Here is the tale that the grandmothers told me, as well as I can recall it.
The island was called Mau, and the fairest maiden upon it was named Noa. When she was a girl, and her three small siblings were but infants, their parents were both lost at sea in a terrible storm. From this storm came Soroena, an eel as large as the mountain of Ewandar. In the springtime, a single bright blue star rises above the horizon at sunset, and a serpentine trail of white stars follows it; this is the eel approaching the island, demanding a sacrifice as it did every third year at the end of the rainy season.
“Is this eel like the great lind-worm of the North,” I asked, “scaled and finned, with teeth like sabers?”
“Hush,” Luana said.
The next constellation to clear the horizon was a human figure, arms spread wide. This was Noa, chained to a volcanic rock a short distance from the shore of her island. She had grown to womanhood caring for her siblings, while others fed the slow but inexorable appetite of the eel, but this time she was not so fortunate. At sunset, her fellow islanders secured her to the sacrificial stone, and there she would wait. Soroena would arrive at midnight, and devour her whole, leaving only her hands and feet in the iron shackles—and, more importantly, leaving the waters surrounding the island safe for another three years.
Noa waited, and she called out to the gods of the island and the sea, and she feared what would become of her young siblings, with no one to care for them. The eel’s fin, blacker than night, emerged from the sea and circled the rock, spiraling ever nearer. Just as she thought the gods had not heard her, a ship appeared on the far horizon. Its sails were red, and its figurehead was a winged dragon, and at its prow stood the hero Pashu. The constellation of his ship rose above the sea next, and the red star in its prow, Luana told me, could be used to find true east when first it appeared at night.
Pashu’s ship came near on swift oars, and his enchanted harpoon leapt from his hand and slew the great eel. The sea carried its body to the shore of Noa’s island. With his obsidian sword, he cut the chains from Noa’s wrists and ankles, and brought her safely onto his ship. When morning came, he stood atop the corpse of Soroena, and announced that he would be taking Noa away to the west to become his bride.
But Noa refused. Though he had saved her from certain death and slain the beast that had enslaved the island for many years, she did not know this man, and when she asked if the young children under her care could travel with them, he forbade it. For Pashu lived under a prophecy, and it said that his heirs would one day murder each other for his throne, plunging his kingdom into chaos. He would marry the fairest maiden on land and sea, he declared, and pass his crown to his firstborn son, and he would permit no others to make a claim by right of birth or bond. Noa’s three siblings would have to remain on the island—among those who had sent their sister, and many others, to a terrible death upon the waves. Pashu offered her all the riches of his kingdom, but she refused again. He threatened to sack her village and carry her off in chains, but she refused him a third time. Pashu returned to his ship, promising that he would come for her at sunrise, and she would be his bride whether she wished it or not.
And so Noa prayed again, this time to Nashurru, the goddess of the deep and the places between. The next constellation was a kneeling figure. She prayed for a place where she would be free of the stranger Pashu, and where her family could remain together.
When night fell again, a silver boat washed up beside the body of the eel. Noa placed her three siblings inside and climbed in herself, and she pushed off from the shore. That boat took her over the horizon and beyond the last island, into the unending ocean and the sunless realms. Last to rise was a bright silver star. At midnight, it would lead north, the way from which I had traveled for so many months.
I would not be returning the way I had come. I would follow Noa into the other world, whether the gods willed it or not, but if my love for Khalim was as pure as Noa’s for her family, then I hoped Nashurru might help me as well.
“Rest, now,” Kani told me. “You will need all your strength for the ritual.”
With the star of Noa’s boat above my head, I went to my hammock, and I dreamed of an endless black sea. She had crossed over into another world, never to return. I had always thought I would come back, at the end of my quest, and bring Khalim with me. Would I instead become a part of the night sky and never set foot on the earth again? Cold fear coursed through me, colder than the night wind from the sea. Even I, who had stared into the face of death a dozen times over, feared the end of life as I knew it.
An eternity as a constellation, I thought, might not be an undesirable end. I wanted to be remembered. That was why I had left my father’s hall so long ago. My fear subsided, and I turned my thoughts to the story of Noa, and how I would tell it in my mother tongue, and how I would, perhaps, tell the tale of my own journey. Even if I never again had an audience of living beings who would listen to me, I would not allow my story to end with the fall of Phyreios and the loss of Khalim.
Though the priestesses had warned me that my quest was all but impossible, their tale had renewed my hope. If Noa and her family had crossed over, then surely I could as well. I thought to offer a prayer to Nashurru, goddess of the deep and the places between, but no words came to me. I had lost the will to pray when I last looked into the golden eyes of the god who had taken Khalim from me.
Nashurru would have to judge me only by my thoughts. I feared I would not be worthy.
When morning came, Kala gathered the flowers from where they hung between the grandmothers’ houses, and took them away into the black stone temple. Though the sun was bright and the sky clear, even at the crown of the volcano, a shadow fell over the tiny village. The priestesses did not speak to me, and I had no words for them, lost as I was in the anticipation of the ritual. They fed me, and smiled, and allowed me to remain in silence.
I walked out onto the gray sand of the northern beach, beside the dock where the pirate captain had delivered me to the island. A green shimmer in the water showed where the snake swam among the shallows. It lifted its head, and there was an accusing look in its amber eyes, but it swam on without approaching the beach.
