“Hello Jimmy,” 
 “…Jon”
 “That… may be the case… Jimmy, but Jon reminds me of the Cretisceans… AND I dislike the Cretisceans… So…. TIMMY, WHY ARE YOU HERE…. eh?”

 Dreaming had always been painful for the Maigne’s, the family suffered from a genetic disease that attacked the proteins created during sleep and led to the brain having to compensate for the missing chemicals, taking away from subconscious control, making dreams and nightmares seem like reality and detracting from the brains ability to retain images imprinted during consciousness, leading pleasant lives to become nightmarish and vice-versa.
 The Maigne’s led mainly pleasant lives, the family was rich and the western-Zetinean islands (where the family had resided for several generations) were economically secure and, by some, were considered a paradise. With life so dream-like, sleep was teeth and claws and pain.
 It had no scientific name, due to it’s rarity, but the south Duó’kheans had given it a name, as they always did for things such as these: Dream-Sight disease was a suitable and accurate translation.
 Jon wasn’t one to fear many things, science and religion explained most things and so little was unknown and so not ‘scary anymore’. But despite this, dreams terrified him beyond all recognition, many times had a knife been brought to his wrists so his eyes didn’t long for sleep, at all times the visions lurking behind his eyelids. The blood and flesh and terror hiding in the darkness, waiting until the light outside was gone so their skin wouldn’t itch and their eyes wouldn’t ache. Inside, as his face retained it’s normality, he screamed inside, until his throat was raw.

 “Sad Bill?” 
 “I thought… I… I THOUGHT… I was Jimmy.” 
 “Too weak to be here are we Jon?”
 “It seems so.” 
 “…You were but I…I… CHANGED IT.” 
 “Indeed, logical I believe… SAD BILLY?” 
 “Good, a change.”

 The air was pungent, Lien was not yet at the horizon, but the smell was strong; the rotting matter of the city and the dying flora that once grew in the area but had quickly been poisoned by the life of the Under-World, it’s unfamiliar processes infecting the ground and water and thus finding it’s way into the greenery of the Lien region. The deathly dust that made up much of the south, now made up Lien, a sad revelation indeed for those concerned with such trivialities.
 Smoke in the sky, my destination approaches. His left foot fell, then, a time later, so did his right, his left foot taking to the air as it’s other dropped.
 Every limb ached.
 Despite his being alone, Jon continued to endeavour to retain his sanity, walking ever on, never thinking of sleep; fore if he had nothing else, he had his iron will. You egotistical bastard; iron will? His own thoughts spat at him. You have no such thing. Pull up your sleeve and see the site of your own failure you moronic boy! Meanwhile, his thoughts would wander onto other trails, What is above the sky?
 Fear was a passing obsession within the thoughts of Jon Maigne, for many Falls it would not phase him, the dreams to persistent and still horrifying, although less imprinted on his mind, and so, considered less. He would wake in a sweat, and then forget why, a young child with night terrors if one were to relate it to such incidents’.
 Very few witnessed the psychological effect dreams had on the Maigne’s: Peter Ӿho, Janet Doù lt and Vincent Stone composed many of the number and they had seen it very little, Peter only on occasion, Vincent had once by accidental means and Janet had seen Maigne wake from his dreams many times as his lover, but never had witnessed the hours subsequent to such dreams, when his soul was most tortured. Pathetic Maigne, you are not tortured. Mother shared your fate and she functioned as any other woman would in the States, you simply wish to attain your own pity and wallow in it as a pig. Where is the clarity and brilliance of doctor Maigne of the institute now eh? Where is the mind set respected across the world when it is needed by it’s owner my son? Where is the logic?
 The ruined spires of the Lien cathedral peaked over the horizon, Jon Maigne bent his legs slightly as he walked so his horizon was clear once more then returned to his original posture.
 Each step built up the tower to it’s former imposing size. Physically, at that point in time, it was a pathetic honour to whatever God it hailed, Jon Maigne smirked, even when it was whole the tower of the church of Lien was an insult to the gods, now it is as if they have been raped and left in the street with their britches about their legs. Air escaped from his mouth in a sort of attempted laugh, Even the chauvinistic, racist pig is changing me. He paused a moment and looked the tower from top to bottom, Kyrael always was one for archaic insults. Strange that calling someone a racist slur was always more offensive when no one could actually understand what was said, being the translator was always a pain though, Stone was always too insulted to do me the honour. And continued.
 Cobbles were soon underfoot, the stillness of the abandoned city of Lien was haunting, only the occasional raven or pigeon breaking the brittleness of the air and unleashing sound upon the intent ears of the walls. Perhaps in some other reality they would shudder and curse at the interruption of their noon nap.
 Maigne was unsurprised to see a corpse trapped in the rubble of what was once a home; by the facial structure, the bones had been a young woman, of an age when her family would insist that she bare children in fact, it went unnoticed when surrounded by the destruction that had come to pass all across Lien, a tragedy among a statistic sadly.
 As each mile passed dë ja-vu became the norm, the sights and smells of the canyon surrounding him, one moment there being none and then the next, every inch covered with orange moss and blue leaves and insects of indistinguishable shape and form and genus.
 All knew and some actually did, that when it came into view, it would be breathtaking.
 The abyss. The secrets it must hide, the knowledge it must enshrine… or entomb… or imprison perhaps.
 His pack was very heavy, Maigne’s shoulders longed freedom, the tentative kiss of the air upon his back.
 A large bowl of infinite deepness walled by leaning ruins and crumbling stone, infected with innumerable plants and crannies housing animals, calls escaping from the Under-World; screams and shouts and conversations and arguments and cries of passion and of anger projecting out onto the Tanian south and into the sky, unheard (and so unappreciated) by all, ’cept I.
 Night fell and Jon Maigne bedded by the rim of the abyss.

