Journey to the Water Chapter LII: A Temple of Faces

Journey to the Water cover image: three evergreen trees stand on a hillside, shrouded in bluish fog. Subtitle reads: the sequel to Beyond the Frost-Cold Sea.

Of all the strange things that Deinaros had told me, and of all the evil that I had seen in the pages of his book, nothing disturbed me more than this key he asked me to retrieve. A blade of obsidian glass must have traveled far to end up in the forests south of my homeland, where the earth lay steady beneath one’s feet and the fires at the heart of the world slept without waking. In all its wandering, passed from hand to wicked hand, it carried the lingering miasma of spilled blood. What sorcery had caused this? Surely, the knife had been used to take innocent lives—why else would it be afflicted so?

I steeled myself and held my tongue. Deinaros’ face, at the same time ancient with archaic knowledge and unlined with youth, betrayed no emotion. He stared at me without blinking.

This is a test, I thought. Is he judging my loyalty and willingness to obey, or am I meant to recognize an evil relic by its description, and refuse to lay a hand on it?

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Journey to the Water Chapter LI: Friendlier Shores

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The ship that took me back across the Summer Sea was not Ramla’s, but the vessel of a woman from the northern shore. Her name was Astraea of Danar, and she possessed the golden hair and sky-blue eyes that I had only ever seen before in my countrymen from the far reaches of the North. I myself, however, favored my mother, and my hair was dark and my eyes were the same as any other man who walked these southern shores. Only my build set me apart from the people who walked the streets of Gallia, whence I was returning.

I asked, but Astraea had never seen the floating mountains of ice, nor walked among the mountains that I had crossed in the early days of my exile. She did not speak my mother tongue. In response to my next question, she declared that she had met the man called Hamilcar and his ship, the Lady of Osona, and remembered him fondly.

“He sails these waters from time to time,” she said. “At the beginning of the year, when the winds are swift and the waves high. If you stay in Gallia, you might see him again.”

I hoped that I would, but my hope lasted only a brief moment. What could I tell him of my adventures since we parted? That I had found the birthplace of my beloved Khalim, and found that I had known him for so short a time that I was hopeless to follow him through the land of the dead? That I had destroyed the city of Svilsara by slaying the being who called himself his god, and left them starving and alone without even the illusion of prosperity to comfort them? That I had aided a man who wished to assassinate a king, and escaped only because I was deemed a lesser threat than my guide?

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Journey to the Water Chapter L: The Way Down

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I fell. The rope went taut, tearing at my hands, just as I broke through a web of thin branches and struck the surface of a wide limb below the platform. The rough bark bit through the thin fabric of my trousers.

As expected, the guards cut the rope. It fell in loose coils at my feet. I stood, brushed myself off, and held out my hand to summon my harpoon.

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Journey to the Water Chapter XLIX: The Treasure-Hall of the Mage-King

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I remained still, one hand on the latch to the vault door and the other hanging in the air, half-reaching for my harpoon. Who was this man? What was he doing here? Kural had assured me the vault would be empty of watchmen, but perhaps I was a fool to trust Kural. He did not make the climb himself, after all. My heart sank into my belly as I thought of Bran’s fate, left alone on the forest floor with an untrustworthy caretaker.

Bran was a steppe horse—a gentle one, but trained for a warrior, nonetheless. I had to trust that he could look after himself.

“Who are you?” I asked the incongruous man in the vault.

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Journey to the Water Chapter XLVIII: To the Upper Kingdom

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A procession of pilgrims, all following the darting, bobbing light of a single lantern suspended from a hooked staff, approached from the direction of the seaside city. Kural swept aside his drawing of the estates above with an open hand, erasing it from view. My eyes lingered in the place it had been, recreating its lines and circles from memory. A few of the shapes escaped me.

I would take the hidden path, I decided, and avoid the court of the kingdom above. What could I say to the gathered noblemen of the treetops that would convince them of my need for their relic? Here was a land where the living worshiped the dead, and where hidden, shadowy gods dueled for control of honored corpses kept within vaults of stone or living wood. Whatever I said had an equal chance of offending with grievous blasphemy as it did of earning their sympathy.

No, for better or worse, I would take the Sage’s Mirror from their vault, and I hoped to board a ship back to Gallia before anyone noticed it was missing. I could make the treacherous climb, I was sure of it.

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Journey to the Water Chapter XLVII: Under the Trees

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Kural took it upon himself to guide me, leaving the strange, silent folk around their bubbling cauldron. The eyes of the market followed us as we went, me leading Bran and Kural on my other side. At his direction, I purchased a great length of rope, as well as enough grain to fill my saddlebags and feed all three of us for several days. On the forest floor, Kural said, only the fungus grew, and while some of its many varieties were safe to eat, it was wiser not to take the risk.

