The Academy of Babil rose from the city's central district like a monument to order—a sprawling complex of stepped clay buildings, its walls the color of sun-bleached bone. Through high, narrow windows, sunlight carved precise rectangles on the floor, tantalizing reminders of freedom beyond these walls. Teak watched the light's slow migration across the chamber floor, counting heartbeats until release.

  Master Eridian's voice wove through the warm air. "—which is why the Council of Nine established the first Explorer's Guild during the Second Age," he continued, gesturing at a fraying map of territories Teak had never seen. "And why, after three centuries of dormancy, the Zenith Academy has resumed its search for suitable candidates."

  Teak's attention surfaced from its drowning. The Zenith Academy existed in story rather than experience for most citizens—an institution so selective that its very existence had acquired mythic quality. Its graduates were said to possess knowledge of lands beyond the Seven Rivers, venturing into territories unmarked on any map. The jurors from Zenith visited a city perhaps once in a generation, explaining the unusual tension in Master Eridian's typically placid demeanor.

  "Jurors will evaluate all senior students," Eridian continued, his eyes sweeping the chamber with uncharacteristic intensity. "They arrive by midday. Candidates showing aptitude will be invited to participate in further assessment."

  Teak traced idle patterns on his clay tablet—not the historical dates and trade routes Eridian expected, but flowing designs that emerged without conscious direction from his stylus. He had drawn such patterns since childhood—spirals within spirals, lines that crossed and recrossed in ways that seemed to pull the eye inward. His mother called it his "dreaming talent" and claimed it flowed from his father's bloodline, though she never elaborated when Teak pressed for details.

  The river called to him, as it always did on days when confinement pressed too heavily against his spirit—a whisper beneath conscious hearing, persistent and impossible to ignore once noticed. He glanced toward the window, calculating. Master Eridian would be occupied with preparations all morning. The eastern gates would be left unguarded during the midday meal.

  When the lesson ended, Teak moved with the precision of long practice—neither rushed nor furtive, his movements calibrated to avoid attention. He waited in a shadowed alcove as instructors hurried past, their robes billowing with self-importance. When the hallway emptied, he slipped into a narrow side passage that few students bothered to memorize. Three measured turns and a carefully timed courtyard crossing later, he emerged through a storage room into the Academy's eastern garden.

  The garden wall presented little challenge to someone who had first scaled it at twelve, when his legs were shorter and his fear of discovery greater. Now he ascended with practiced efficiency, fingers finding familiar crevices in the sun-baked clay. He paused at the top, scanning for observers with the instinctive caution of prey, then dropped silently to the dusty ground beyond.

  Freedom tasted of dry air and infinite possibility.

  He had taken only a dozen steps when he noticed the boy.

  At least, it appeared to be a boy—someone perhaps his own age, standing perfectly motionless amid the scrubby tamarisk trees that lined the eastern approach to the Academy. There was something fundamentally wrong about the figure's stillness. Not the casual stillness of someone at rest, but the absolute stillness of an object. He neither shifted his weight nor swayed with the light breeze, maintaining a precision of posture that seemed mathematically rather than biologically determined.

  Curiosity overrode caution. Teak approached, circling slightly to enter the stranger's field of vision rather than startling him.

  "Are you waiting for someone?" Teak asked.

  The boy didn't startle, though Teak's approach had been nearly silent. He turned with deliberate slowness, revealing features that were pleasant but oddly forgettable—the sort of face that would disappear in memory moments after seeing it. His eyes, however, were arresting—amber with flecks of gold, studying Teak with an intensity that felt simultaneously distant and invasive, as though Teak were a text being read rather than a person being seen.

  "No," the stranger replied after a pause precisely three heartbeats too long. His voice contained no regional accent Teak could identify, each syllable enunciated with unnatural perfection. "I am not waiting."

  "The jurors from Zenith Academy don't arrive until midday," Teak offered, assuming the stranger might be associated with the visitors.

  The boy's head tilted slightly, the movement mechanical rather than fluid. "I have no association with any 'Zenith Academy.'" He pronounced the name as though reciting unfamiliar syllables. His attention shifted to the clay buildings behind Teak, eyes moving in precise increments rather than the natural scanning motion of human vision. "This architecture—what materials compose it?"

  "Clay," Teak replied, increasingly unsettled by each small wrongness in the stranger's manner. "Sun-baked clay and reeds. Like most buildings in Babil."

