The elders said the vale did n't appear on any chart because it did n't wish to be set up, and that those who stumbled upon it had formerly been chosen long before their bases touched its soil. By day, it lay like a sleeping beast between two caricatures of black gravestone mountains, its face dry and cracked, its air unmoving, its silence so deep that indeed allowed

sounded to echo too loudly. But by night, when the sun sank and the last mortal prayers faded into the dark, the vale awakened, and its breath rose in the form of cold winds that carried voices not meant for mortal