Perhaps the lake had always been polluted. It’s hard to know. Lakes and mountains, cliffs and islands, they’ve all been hanging around since before there was anybody and so nobody knows where any of them come from. One could say “tectonics” and feel smug but what urges those plates and so much molten conveyance to the patterns they arrive at? Is it random? Is it a dance? Is it a set of preferences set in motion by huge, time-evading entities that could miss you in the infinity of their blinking stars? Maybe that’s too much to consider all at once. And why you keep stammering ‘t-t-tecton-n-nics?’
No one really knows where the slime comes from at Drutherstone’s circus. It erupts from the ground. A patient carnie can even detect the occasional bubble in the grass as a small spurt announces itself as having arrived terrestrial.
Because it is everywhere and sometimes oozier than at other times, the muck has a tendency to drain. Despite its mysterious origins, the muck still obeys the laws of gravity and moves downhill, towards the valley and — perhaps gravitationally — towards the lake.
The lake is made of water. We know because Ungulen’s checked during his many crabbing expeditions. So when the ooze hits the lake, it unctuously floats along, never enmeshing itself with lakey molecules but instead continues on a short journey into the center where it all tends to collect in an orbiting swallow of awful, stinking goop. This is the lagoon. Festooned inside of the lake like the eye of Jupiter. A bloated coalescence of physical laws.
x9dread 