The Place
Hollowmere is a lake in the unknown universe — still, dark, and slightly too quiet. It sits inland, in a fold of ground that the mappers of The Forgotten have never finished drawing, and the not-finishing is the first fact about it. The water is the color of the bottom, because the bottom is the depth and the depth is the one thing no rope has measured. The shore is a flat ring of white-grey stone, polished smooth by nothing, because there is no wind on the lake, and the not-wind is the quiet. The trees that stand around the water are thin and far apart, their trunks leaning in the way a crowd leans to hear. There is no fish in Hollowmere, no bird above it, no frog at its edge, and the not-having is the thing: everything a lake should have, this one does not. The light on the water at midday is a flat silver, and the silver does not move, because the water does not move, and the only ripple anyone has ever seen was made by a stone that was thrown and a stone that was not. The lake is two kilometers across at its widest, and the two kilometers was walked, and the walking was done twice, and the two walks did not agree.
What Is At The Bottom
The depth has never been measured, and the not-measuring is the first law of the lake. A line of lead let down from the western shore went out of sight, out of feel, out of the length the rope could give, and the rope came back dry. The bottom is not a bed of silt and it is not a shelf of stone, and the two nots are what the keepers record. Under the dark water there is a sound, a low count that is not a word and not a drum, and the counting is slow, and the slow is the frightening part, because a thing that counts has a number in mind, and a number in mind is a number that will be reached. The few who keep the lake do not fish in it, do not swim in it, and do not throw into it, and the three nots are the whole of their craft. What is at the bottom is a question the lake has not answered yet, and the not-answering is the way the bottom keeps itself. The few who keep the lake say there is something down there that sleeps, and the sleeping is the whole of the count, because a thing that counts is a thing that is counting toward the waking.
Who Has Seen It
Few people have seen Hollowmere, and the fewness is not an accident. The road that should reach it ends in the fold of ground with no gate and no sign, and the travelers who find the lake are the ones who were looking for it, and the looking is what it answers. The Forgotten have sent three parties to the shore, and the three parties came back, and the three came back in the order they arrived, and the order is the only thing that has ever been consistent about the lake. Uaellaen has stood at the water once, at the hour when the silver on the lake goes flat, and he looked into it the way one looks into a thing that is looking back, and the looking back was there, and the there was patient. What Uaellaen sees in it when he looks is his own face, at the bottom, at a depth no rope has reached, and the face is his face and is not his face, and the difference between the two is what he does not say. No one has drowned in Hollowmere. The lake has never been known to take a body, and the never is not a kindness.
In Stories
The Forgotten have not decided what to do with the lake, and the not-deciding is the longest decision the guild has made. Uaellaen walks the shore once in each season, alone, and the walking is a question he has not finished asking.
A lake is the easiest thing in a world to describe and the hardest thing to explain. Let's figure out what Hollowmere is before we figure out what it wants.