed at the unmoving dunes. “The next morning, when the wind is gone but the waves haven’t settled, and rollers taller than your head drift by to crash on the rocks. I could swear they shift when I look away, rolling into the distance.” Sojo put a hand on his shoulder to steady him.

She turned to Brehen, who seemed less affected by the vista before them. “Do you see anywhere the horses can go down safely?”

He and Eyn both pointed to a slope visible to the right of their campsite. “That looks to be the smoothest place,” Eyn said, shading her eyes with a hand to peer at the distant hills.

Brehen nodded. “It would be tough, but they could manage. We’d have to unload the cart first and bring down the supplies by hand, but it should be safe if we go slowly.” He bent down to feel at the sandy soil, and frowned as it crumbled under his touch. “You don’t really want to, do you? The cart won’t roll well on the sand, if at all, and getting it back up will be much worse.”

All three of them looked at Sojo. “I- I’m not sure,” she said. She shook her head, confused at how intensely she’d been preparing to enter the unfamiliar landscape. “I don’t know that we’ll find more things of interest in the Sink than above. Thoughts?”

Eyn shook her head immediately. “Slow passage, high dunes blocking our view, and an uncertain exit strategy? It’s a terrible idea unless we know exactly what we’re going in for.” Brehen called out his agreement, but didn’t add anything. He had stepped back to the horses, and seemed preoccupied with checking them over yet again.

“How far in can we see from up here?” Mirrel asked.

“We’ve got at least a couple hundred feet on the floor below. Ten, maybe fifteen miles?” Eyn said, face screwed up in calculation. “I don’t remember the exact pattern, but either way it’s farther than we can make out details.”

Sojo stared out into the desert, and then back along the curved walls. “That’s not much, compared to the size of the place. But then, we won’t get very far if the cart can’t handle the sand either.” She sighed, but tried to keep her expression straight. It was hard to think with the expectant stares levelled at her.

“Let’s stick to the upper level for a while, at least. If we don’t see anything in a few days, we can change course then.”

-

There was a light wind blowing from the northwest, twisting specks of soil over the cliffs. Sojo watched them drift downwards and fall below the cliff edge, out of her view. “The wind seems a lot steadier now that we’re past the grasslands,” she noted aloud.

None of the others looked up at her words. For all they’d been trying to focus earlier, staring down at the great dunes was entrancing.

“I’m not as familiar with weather patterns inland,” Mirrel eventually answered, “but the coasts have very consistent trade winds. It might be the same here, with the wind blowing this way all summer long.” His gaze was still downwards, but now Sojo could see his brow creasing. “Eyn, wouldn’t that change the way those dunes built up?”

“They do seem to be spread across the wind. That’s the same as ocean waves, I think.” She looked up suddenly, and stared along the length of the cliffs. “If the winds went all the way across the basin, that could build up sand on the other side. We might find easier points of entry than the cliffs here if we follow the curve long enough.”

“How long would it take us to get around? Could we-”

“Eyn?” Brehen said.

They turned to him, Eyn seeming very disoriented by the multiple calls for her attention. “What is it?”

“Do you see the stones lying along the crest of the dune there? The sixth… no, seventh one from the cliffs.” Brehen pointed, but Sojo could barely make out the darker colours on the hilltop.

Eyn nodded. “That looks like stones, but what about them? If they’re shaped at all, I can’t see it from here.”

“It’s not that. It just seemed odd to me. How did they get up there? Carried along by shifting sand?”

“Not a chance,” Mirrel cut in. “They’d be buried long before they made it that far from the walls.” He blinked a few times, struck by the thought. “It’s much more likely they were placed there.”

The party had slowed as they looked, and came to a stop at the notion. “It could have been the scouts,” Sojo said. “There’d likely be stone loose near the cliffs, and marking passages seems like something they’d do.”

Eyn nodded, but her frown only deepened. “I wouldn’t expect them to do that unless they expected serious danger from losing their way, even for a few hours. And they aren’t quite at the crest, I don’t think.”

Sojo thought she could see the markers if she squinted, but Eyn’s details were beyond her view. “That would make them invisible to people already inside the Sink, wouldn’t it? So these would be markers of where the scouts went in?”

“I think so. I would have expected stone stacks from them, but maybe they were rushed? Even if it wasn’t the scouts, I don’t know how much we’d find in such bare traces.”

They nodded as one, and starting walking again.

“Is that what we’re expecting now?” Brehen asked. “Ruined buildings in the sand? I can’t imagine people surviving in the desert more than in passing.” It seems unwise to enter, Sojo thought he hadn’t quite said.

She’d been surprised by the urge to move for the center earlier, but it made sense the more she considered it. The Sink seemed like a natural funnel, a point where people would be drawn by wonder and find cause to revere. Gazing at it, she felt a stirring in her mind. Something being awoken by the act of looking upon it.

If, in the past, any had felt as she did, she could imagine temples half-sunk under the shifting sands. Treasures and foreign idols, altars to dead gods waiting to be seen and remembered. Something breath-taking and life-giving, enough to cause a minor pilgrimage through this desolate land just to be studied and understood. And she felt greed behind that; it had given life to this expedition through promises made for money borrowed. Greed was paltry, in comparison to the resonating reverence she felt, but she couldn’t forget it completely.

