He stood on a platform of polished obsidian, no larger than a dinner table. Beyond its edge, the chasm opened into a cavern so vast that his lantern light didn’t even reach the walls. He might have been standing on a single grain of sand in the middle of an ocean of darkness.
Falling in the Deepanalabyss was not like falling in the world above. There was no ground to meet, no sudden stop. Instead, the darkness grew denser , like sinking into honey. His descent slowed until he was drifting, suspended in a warm, thick blackness that pulsed with a slow rhythm— thump-thump, thump-thump —like a heart the size of a city. Deepanalabyss
Kaelen felt something brush his ankle. Not a hand. A thought that had grown fingers. He stood on a platform of polished obsidian,
A voice spoke. Not a whisper this time. A voice that had mass, that pressed against his chest and made his ribs ache. Falling in the Deepanalabyss was not like falling
A pause. The pulse quickened.
Kaelen tried to speak. His throat was full of darkness.
Not words. More like the memory of words, spoken in a language that had died before humans learned to make fire. The whispers came from inside the walls. From inside his own skull. They said things like:
