Unaffected by the pallid sun above, the water was dark as a starless night, like quicksilver it gathered itself into small spherical droplets in his cupped hand and left behind a black trail like ink as it dripped between his fingers.Then from the pitch black lake suddenly came forth a face, squalid and sunken like a skull but of alarming size, with bulging bulbous eyes each as big as his head shining upon him with an inner light like a sickly blue spotlight. Valmar stumbled up the ornate stone steps as the monster unhinged its jaws and opened wide a cavernous maw filled with teeth like daggers, big enough to swallow him whole with ease.Th...