“The mushrooms are better used for holy days,” he said, “or times of great need.”

The grain merchant was a woman of about thirty, tall and stately, with her hair covered in a silk wrap the color of the sea. She eyed Kural with suspicion, and caught my eye when his back was turned.

“That man is a heretic,” she said.

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Journey to the Water Chapter XLVI: Ksadaja, the City of the Dead

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I had left one city and come to another, just as grand, upon the shores of the summer sea. The last city was Gallia, Ramla told me, and this one was Ksadaja, which those from the north called the city of the dead. Indeed, its greatest edifices were tombs, built above and below the ground in towering structures and mazes of tunnels, none of which I would ever be permitted to see. Only the people of Ksadaja could walk the halls of the temples, and only their priests could venture below, where the bodies of the esteemed dead awaited the call of their gods, who at the end of an age of calamity, would bring them once again to life and place them as rulers over the transformed world. Towering obelisks, carved with prayers to the same gods in an ancient language, stood like sentries between the temples and greeted us as Ramla’s ship made its way into the harbor.

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Journey to the Water Chapter XLV: The Summer Sea

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Cricket was charged with provisioning me for my journey. She took me to a passage hidden behind a tapestry on the first floor, with a staircase that led us into the rocky bowels of the cliff. At the bottom, a tiny kitchen, no larger than a ship’s galley, sat dark and cavernous with only a clay chimney pipe to relieve the smoke. Why this place was hidden, and why it had to be here under the rock, Cricket did not say. Perhaps this was the only kitchen she had ever known. It certainly was her domain; a selection of copper pots and iron pans hung well within her reach, and I had to duck to avoid another rack of herbs hanging from the ceiling.

“Has Deinaros told you anything of my journey?” I asked her.

She rolled a selection of dried fish in a thin cloth and handed it to me. “No. If you return, you can tell me of it.”

“If I return?” I echoed. I could not help but smile at her utter lack of faith in me. “You think I won’t?”

She shrugged, and the trinkets still around her neck clattered softly. “We’ll see.”

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Journey to the Water Chapter XLIV: Beside the Water

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I spent three days before Deinaros the All-knowing summoned me. The three floors of the tower to which I had been confined soon lost their novelty, and I wandered the city instead, taking in the sights and sounds of the sprawling metropolis. The markets beckoned me with the scents of fresh fish and warm bread, and the taverns promised strong drink—with some effort, I avoided them, to keep my wits about me. Wherever I went, the steepled temple looked down on me from above, its seven carved pillars a constant reminder of Phyreios. What relation the Ascended had to these tall, faceless gods of the West, I could not deduce. These seven stayed confined to their temple and the small carved icons in the windows lining each winding street, and for that I could only be grateful.

Cricket left each morning to sell her trinkets at the harbor. I went with her, on the first day, curious as to why her teacher sent her alone to the market. At best, I feared she would be robbed, weighed down as she was by such a quantity of silver; at worst, I had just recently learned of the flesh-markets of Nyssodes. A clever kidnapper needed only to coincide with a waiting ship, and Cricket would never have returned to the tower.

She bade me keep my distance, though, when we reached the docks. She had charms to sell, and my looming presence frightened away her customers. I asked if she was afraid, and if she had the means to defend herself.

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Journey to the Water Chapter XLIII: The Book-Collector

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With the book removed from my care at last, a weight lifted from my shoulders. The relief came with a flare of panic—had I handed my one and only lead to the realms beyond death to a charlatan? Deinaros turned the pages, his brows furrowed in concentration and a pleased smile playing upon his lips. I had already faded from his awareness.

If nothing else, Deinaros knew this book. On the word of his young attendant, he had expected it, like an old friend returned at last from a journey of decades. He greeted each horrifying diagram with a nod, each twisting line of text with a tap of one long finger.

“Well done,” he said, more to the book than to me. “This copy is nearly complete. The only things missing are the long, rambling musings of my former master. Everything useful is here.”

“Your master wrote it?” I asked. “He must have traveled nearly as far as I. I retrieved this book many months ago, from an island in the southern sea.”

Deinaros glanced up for the briefest moment before his eyes returned to the page. “No, he only penned the original, centuries ago. He never left the city of his birth. His followers, myself among them, made copies, and those who found those copies made more still.”

My heart sank. How many ambitious rulers became like the king of Salmacha, their souls clinging to their bodies even as their flesh rotted and fell from their bones? A second, selfish question followed the first: how many ill-starred lovers, grieving parents, and lonely widows had taken the book and attempted the same task I had undertaken? Had the gods already taken up arms against a sea of sorrowful humanity, chasing away any chance I had of breaching their ordained defenses?

“Very few now,” Deinaros said. “It was purged from the kingdoms of the West. So many were burned that the pyres reached the heavens. I have not seen a word or line from this book in many years.”

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