 Your arm dangles over the edge, the air is warm and humid, you will not sleep this night. He lay in the mud, his pack cushioning his head and supporting his neck. The birds that flew in the night sky, relishing the open skies, sang their songs and scanned the ground for food. Rats scurried hither and thither throughout the tunnels of the sewers and the coincidental funnels and caverns created by the rubble of the city, only for seconds in minutes showing their matted fur and bald infested skin by way of moonlight and making themselves vulnerable to the sharp talons of the flying creatures once of the Under-World that now had an eternal sky to conquer, but never would.
 Silence did not exist in Lien but it was easy to envision it, the sight a misty blanket cloaking all below it and the caws of ravens picking the last scraps of rotting sustenance from the food stores and the defiled mass-graves of lien’s people; the city abandoned as a cursed site.
 This was not yet the actuality but Maigne saw it would soon be, a Cycle perhaps two with the changing climate of Tany, if their was a considerable wet season between then and later the time would be quite a while longer. Ironically, if there was a flooding rain then the time would reduced dramatically, the mass of water would push the necrotic matter from it’s holes and into the abyss, the water leaking into the liquid fire of below, forming a great cloud of steam, which would rise into the city and make such a sight as that which Maigne suspected (without the ravens’ feasting though unfortunately, which would deter from the artistic nature of such a site, it’s only potential par with such birds being that of the off-shore graveyard of Sestés: Blanche).
 No sleep this night, Jon Maigne rose to his feet and dusted himself down, smearing the wet mud into his clothes and leaving a thin glaze on his hands. The moons’ glow were bright, the blue, the white and the orange bodies beaming out across the landscape, each a finger space apart in the sky when focus was close, a more accurate number would be nearer to seventy-thousand miles according to the Dulīndaŋtæn observatory, although recent breakthroughs bred suspicion that that figure was drastically wrong.
 He took a walk, once around the brim of the abyss would hopefully lead him to dawn when he could begin his descent; when each step could be seen clearly and whether a hold was secure or not could be ascertained with assurance.

 Jon Maigne left his pack and equipment in their place and marked the site with a fluorescent pink flag he had brought for just that purpose, then began left (or south for those who cared of such details).
 He walked at a leisurely pace but with caution, dawn was many hours off but the darkness hid many dangers and made insecure floor invisible. His right was a sheer drop, his left a clutter of unfamiliar plants and festering proofs of civilisation.
 The abyss’ walls, upon further inspection were uneven, as was only to be expected, but were covered in varying mosses and ferns that had found themselves unpopulated neighbourhoods, this fact meant further hazards would have to be considered on his climb, it was lucky he had foreseen this and brought his own climbing gear instead of what little he had been issued, which was specialised for ice and bare rock climbs, perfect for usual expeditions, which usually meant north Tany, mainland Firate and eastern Hetis but little to no use in moist conditions, the barbs too prominent, the material too coarse to grip the wet rock that the abyss had only ever known, it was almost virgin rock, pristine and mysterious to those who wished to face it.