This was not the Athenaeum I had left. Rather than books and the multi-levelled wooden maze I had almost grown accustomed to, we stepped out of the portal and into an aged library surrounded by an unending ocean. We were underwater. Enchantments kept the sea at bay, and lights guided the path forward, but they shone out into the abyss as well, illuminating the surrounding ocean. Unhindered by the usual glare of the sun, and probably assisted by the enchantments, we could see farther than I thought possible. Fish of all manner of species crossed our path, darting above, below, and around the enchantments in a bewildered manner. The walls must have been as invisible to them as they were to us, and that was no comforting notion. Moments later, something massive passed overhead. Not a shark, nor anything I had ever heard of before, but it had four fins that were thick enough to be flippers and an array of small, blade-like teeth that it kept well hidden when it closed its jaws. End-to-end, it was as long as the tallest of the bell towers in Bell Haven, and much larger around.

Jenny stood behind me, as stunned as I was. Her hand settled on my arm.

"It was supposed to take us to the Athenaeum," I said.

"Okay," she said in disbelief. "Sure. Yeah. And what is that?"

"It's... a library. We should go."

"Back where we came from?" She turned back to the mirror.

I pulled her away. "No. Further in. There are books here... the Athenaeum was big. Really big. I'm fairly sure there's no ocean under Bell Haven, but maybe it's an illusion."

"It's a library?" She paused for a moment, still reeling. "So it's the Seaward Path?"

I was never quite big on religion. "How?"

"It's what they preach," she said. "Each of the paths has a doctrine, a literal path you can take to reach enlightenment. The Warrior's Path, everyone knows. You die in battle. The Windward Path too, it's a bit more common knowledge than the others, you follow a narrow mountain pass, walking along narrow cliffs in high winds until you get to a valley. That's why it's the path of the body. The Seaward Path though, most people don't know much."

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"How do you?" I asked, pocketing the coin that had brought us back, now back in its original form.

She shifted her arm, pulling away from me. "My... my husband was religious. He followed the Warrior's Path, but he respected the others. Knew all about them. Taught me a fair bit."

"So you are married," I prodded.

"For now," she replied curtly. "Let's get a move on please. This place is creepy."

The path was narrow at first, leading away from the portal we had entered from and into a more sheltered area of what I assumed was still the Athenaeum. Crumbling walls rose up on our sides, leaving only the sky to the ocean. Stone flooring mixed with sand and in some cases, hardwood.

Jenny told me about the Seaward Path as we walked.

"This place is like the epitome of the path of knowledge," she awed. "The books, the scrolls in this place... it's more than I've ever seen before."

This was nothing compared to the Athenaeum I had left. The collection was scattered, with the occasional shelf lining an enchanted wall. Half of the bookshelves were crumpled and fallen over, with only a few smaller rooms remaining entirely intact, but the collection here was impressive all the same.

Jenny turned on her heels, staring at the submerged Athenaeum. "You're supposed to wade into deep water, sit down under the waves, and hold your breath as long as you can. I always thought people took it literally, but maybe they meant something like this instead. Throw aside your doubts and fears and learn to understand them."

"You walk into the ocean," I suggested.

"Exactly. Physically, you sit there and meditate, but the philosophy is that you walk deeper into the abyss, this infinite depth. The wiser you are, the further you can go. You're walking deeper into a wealth of limitless knowledge about... well, everything. There's always more to know."

I helped her over a collapsed stone pillar blocking our path. The road forked, but we continued straight, a descent into a stone tunnel leading downwards that opened up on the other side to a bottomless expanse of water.

"The star itself is at the bottom of the ocean," she continued. "Down there... ascension. Apparently. Because once you get to the end, and you're surrounded by all that crushing pressure, you start to understand just how small you really are."

It made me wonder about the Archivist and Eskir. I had asked Eskir what path he followed, but his stolen voice stopped him from telling me. I hadn't even bothered to ask the Archivist. All they did was study and seek knowledge, whatever secret they were researching. This was probably their path.