This was no holy journey. It would taint her actions, to even call it so. But she could feel it lingering, the trace of something grander to their steps than a purposeless trek. And when they found whatever had drawn them here, maybe it would satisfy the feeling. Maybe.

Even as she doubted, Sojo couldn’t find it within her to question that there was something calling to her, to consider that it was optimism, not fate, drawing her to the center of that desert.

“You know Brehen,” she finally said, “if it’s people we find in the end, at least they’ll surely be interesting.”

-

They woke to the sounds of rustling and shifting sand.

Around the camp were two small hills, edges of inclines down to the sink-floor, which they’d chosen as windbreaks for the breezy evening. The sky held traces of cloud again, but this time there was only the barest sliver of moon to see by. Sojo could hardly make out the grey outlines of the sparse vegetation clinging to the hillsides of sandy soil. She saw nothing there, and nothing moved, leaving shifting sand in its shadowed wake.

She whipped her head around at a sudden clatter, only to see Eyn fumbling in the dark for something at the mouth of her tent. Sojo crept to her side, waving silently to Mirrel as she went. He moved to wake Brehen.

Feeling at her feet, Eyn lifted the disconnected pieces of a wooden puzzle, placing them inside the mouth of her tent. She looked to Sojo.

“What’s going on?” she whispered, huddling close. Sojo sat, hardly able to think, waiting for a sound between the gusts of wind.

“I don’t know. I could have sworn-”

Rustling again from the northern hill. There was a roughness to it distinct from the whispers of sand, a quality that spoke of shifting weight and heels digging in, of clothing or fur dragging over the ground. Sojo was sure of it. She led Eyn to the rest of their party.

“Something’s out there, I keep hearing it move.” Mirrel’s fists were clenched tight, and something fierce had begun to creep into his eyes. Even crouched, his forearms had cords and veins protruding, and he bounced with barely-contained energy.

Eyn took his hand and gently pulled at the fingers. It was only then Mirrel noticed he’d been squeezing her glass lightmaker in his fist, hard enough that he might set it off at his side. He loosened his grip, and nodded at her.

Where Mirrel was frenetic, Brehen seemed barely able to keep awake. He’d passed out quickly last night after gorging himself on “the only good meal Mirrel’s ever managed,” and hadn’t yet recovered. His mornings went poorly on the best of days, and nearer midnight as they were, even his nerves weren’t enough to rouse him.

They huddled together in the darkness, listening to the fragile silence. “They don’t normally stay this long,” Eyn murmured.

Sojo nodded, and four heads turned at rustling noises just beyond their tents. She gasped, putting a hand over her mouth to stifle the noise. Their night visitors had never come so close before, either.

“What should we-” she started to ask, only to see Mirrel slowly drawing a knife from his belt. Eyn’s eyes went wide, and she drew hers as well with a quiet metallic rasp. As soon as it sounded, the rustling stopped.

“So they’re scared,” Mirrel whispered, “damn right!” They huddled in silence for an endless moment, before slow footfalls hissed through the sand by the southern hill.

“Hah!” He shouted, jumping to his feet and bolting towards the sound. Eyn called after him, but he didn’t so much as raise a hand in acknowledgement. The three exchanged glances, and started after him at a much more cautious pace.

The sliver of moon was obscured by cloud as they ran, and within moments it was intensely dark. Sojo felt Eyn’s hand gripping her shoulder, and took hold of Brehen in turn. Up ahead, Mirrel shouted again and was matched by snarling, before a white flash struck them all with the sound of shattering crystal. The snarling was gone, replaced by a horrible keening and footsteps fading into the distance.

Sojo covered her eyes with her free hand, an afterimage of the scene burned into her mind. Mirrel had been standing with his back to them, the creature rearing up onto its back legs. Long fur draped its body, and its face had been covered enough to be indistinguishable aside from a pair of gleaming eyes. She walked forward slowly, eyes still closed, having a rough idea of how far Mirrel was.

“Are you alright?” She called out. “Fine,” Brehen said, voice rough from sleep. Eyn squeezed her shoulder, but didn’t answer. She listened for Mirrel’s voice, but didn’t hear him over the crunching sand beneath their feet. All she could hear was an odd gurgling-

She tripped over something, and landed heavily on her side. Her eyes were open, but the pulsing from the light earlier left them useless still. Reaching out, she felt cloth and hair, before a hand grabbed hers in a crushing grip. Eyes starting to clear, she could barely make out Mirrel’s face in front of hers, gasping silently in the night. And below it, a twisted mess of sinew and tendons, pulsing with blood as she stared.

She froze, but only for a moment.

“Back to the camp. Now.”

-

Dawn found them huddled in their camp, backs together. After Eyn’s brief efforts had failed and Mirrel still refused to rise, she had made sure only she would be able to see him as the night passed.

They had heard nothing visiting their camp afterwards, though it wasn’t always easy to listen for them. The tears that fell were not silent. But as light returned to the desert and she saw the white glint of a fang still buried in Mirrel’s throat, Sojo found she had made her decision. They couldn’t stay here and expect to be safe, but neither could they leave empty-handed.

They would strike for the center of the Sink, and find there either their salvation or their demise.