The lemur slumped into Imani’s lap, the iron'salt tang of blood in his mouth. That trace on his tongue might have been the last in his body; he felt exhausted, drained to nothing and left behind as a dry husk.

The man who’d carried him to the temple was shredding his own clothes to make bandages, binding off the severed peace-hand. The stranger's burnt mask hung around his neck, and his six-eyed face staring down at the lemur in concentration. “Do we have a fire? Cauterization might save him.” The man made a strange finger-sign.

“Fire? No, not anywhere close. And I- I don’t have any healing salves left. The last herbs dried up a long time ago, and I used everything I had stored just to fix him the first time.” Imani was frantic, her blank grey eyes wide. She stroked the fur of his muzzle, getting blood and stone-dust stuck to her fingers.

Her expression tightened as she looked up, staring at the tower-golem that loomed over them. The giver of trials and tortures. “Isn’t this enough? He’s almost killed himself for our Lady, again and again. Why isn’t that enough?”

“We acknowledge this, but there must be a third trial. In recognition we will ask a simple thing.” The tower’s many faces showed no emotion. Its many voices spoke without mercy or hate. “He must speak the true name of the goddess. If he is truly her champion, he will know it by heart, and we will accept him.”

“True names are such a strange idea. I have more than one, you see. I have been Ehranil, and The Pride of Grave-Born Flowers, the Light on Pale Waters. Any one of these should do.”

He felt the goddess’ whisper brush his mind, but he could only laugh a thin, chittering, unhappy laugh. Even if he wanted to finish this task-

“He can’t speak, you idiot! He’s- well he’s very nice, but he’s a monkey, I think? Or an ape?” Imani shouted up, and the tower said nothing.

Lemur. He was a lemur. If he could have spoken, he would’ve told her that.

“In the end, does it matter?” The man shook his horned head. “Will finishing these trials heal him? I’m afraid I’ve come in halfway through the story here.” He lifted a wineskin sack and tilted over the wound, but no more than a single drop fell.

“No. Just- ”

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The tower answered, cutting Imani short. “The trial is to prove he is the Lady’s chosen, here to unseal this sky and return us to the world above.”

“Unseal the sky?” The man looked between them, and then reached down, taking the lemur’s face in hand and making him look up. “Listen, friend, there’s a barrier not too far above us. One that forces these things back. There are healing waters that can help you. If we can open the city we have to do so, and soon. I know you’ve been wounded, but I need you to try.”

The lemur groaned, and rolled over onto his knees. His war-hand stabbed into the dust, supporting him as he gazed up at the tower.

Hadn’t he sworn that he wouldn’t do any more for the goddess? But then, this was also for Imani, for the stranger, for the spirit of the oasis. This much- just this one thing more- he could do.

Even though he feared there would always be one thing more.

There were many thoughts and feelings in the lemur tongue. Maybe there was something close enough. He strung together disparate words - the chittering sound for night and the elated call for a treasure in the sand, the low cooing tone that meant water, the distressed bark that signalled cold.

The translation was crude. It was closer to a treasure of ice in the night than The Light on Pale Waters.

There was a long, slow moment.

The chorus-voice was hesitant, speaking slowly. Some of the tower’s faces murmured in dissent beneath. “We do not know your tongue, so we cannot say you have not spoken properly. These are desperate times. We will allow you to approach.”

He rose. Step by step, feeling his own weight terribly, he approached the bronze doors of the tower. A single tablet of clay sealed them shut. The palm-print of the priest who’d set this seal, long ago, was pressed into the tablet.

“Set your hand upon the seal.” The tower instructed.

The lemur reached forward.

Nothing.

“What’s wrong? Don’t tell me something’s wrong.” Imani said behind him. “Why is something always wrong?”

He chirruped with laughter. Angry, disgusted laughter. The scythe of his killing hand, the bladed talon that pushed his other four fingers aside, knocked clumsily against the door. His war-hand did not fit the handprint on the seal.

She was right. There was always something wrong.

Without any emotion but resignation, the lemur swung his blade against the door, scoring a spray of sparks and a deep gouge across the metal. The talon shattered into pieces with an impact that jarred through his arm. Dizzy, barely standing, he raised his ruined hand and pressed it into the seal.

The clay tablet broke open.

He toppled backwards and lay there as moonlight brushed over his face. Through the opening of the temple’s roof, he saw the sky open above the city; a huge seal of stone rolled slowly aside and let a crescent of pale blue light fall down into the cavern below. As the seal slid out of place that sliver grew, spreading across the city, the moon’s light engulfing all.