The Drowning of Harrowmere
The coast of what used to be Harrowmere did not meet the sea so much as it yielded to it. Echorin walked the beach with his shoes in his hands, the wet sand between his toes. He hadn't been back since the first time. When all this got set into motion. This used to be one of his favorite places. The beach is beautiful against the Onyxmere Sea, turning its sand into deep purple everyone confuses for black. It's the last remaining seaport on the border with Auralith. The town is suffering now and it's his fault. Harrowmerre is what happens to a town when a reckless man refuses to face his problems.
He mapwalked here. It was his first time. He did not know that even though time did not remain the same in the real world, that when he walks through the map, time distorts. He didn't know time moved faster inside. Stepping into the map, he heard the seam stitch itself closed. Like a needle through skin. By letting the portal snap shut behind him, Echorin left the world open for time to move faster than it should have. He knows now, to leave it open with a silver needle to keep the seam open. By keeping the wound in reality open, real-world time continuously "bleeds" into the map, stabilizing the area around him. The first time when he failed to do this, he had inadvertently subjected the entire town to forced emotional surging; they experienced 10 years of emotions in only a few hours.
Its people were hollow mostly. Wandering the town, not understanding why they feel grief for people still alive or overwhelming love on a first date. 10 years of emotional debt had seeped into Harrowmere. When the world found out what happened here, the Cartographers stopped charting it. The Couriers, yes even the fearless Blackwake Shadowmen refused to cross its borders. The sea, remembering the Seafarersâ ancient songs, resisted the erasure, but the land itself was suffering a constant, Hollowing Hum. It's hum that isn't quite there. It's killed before the vibration can begin. Not for Echorin. Echorin had many gifts. Rootmotherâs last note gave him the ability to feel the resonance even on the smallest of scales. To Echorin, the air here felt thin, like static where a chord had been ripped out. He stopped at the remains of a dock. The pilings should have been wood. Instead, they were rendered in a hazy gray like a memory that had been copied too many times.
Mapwalking
A mapwalker can choose a location on a map, enter the map realm, and exit at that spot in the real world. While inside the map, he can rearrange the geography of the land and witness its history. The map realm is a world between space and time. Where every reality comes together. He can see music notes flying in each direction, they hummed a melody so powerful every note, creating the next one. No conductor, no composer could be seen. Only a symphony of notes swirling in every direction. They appeared to move in random movements. Then, Echorin could see they are not random. It was suddenly clear to him. He can now see everything, humanity, death, the gods, everything is sheet music writing the Song That Bent The World. We aren't meant to complete the song, we're meant to keep it from ending. We are all notes in the same song, riding different waves, waiting to collapse into each other. The world wrote the song. Now we have to remember the tune.
âThey say if you step out far enough, you fall into a Tuesday you already lived,âa voice whispered, too close. Echorin turned to see a Tide-Runner, a woman whose face was drawn tight, not by hunger, but by repetition. She wore a heavy cloak, but her drying skin flaked and was visible beneath her sleeve. âIt was not Tuesday,â Echorin said gently. âIt was a Thursday of high tide.â The Tide-Runner stared at him. She began to wring her hands, a nervous tic Echorin recognized as the Earwormâs first pressure. Her face, confused at first, softened with the realization her words meant something her mouth couldn't form. âI keep telling everyone it was a Tuesday,â she said, her voice dropping. I keep saying, âIt was a Tuesday, and I saw the captainâs face, and he looked so surprised. But it was Thursday. It was Thursday, and I told him to stay.â Her words hit the shoreline like pebbles, each one landing in the exact same spot.
The Earwormâs had a hold of her. He could tell by the compulsion, repetition, and confession all written on her face. It thrived on the pain of her guilt, trapping the memory in a cycle of self-destruction. Echorinâs presence made it uncomfortable. Echorin has had his own earworm before and learned not to feed himself. Something broke its rhythm. It began its third loop, and when it should have sped up, it paused. For a heartbeat, it skipped. Something had made it waver, causing a quiver in its resolve. The womanâs voice rested on "surprised," and if not for the shock, he could have stopped it right then.
Only this time when it stuttered âS-is-surprise.â The break was barely above a whisper, enough to cause a crack. The Earworm is almost fearful. Still hiding behind the woman's eyes. It was deciding if the risk was worth it. The pattern jolted and Echorin saw the flash in her face. Her true face shows. suddenly jarred out of its rhythm, fractured. The woman didn't change her expression, but the resonance around her did. Echorin saw it: a thin, coiling seam of darkness split the air above her shoulder. It wasn't the woman's shadow; it was the Earwormâs true face showing a seam where it was trying to hold its stolen song together. The seam stretched into a mouth, not of teeth, but of pure Parasitic Longing. It wasn't malice Echorin saw, but the desperate, confused need of a thing that stayed too long.
âIt felt good a moment ago. Why does it have to end?â the seam hummed to him. Echorin met the womanâs hazy gray eyes and spoke directly to the stutter in her soul. âThe captain didn't need your help to remember the tide,â he said, his voice soft but precise. âHe needed you to remember the shore. You are still standing on the shore, Tide-Runner. Never draw a straight line through painâ.
The Earwormâs seam shook violently. Echorin's words, grounded in truth and recognized her pain but kept it from surfacing. The only thing that truly hurts the Earworm, listening to it. This time it didn't want violence; it wanted to stay in the familiar, warm loop. Echorin had taught it a new, terrifying thing: the end. Its dark seam clamped shut like the ice when you walk on it. Cracking and breaking into pieces. The woman gasped, shocked, she blinked rapidly. She lowered her hands, her tension gone. She looked at Echorin, her eyes beginning to clear. For the first time, she saw him not as a confessional object, but as a person.
âThursday,â she whispered, her voice clear. âIt was Thursday. I am going to walk back to town now. I will not look behind me." She did not wait for an answer, nor did she repeat herself. She turned and walked back up the fading, half-real road, one step after the other, proving the shore still existed by the simple act of choosing to walk it. Echorin watched her go, a heaviness in his chest. He felt something he hadn't in a long time. For her, a flicker of hope that she'll learn to choose herself too. He had to keep hope, that one day they'd all be purified. He felt the land around his feet soften. He checked the map, ink was smoother now and it did not crawl away this time. With that, he knew the place would be easier to endure, now. Not healed, not restored, but less estranged from itself.
Though he could not say the same for himself. This was the first town he mapwalked in. The gendarme must have picked up his scent. It was his fault this place is full of ghosts and hollows. He knew he wasn't ready to conceal his walk but he did it anyway. And now, a poor lady is wandering aimlessly, slowly losing her mind. He should go, leave these shores before he brings any more death with him.