THE Primordial Source stretched out in every direction as an endless obsidian sea, black and still and heavy, with no shore and no horizon and no sky above it except more darkness. Its surface did not move unless something moved it, and nothing moved it except the figure standing tall above the water, a titan so large that his shoulders were lost in the dark and his feet rested on the sea without sinking.
That was Vakochev, and far below him, standing on the black water where it held them up, were two small figures who barely reached his ankle.
One of them was Anaximander, slim and dark-haired, with pupils that had turned into two small obsidian singularities and no authority of his own at all. The other was THE Creature, flat and unhurried and silent as always, standing beside his friend with his hands at his sides. Both of them were looking up past Vakochev at the thing that hung in the dark in front of him.