  The stranger nodded, though the gesture seemed practiced rather than instinctive. "Interesting. Primitive but effective for this climate."

  Something in his tone—the complete absence of emotional coloration—raised Teak's hackles. "Are you lost?"

  "No," the boy said, returning his unsettling gaze to Teak. "I am exactly where I intended to be. You should attend to your own concerns."

  "I'm just trying to help," Teak insisted, though increasingly uncertain why he bothered.

  "Your assistance is neither required nor desired." The stranger's voice remained perfectly level, devoid of either irritation or appreciation. "I suggest you pursue whatever destination prompted your inappropriate departure from educational facilities."

  Teak felt a chill despite the morning's growing heat. How had the stranger known he was leaving school without permission? He hadn't been wearing his Academy insignia. Before he could formulate a response, the boy turned away, his attention fixed once more on the Academy's eastern wall as if Teak had ceased to exist.

  Teak retreated, unnerved by the encounter. He moved swiftly through the sparse vegetation that separated the Academy grounds from the city proper, thoughts churning with speculation about the strange boy. Perhaps he was from beyond the Seven Rivers—some foreign dignitary's son with peculiar manners.

  The familiar path to the Neu Zypher River provided welcome distraction. The river marked Babil's eastern boundary, separating the city from untamed lands where Explorer's Guild members sometimes ventured. Unlike the broader, more placid rivers that converged at the city's heart, the Neu Zypher ran swift and clear over beds of smooth stone. Few citizens ventured here, preferring the gentle banks of the inner rivers for recreation and trade.

  Which suited Teak perfectly.

  His favored spot lay where the river curved around an outcropping of red sandstone, creating a small inlet sheltered from view on three sides. Sunlight dappled the water's surface through overhanging acacia leaves, creating shifting patterns that matched those Teak often found himself drawing without thought. He had discovered this sanctuary three years ago, during his first successful escape from the Academy, and had returned whenever the walls of his life contracted too tightly around him.

  He settled onto the familiar stone shelf that extended just above the water line, removing his sandals and submerging his feet in the cool current. The water's touch brought immediate relief—not just from the heat, but from some deeper tension he carried within his bones. Teak leaned back on his elbows, then reclined fully, pillowing his head on his arms. Above, clouds drifted across the relentless blue, their shapes morphing in slow motion—a bird becoming a fish becoming a face becoming nothing recognizable at all.

  Peace settled into his marrow. This, not the airless Academy chambers, was where he belonged. The river's song—both the physical sound of water over stone and the deeper rhythm only he seemed to hear—soothed the restlessness that had plagued him since earliest memory. Here, the strange dreams that haunted his nights and the inexplicable patterns his hands created without conscious direction seemed less like burdens and more like unsolved mysteries with answers waiting just beyond reach.

  He might have dozed, lulled by warmth and water-song, when the first discordant note intruded on his consciousness. Not a sound precisely, but a disturbance in the river's natural cadence—like a wrong note in a melody he knew by heart. Teak's eyes snapped open, his entire body tensing with awareness of wrongness.

  The water around his submerged feet had stilled.

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  Not slowed, not calmed—stilled completely, as though transformed to glass. Yet it retained its liquid properties, cool against his skin. Five paces beyond where he sat, the river continued its normal flow, curling around invisible obstacles and chattering over stones. But here, in this precise location, it had stopped.

  Teak withdrew his feet with extreme caution, the movement seeming unnaturally loud in the sudden silence. For the river had fallen quiet, not just where it had stilled but along its entire visible length. The ambient sounds of rustling leaves and distant birdsong had likewise vanished, leaving a vacuum that pressed against his eardrums.

  The stillness persisted for ten rapid heartbeats.

  Then the water began to move again—not in its natural downstream course, but upward. It rose in a perfect column from the river's surface, defying gravity and reason. Within the transparent pillar, something took shape, gathering substance from water and light. A small figure, child-sized but unmistakably not a child.

  The column collapsed, water sheeting outward rather than falling, obeying laws of physics Teak had never studied. Where the column had been, a being now stood upon the river's surface as though it were solid ground.

