When she finally reached the crevice and the temple, there was no mucky shore anymore; only shallow water and rock. She waved goodbye to the idea of making it out of this with dry feet and stepped into the narrow canal. Woven flowers of fabric and straw and those plants growing in the lake floated around and between them even real water lilies somebody had to have brought from the surface. Deeper into the cave and the blue light men and women in unadorned white robes went about their duties in the service of their goddess. She saw a man talking to a woman weeping. Giræsea’s decency bid her not to eavesdrop. Two others carried off a bier deeper into the cave. To the side two young temple servants sat on a small island and wove blossoms while talking.

“Can I help you, my child?”, asked an aged dwarf, the water reaching to his knees and the tip of whose beard also touched the wet. In his voice he heard his age but he spoke easily and with joy. Contrasting with the others, his collar was ornamented with blue embroidery.

“Holy voice”, Giræsea bowed before him and hoped the title was appropriate here as well or that she used the right kind of words. “I am looking for someone and I am hoping that you can help me.” The man smiled, but said nothing. She took it as a sign to keep talking. “A man is said to have come past here.” She described him as well she could. The man who was supposed to be a prophet of her own goddess. She gave special attention to the tattoo on the back of his left hand: The moon, the closed eye and the stars. “I’m seeking his guidance in an important matter.”

The Holy Voice thought for a bit and scratched his chin. “I do remember someone like that. He stayed with us for a span of days. He spent a lot of time with Sister Zuhra and Brother Hamza. Unfortunately Brother Hamza has left for his pilgrimage a tenday ago. But Sister Zuhra is still with us. I will bring you to her.”

“Have my everlasting thanks, Holy Voice.” Giræsea bowed deeply.

He led her deeper into the temple, past servants, then left, down a long corridor, on and on. He did not speak. Then the corridor broadened and led into a shallow chamber from where multiple ways went on deeper into the stone. Deep niches were carved into the walls and beams between them decorated with engravings. No, not engravings. Names. In artful calligraphy. And in the dark niches Giræsea then made out the bones that inhabited them. The pillar at the centre, carrying the ceiling, too, was not engraved stone– Those were bone stacked high. Thigh bones, ribs, skulls. An ossuary. She saw someone kneeling in front of a niche and heart softly spoken words. No temple servant judging by the clothes. The Holy Voice kept leading her forward. “Sister Zuhra serves the souls that have yet to find their way to the other side”, he said briefly, but with reverence in his voice. They passed an archway at which two skeletons were settled with the duty of eternal watch. All clean bone and polished steel and fine fabric. And then Giræsea found herself in a gallery of the dead. There was no more stone to be seen safe beneath her boots. Walls of osseous matter with a thousand empty eye sockets whose shadows seemed to ever follow her. Mosaics of splinters, colorful glass, finger and toe bones and pebbles: black, red, blue, white. Skulls neatly aligned, with flower crowns, real or painted. And again the ceiling was supported by a trunk and branches of thighs, upper arms, shins, the bones of the forearm; the ceiling of shoulderblades as tiles. And the hall was lit by the shine of hundreds of candles; on the walls, in eye sockets, on the pillar and as cast flowers on the water - lit by tiny flames transforming the ever present darkness into dancing shadows and giving new life to the bones of those long gone, allowing their ghosts to show themselves. Here stood Sister Zuhra and opened the door for these ghosts, candle by candle. Nothing in her clothing separated her from a simple temple servant.

“Sister Zuhra”, the Holy Voice greeted her and bowed as the Keeper of the Dead turned toward him. Giræsea followed his lead and still stood taller than Sister Zuhra. “I bring a guest. Her questions have led her even to these depths.”

“Keeper”- Giræsea was sure she should have learned the appropriate titles for dwarven clerics long ago on her travels and was frustrated that she hadn’t - “please forgive my interrupting your service.” She described the prophet to the Keeper - even if she didn’t name him as such - and when she mentioned the tattoo on his hand, Sister Zuhra said: “Oh, of course, of course. He was here for a while. We talked a lot about the underworld and the next life. He had a lot of questions. Some of them quite peculiar. I would have liked to have him around for a while; he was quite the help during my service. He had a certain way of treating the dead; he would have made a good servant.”

“Do you know where he is now?”

“I can take you where I took him before. But from that point on you are on your own. But I hope our Lady of Tides may guide you.”

#

In the all encompassing darkness - a suffocating darkness, a darkness she could feel on her skin - there was nothing left but the pale fungus glow and the feeling of stone 'neath her fingers as she tried to not lose her way. And that damned water. It was in her boots, in her clothes and with every step it seemed to rise. First up to her knees. Then to her hip. And now up to her chest. This was the river of the dead, the stream down to the underworld, the godly tears washing away the souls. Sister Zuhra had led her to the gate leading out of the temple and said her goodbyes there. She had no feeling for how long she had been walking since then - it went overboard long ago - the first doubts of her undertaking had only crept up as the walls started to move in closer. With every inch the water about her flowed faster, ever faster, tugging at her, pulling her ever deeper into the bowels of the world. Why? Why are you sending me down into the underworld? She pushed aside the doubts; that whisper telling her to turn around, that she should talk about it with Älyan and Thorgest, that the prophet - the mad man - might have found naught but his own death down here and that she was now hurrying after him with determined step. No. This last drop of faith in her goddess she kept close to her heart.

Then she was trapped. Without light, without breath, without purchase. Only ever-present water and darkness and noise and stone. So much stone. Her body dragged across it, it punched the breath from her chest; her skull rang and she tasted blood. And everywhere water, water, water. With one impact her arm was wrenched upward and it felt like it was torn from her shoulder. She lost her pack and the last shine from the mushrooms. And with them went her breath and water took its place and filled her completely. Breath. Breath. Breath. No pain. No impact. No taste of blood. Only one thing remained as a desperate predator in the cage of her chest clawing at the bars. Breath! But there was only water and stone and darkness and noise. Fingers clawed rock; tongue tasted salty water; eyes wide and still only darkness. Her throat, as if strung by a noose.

Then - for just the blink of an eye - air. For just the shortest moment there was something other than water. She spun. No more stone. She fell, the wind rushing past her and roaring at her face. Too quickly she understood that she was going to hit the ground. Too quickly she understood what would happen then. And she thought Älyan and she thought I love you, and I’m sorry, and shit, and I love–