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One of the moons was approaching, a wide arc growing ever larger in the north-east horizon, visible even in daytime. In another month it would be directly overhead, where it would remain, casting a shadow over the Alabaster Isle and a large swath of the surrounding sea and outlying islands, for weeks as it made its transit around the world-plain.
Lunar cycles brought increasing tides, which pushed the water lapping out of the Torrent’s natural bounds and into the low-lying floodplains around the Stormheaths. At “full moon” the water would be lapping up at the graves in their home temple. A few graves would be washed out each year; returned to the Torrent, a sacred fate for Stormlanders. That said, when paddling upstream while very much alive, the goal was not to be returned to the Torrent.
The river was lazy here. More importantly the current was slow. Two paddles were enough to row them, albeit slowly, upriver. Sam and Kur traded shifts on a rudimentary rudder. Sara both took inventory, then traded off with her brother or Maat to give them a chance to rest every now and then.
It was late afternoon when the raft reached the first temple complex. This one, too, was in ruins. At an even lower elevation than the temple nearest Secondhome, only the tip of the main building was even visible now.
“Well, this is a disappointment. There’s nothing here!” Kur said.
“We could’ve seen ruins at home,” Sam agreed.
At first, it would look like this was just another long-dead ruin, same as the last. But there was one noticeable difference.
“Look at the structure.” Sara pointed out to the only stones above water.
The Secondhome ruins were all archways and buttresses around a mazelike courtyard. While the waters here were silty and hard to make out details, it was clear that the last major structure was a partially collapsed dome.
“And those bricks, they’re not from the valley at all,” Sara added.
“Gotta be from the mountains,” Lloyd said.
It would be possible to source building material from the barrier mountains separating the Stormheaths from the central plains. Anyone with controlled access to the Torrent could load bricks up near the highlands and ship them downriver. That said, this proved that the two temples were built at separate times, possibly from separate civilizations.
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The second temple was double the distance upriver from the dome ruins than that location was from the Secondhome graves.
No matter: the crew had enough fresh water for three days, plenty of dried jerky in waterproof bags that could last for however long they deigned to ration the stuff. Temperatures would only become more manageable as the sun drifted off eastward.
They kept to the shallows on the right bank of the Torrent. Larger predators lurked in the depths of the middle portions. Their paddles wouldn’t reach the bottom there either way. While they could maneuver back to shallower waters, they’d be riding the current back downstream, losing valuable time and requiring some backtracking.
Only once, as the sun reached its distant, evening position in its looping arc, did the crew have a run-in with the local wildlife.
A ripple in the water announced the presence of a curious onlooker.
“Eyes up,” Lloyd said. “Just off port.”
A sleek, slimy figure slunk through the silty waters, inching closer. Curious. Hungry. Something brushed up against the side of the raft.
“It’s a catfish. Everyone away from the edge.”
Lloyd and Maat pulled their oars up. Sam pulled back but kept an outstretched hand on the rudder to keep them on the straight and narrow.
A slender sensory tendril covered in sleek aquatic feathers surfaced just off the aft, followed quickly by a second, slightly shorter whisker. Even the shortest was about as long as an Outlander was tall. It was coming at them sideways, trying to get the raft in its mouth, and figure out if it could swallow the whole thing later.
The raft pitched, its starboard side dipping into the water. A scraping sound reverberated through the wood as something gnawed on one of the logs. After a minute, the raft pitched over again, flat, and the thick, muscular body of an Alabaster Isle Catfish could be seen retreating into the deeper reaches of the river.
“Logs were too big for it,” Kur said, confidently.
“Good thing we built this out of Whitewoods,” Lloyd added.
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The Torrent cleared up as the striped pinkish-red and chalk-white cliffs of the canyon highlands came into focus in the far distance. That was still two days away, though. For now, the crew could see clear to the bottom of the river – for the hour or so before the sun arced off into its maximally-distant night phase. Navigation was then done only by extended torch – reflecting off the water like a fine mirror.