  Silver was Teak's first impression—but not silver as in metal or coin. Silver as in moonlight given form, quicksilver captured in a shape approximately human but fundamentally not. Standing perhaps four feet tall, its body appeared simultaneously solid and liquid, its surface rippling subtly even when motionless. It had limbs and what might generously be called a head, but proportions that triggered a visceral wrongness in Teak's mind. Its face, if it could be called such, contained only suggestions of features—depressions where eyes might be, a slight protrusion approximating a nose, a horizontal line where a mouth should exist.

  The being moved with abrupt, jerking motions, like a puppet controlled by an unskilled hand. It paced along the water's surface, occasionally crouching to peer into depths that should have been insufficient to interest any intelligence. It muttered in a voice like water flowing over metal, words too low or too alien for Teak to comprehend.

  Terror and fascination held him immobile. This was no human, no animal, nothing that belonged in the world as he understood it. Yet it existed, mere paces away, oblivious to his presence.

  Until it wasn't.

  The being froze mid-motion, its head rotating toward Teak with mechanical precision rather than organic movement. The depressions that suggested eyes deepened, becoming abyssal holes from which no light escaped. The line of its mouth elongated, widening far beyond what any human face could achieve, revealing not teeth but crystalline structures that rotated independently of each other.

  "NO!" The word exploded from the being, its voice now a cacophony of discordant tones layered atop each other. "NOT HERE! NOT NOW!"

  It convulsed in what appeared to be rage, its silvery substance rippling violently. Limbs elongated, then contracted, fingers stretching into impossible filaments before retracting. The face—if such it could be called—cycled through configurations that bore no relationship to human expression, some containing geometries that hurt Teak's eyes to witness.

  "MY RIVER!" it shrieked, each word sending concentric ripples across the water's surface. "MINE! GO AWAY!"

  Teak tried to speak, but his throat had constricted in primal fear. The being stalked toward him, its movements unnaturally angular, crossing the distance in three jerking steps that somehow covered more space than should have been possible.

  "Stupid flesh-thing," it hissed, its voice modulating to something almost childlike, yet overlaid with harmonics that vibrated painfully in Teak's skull. "Always watching. Always interfering."

  It stopped at the river's edge, looming over Teak despite its small stature. This close, he could see that its surface wasn't merely silver but contained swirling patterns like oil on water, colors that existed at the edge of perception, shifting constantly.

  "Should drown you," it said, leaning forward, its face inches from Teak's. "Make you part of river. Then no more watching."

  The being's eyes—those abyssal depressions—never quite met Teak's gaze. They slid away, focusing just past his shoulder, above his head, at his chin, creating the unsettling impression of something fundamentally incapable of true connection, or perhaps unwilling to establish it.

  Suddenly, the creature straightened, its head tilting as though listening to something beyond human hearing. Its expression—insofar as its face could be said to have expression—shifted to what might have been surprise.

  "You," it said, staring at a point just left of Teak's face. "You have... resonance. Why?"

  Before Teak could even contemplate what this meant, the being stepped backward onto the river's surface. It raised its arms with unnatural symmetry, and the water responded—rising in a perfect cylinder around it, a transparent wall through which its silver form remained visible.

  Within this watery chamber, the being pressed what approximated its face against the inner surface, flattening its features against the wall like a flower pressed between pages. Its substance seemed to flow rather than compress, creating impossible patterns where silver matter met water. Its eyes—those abyssal depressions—widened in what might have been delight at its own creation.

  "I like water walls," it said, voice lilting with an emotion Teak couldn't identify. "They feel nice. Like home."

  Its words were simple yet somehow conveyed childlike pleasure in the act of pressing against its self-made prison. It pulled back slightly, then pushed forward again, leaving impressions in the water that remained after contact—concave shapes that should have immediately filled with liquid but instead persisted like sculptures.

  The being spun suddenly, its form becoming a silver blur within the cylinder. When it stopped, it slammed both appendages that might be called hands against the inner surface, creating ripples that traveled upward rather than outward.

  "The white one ruins everything!" it declared with sudden vehemence, its voice modulating between whisper and shriek within the same sentence. "He watches me! He follows me! He makes too many rules! Don't touch this! Don't go there!"

  The tantrum escalated as Rivener began bouncing within its water chamber, each impact against the barrier sending geometric patterns racing across the cylinder's surface—triangles becoming squares becoming shapes with too many angles to name.

  "It's not fair!" Rivener's substance rippled with agitation, parts of its form momentarily losing cohesion before snapping back into humanoid shape. "I found a good river! A quiet river! No one was watching here!" Its arms elongated suddenly, wrapping around its own torso multiple times in what appeared to be a self-comforting gesture. "But he always finds me. He always sends someone. He always ruins my fun."