The sun crept across the sky. It would be a long day of waiting.
I swam to where the emerald shallows gave way to the deep color of the abyss and the warm southern waters grew cold, and I looked into the deep. It held no answers for me, and I swam back to shore. I took up my spear and practiced its movements as I had when I was young, learning to fight in a shield wall, and as I had among the disciples of the Dragon Temple. My hands longed for the weight of a battle-axe, but the spear was a fine weapon in its own right. The familiar motions of my body cleared my mind, and by the time I returned to the village, I was as ready as I would ever be to undergo Nashurru’s ritual.
The temple loomed over the village as we ate our evening meal. Its door stood open, and the setting sun did not reach within, nor did the light of the cooking fire. A cold wind stirred the embers and whistled through the hall.
“When I look into the Dreaming Eye,” I said, “what will I see?” This was the first that I had spoken that day, and my voice was harsh and unfamiliar to my ears.
Luana shook her head. “There is no way of knowing. Most will see Nashurru, somewhere in their vision. Some see the past—others, the future. You wish to look beyond the door into the other world, but whether you will succeed, I cannot say. Are you ready?”
I nodded and rose from my place beside the fire. Luana led the way, and Kani and Malea took up torches and followed.
Kala watched me, a mix of envy and fear on her face. She would not be present for the ritual.
“Wish me luck,” I said.
She put on a determined frown. “Don’t be scared.”
“I promise.” I took a full breath, filling my lungs as the monks at the temple had taught me, and I passed through the dark doorway and under the mountain.
The inner chamber was circular, with a platform around a still pool that covered most of the room. Glowing crystals set into the ceiling gave off a pale blue light that reflected in the water like a field of stars. Ahead of me, Luana went down a wide, shallow staircase and waded in. Though the water came up to her chest as she crossed to the pedestal at the center, the pool’s surface remained smooth as glass.
Kani and Malea lit two braziers flanking the stairs, and four more around the perimeter. Within the iron bowls, the vines I had gathered from the mountain burned, and the air filled with sweet-smelling smoke. I took another breath. I was no stranger to magical drugs; it was not quite the same smell, but I could close my eyes and imagine I was confined in the hall during my rite of manhood. Young as I was, it seemed a lifetime ago.
Luana beckoned me to follow. I removed my boots and stripped to the waist, and my feet disturbed the surface of the water. Ripples splashed against the sides of the pool. Without the sun to warm it, the pool was cold, and the hairs on my arms stood on end.
From the pedestal, Luana removed a small bowl of black stone. Holding it in both hands, she dipped it into the pool and filled it to the brim. The stone reflected no light, and neither did the water within. Staring into it, I believed it was not a vessel, but a bottomless abyss.
The crystals had begun to take on new colors as the drugs coursed through my blood, and Luana’s face shimmered like the illusion of water in the desert. “Nashurru, goddess of the sea and the abyss and of the places between, cannot grant you passage into the other world. To our knowledge, no god can, but she may allow you to see into it. Though your body will remain here in the temple as an anchor, you must be on your guard. As a living being, you will attract the attention of wandering spirits, not all of whom are benevolent. The things you see may not represent the truth. Spirits often lie; some deliberately, and others because they are so far removed from life that they do not know how to present the truth in a way you can understand it. There may also be others—gods who grow strong out of fear, rather than worship.”
“I have met such gods. How can I resist them?” I asked. My voice was distant, as though it came from someone else, standing some distance away.
“Remember who you are, and remember what you are trying to achieve. You do this for love—focus on that.” She took each of my hands and placed them on the edges of the pedestal, so that I bent over the bowl and looked into its improbable depths. “Be respectful at all times. Accept no gifts, make no agreements. Offer nothing you would not gladly part with. May your eyes be clear.”
I fell into the Dreaming Eye, leaving my body standing at the pedestal and plunging into the deep ocean held within the bowl. Water closed in around me, cold and dark, though I found I had no difficulty breathing. Time distorted and stretched, and I fell for what might have been a few seconds—or perhaps more than an hour—before I came to a stop, floating above a rippling surface, like a second sea lying beneath the one in which I swam. Before me lay an archway constructed of piled bones, its columns disappearing into the depths. I kicked my legs and pushed myself closer. Skulls with three eye sockets stared back at me from the macabre heap, and spines with pointed spikes held up the arch. Clawed finger bones reached out to me as I slowly approached. Still other bones had the appearance of a human skeleton, though they were far larger than I. These were the bones of gods, and of the mythical beasts they hunted across the plains of eternal summer in the stories of my people.
This was the gate of bone that Khalim had told me of the last time I had seen him. It was shut. Lines of white light lay across the archway, forming the shapes of hinges and bars. I studied its eldritch shape and swore that I would breach it, today or one day in the future.
The water beneath me surged, and I tumbled away from the gate. A pair of flukes, together as far across as the length of the pirate’s ship, flashed into my vision before receding into darkness. Another wave pushed into me as that enormous tail turned.
Something massive moved in the depths, and it knew I was here.
Back to Chapter VIII: Volcano’s Edge
Forward to Chapter X: The Abyss
In case you missed it, the book that comes before this one is now a real book you can hold in your hands and/or e-reader! As always, thank you for reading!
Space Whales Press 
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