Temple number two was entirely flooded, not a rock above water at this point. The river stretched out along a floodplain nearly as far as they could hope to see here. Even at low tide, the ruins would’ve been waist deep in the river.
Sara squelched the torches in the water. After a hiss of steam, the waters returned to a mirrorlike placidity. The river was shallow enough, and the moon bright even in this early approaching phase, that they could make out features amidst the riverbed.
“This temple is in a third style,” Maat said. “Look – the bricks here are much smaller. No clue where they’re from, could be mud or fried clay.”
What’s more, the bricks here were laid with perfect precision, so tightly packed there was no mortar to speak of. Everything was surprisingly well preserved, with not a pillar toppled over.
Sara pondered the river ruins. “I think these are new. At least… not ancient.”
“How so?” asked Lloyd and Kur with curiosity (in Lloyd’s case) and incredulity (in Kur’s case).
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“Look.” Sara pointed straight down into the water. “There’s barely been any time for sediment to pile up.”
“And over there.” Maat nodded his head towards a central circle of stones, almost but not quite poking out of the water. “Barely anything’s been toppled over. And the central circle seems to be charred black.”
It was only when the crew ventured back into the main waterway did they pass by an outer ring of smaller circular pavilions. The clear waters and the moonlight reflected over piles upon piles of skulls, cleaned down to a pearly white by decomposition and local aquatic life. Several pavilions, each larger than the last were visible along the outer rings of the temple. If this complex was recently made, the carrion pits must have been quite recent as well.
There was no telling what clan the skulls belonged to. Outlander, Stormlanders, and other-islanders had few anatomical differences once you got down to bone-level. Oh, the ear sockets differed slightly, but that required a more thorough examination. And none were willing to reach down and pluck a skull or two from this mass grave.
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It was nearly morning again when the crew reached the third and final temple on their expedition. The cliffs grew ever closer, and the currents were picking up speed as the river approached its wilder, younger rapids. They wouldn’t be taking this raft further upriver.
Luckily, the third temple was built into a natural indent in the river that allowed them to moor the raft and walk directly onto dry land. Brick dockwork blended seamlessly into the temple complex, beckoning the youth into a mazelike string of open-air corridors around a central temple building by the waterside.
“This looks…” Sara examined some archways and buttresses that flanked the perimeter.
“Really familiar,” her brother concluded.
Memories of the Secondhome temple allowed the group to instantly find their way around the far temple. Each courtyard was recreated in full, bereft of flood damage and lacking the gravestones that had cropped up. Indeed, this shrine was pristine. Rather than be swallowed by the rising tides, water was diverted through a series of channels between the walkways. An ever-flowing current drew all the various snaking waterways into the intact central structure.
All right – this was just what Maat was looking for. The temple was clearly built by the same hands that built the old Secondhome site.
The group entered the temple through the main entrance, a wide-open boulevard that had long-since collapsed back at the Secondhome site. Within, the temple was preserved at the height of its glory. Multiple tiers of pools stacked on top of each other collected water at various levels then sent it cascading down into a central reservoir. A single walkway sat mere centimeters under the water, offering a wet but manageable pathway to a central, circular platform.
An opening dead center in the ceiling allowed light to enter the chamber. Now, with the moon an oblong sliver on the horizon, it allowed only a small arc of light to peek into the temple. At full moon or during the height of day, it would beam a perfect circle directly down onto the platform.
“Who’s that?” Lloyd asked.
Sitting on the platform, kneeling at the edge of the water, was a lithe figure in greyish two-piece robes adorned with aquamarine jewels. This figure cupped water into their hands and let it flow through their fingers.
“Hello,” the figure said, not looking up from his cupped hands.
This temple priest turned, staring the group down with radiant, cyan-colored eyes. Though he was small, at the size of an average outlander male, his eyes had the steely, wide look of a Stormlander. The ears were elongated but still round, like Sara and Lloyd, while his skin was pale like the moon.
“You a priest?” Lloyd asked, rather bluntly.
“Dream a little bigger,” the figure said in a perfect recitation of Secondhome-creole.