  The silver being's head tilted back, its mouth opening far wider than any human mouth could, releasing not a scream but a sound like water flowing backward. Then it hunched forward, making itself impossibly small within its water chamber, its voice dropping to a resonant whisper.

  "He sees everything," it murmured, rocking slightly. "He says I must stay inside lines. He says I'm too wild." It shuddered, its form momentarily losing definition entirely. "He says next time, no more chances."

  There was something undeniably poignant in the being's fear—this creature of impossible physics and alien form, cowering like a scolded child. For a moment, despite its unsettling appearance, Teak felt an unexpected flicker of sympathy.

  The moment passed quickly as Rivener straightened, its demeanor shifting again. It slammed limbs against the water wall, sending vibrations through the entire structure. Its face compressed into a configuration suggesting rage.

  "HE sent you," it accused, voice penetrating the water barrier without distortion. "The white trickster. Always interfering. Always RUINING."

  The being pressed both hands against the inner surface of its water chamber, fingers elongating until they nearly pierced through. "Tell him Rivener is NOT FINISHED. Tell him the rivers remember what he did."

  Teak found his voice at last, though it emerged as a hoarse whisper. "I don't know who you mean. I don't know any trickster."

  Rivener—if that was indeed its name—went utterly still, a stillness no living thing could achieve. Only the subtle shifting of colors across its surface indicated it wasn't a statue.

  "Lying," it said eventually, voice dropping to a whisper that nonetheless carried perfectly. "Or ignorant. Either way, useless."

  The water chamber collapsed without warning, not splashing outward but flowing back into the river with impossible neatness. Rivener stood exposed, its silver form gleaming in the sunlight. For the first time, its gaze locked directly with Teak's—those abyssal depressions suddenly filled with swirling luminescence that pulled at something deep within him.

  The contact lasted only a moment before Rivener looked away, its posture suggesting discomfort or perhaps disgust. It turned, moving with that same unsettling, angular gait back toward the river's center.

  "This river is claimed," it announced without looking back. "Find another. Or don't. Rivener doesn't care if flesh-things drown."

  With those words, it stepped forward and descended into the water—not with a splash, but with the river parting around its form as it submerged. The water closed over the silver being as if eager to embrace it, leaving no trace of its presence save the lingering wrongness in the air and the trembling in Teak's limbs.

  For long minutes after Rivener's departure, Teak couldn't move, his body locked in the aftermath of terror and wonder. Every instinct urged flight, yet something deeper held him in place—the same inexplicable connection that had always drawn him to water, now revealing its potentially dangerous nature.

  When he finally gathered the courage to look into the river again, the water flowed clear and normal, as though nothing extraordinary had disturbed its course. But something fundamental had changed. The river's song, the subliminal music that had always called to him, now carried an undertone he'd never noticed before—a minor key beneath the major, a whisper of secrets beneath the surface.

  He retrieved the sandals he had cast aside, fingers trembling slightly as he secured them. The sun still shone, the breeze still whispered through acacia leaves, yet the world had altered irrevocably. Beneath the tranquil surface of ordinary life flowed currents of extraordinary strangeness—beings of silver that walked on water and cowered at the mention of someone in white armor with a bright visor.

  As Teak made his way back toward the Academy, his mind replayed Rivener's peculiar tantrum. "He sees everything," the silver being had said. "He says I must stay inside lines." Those words tickled at something in Teak's memory—not a specific recollection, but the shadow of one, like a dream forgotten upon waking yet leaving its emotional residue behind.

  He paused at the garden wall, looking back toward the river, now hidden beyond the scrubby trees and rocky outcroppings. For the first time in his life, Teak understood that he stood at a threshold—not just between Academy grounds and the world beyond, but between the comfortable ignorance of his previous existence and whatever perilous knowledge waited on the path ahead.

  With a steadying breath, he began to climb, aware that he returned to the Academy as someone fundamentally different from the boy who had left it hours before—someone who had glimpsed the first fragment of a vastly larger picture, and who could never again be satisfied with the frame alone.

  The jurors from Zenith Academy would arrive soon, seeking candidates for Explorer. Teak wondered what they would make of someone who had already begun exploring the most dangerous territory of all—the hidden boundaries where ordinary reality met something else entirely.