Kur dropped the pack of rations he was holding into the shallow water at their feet and fell to his knees. He started babbling the same sentence or two over and over in his native language. When Maat turned around, he noticed that Sam'ien was gone, having fled out of the temple before the conversation even started. No matter: it would take more than one person to steal the raft.
“What is this place?” Sara asked.
“A river temple,” the figure said.
“Yes, but who made it?”
“And how do you speak our language?” Lloyd asked.
The figure rose to his feet. From this angle, they could see elaborate braids amidst his salt-and-pepper hair, hanging down past his temples and dangling around his cheeks.
“Stormlanders made this place.” The temple priest nodded at Kur, who started praying faster. “Distant cousins of his kind, though they wouldn’t recognize each other in the modern day. As for the language…”
The temple priest approached Maat and took his hand. He studied Maat’s fingerprints intently, looking for… who knows?
“Your father taught me,” the priest said. “Long ago. You look just like him, maybe some softer features around the eyes.”
Maat took his hand back as the figure looked him in the eyes. Something about the face made Maat uneasy, like looking in a mirror.
“Call me Aminia,” the priest said, and held his hand out anew.
Kur started muttering “Aminia” amidst his strange prayers. Meanwhile, Aminia kept his hand held out.
“It’s… called a handshake,” the robed figure said after a time. “Did Michael not teach you that?”
Maat reached out and shook hands with the uncanny shrine attendant. Despite being waterlogged, Aminia’s hands displayed not a wrinkle. That was odd, even for hardy Stormlanders. And his features were soft, ethereal, and ageless.
“Your father really hasn’t taught you anything about his past at all? It makes you come off as rather incurious, is all… and him?” Aminia let out a ‘tsk’ sound. “Still a foolish, headstrong grunt. I ought to…”
Aminia trailed off into grumbling incoherence. Regardless, Aminia shook Sara then Lloyd’s hand in turn. For Kur, he cupped some water in his hands and anointed him with a splash.
Maat made out “thank you” and “father of waters” amongst Kur’s mutterings. The Stormlander was prostate now, head nearly underwater.
“Do you live here?” Maat asked.
There was no indication of any habitation in the temple at all. No beds, no crops outside, no signs of being along a trade route.
“I’m always here,” Aminia said, then turned back to the water. He stirred it around with his fingers. “Apologies if I come off as inattentive. My focus is drawn to the river delta. Flooding will be extreme this year, and there’s something coming from the sea, just out of my field of influence…”
“Like a storm?” Lloyd asked.
Aminia shook his head, causing his braided river chimes to jangle. “Worse.”
The shrine deacon cupped his hands back into the water and sprinkled it upon Maat’s hair, then did the same for Sara and Lloyd in turn.
“You may wish to get home sooner rather than later,” Aminia said. “This should ensure a blessed journey back.”
“Right…” Lloyd said, curt. Ma’at, too, raised a skeptical eyebrow.
“Hurry along.” Aminia took an ornate vial of water off his robes. “Give this to your Plainsdweller friend, lest he be cursed with comparatively bad luck for the trip home.”
“Thanks?” Maat said. He wasn’t going to touch the strange trinket, but Sara took the initiative and pocketed it for him.
“Go in peace.” Aminia clasped his hands together, then gazed at Maat intently once more. “Oh, do tell Michael not to be a stranger.”
“Father? The Quarterchief is away, exploring the north shore,” Maat blurted out without thinking.
“It’s an open invitation.” Aminia smiled.
Maat wanted to question the strange man further, but Lloyd tugged at his shoulder.
“Let’s get out of here, ‘for he changes his mind and curses us into newts or something,” Lloyd whispered.
Aminia snorted at that quip before returning to his duties on the central platform. The group had to drag Kur onto his feet and out of the temple as he prayed the entire time. Maat snook one look back when nobody else was looking. He saw the priest – attendant, whatever – walking on the water, off into one of the outgoing channels. Not through the waters, mind you; Aminia wasn’t walking on a platform – he was literally walking, foot over foot, atop the temple waters.
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