***
The caravan spent most of the next day passing through a very narrow corridor. It seemed inefficient, to spend so much time to go a few hundred yards, but the leaders of the caravan insisted it was the shortest and safest route.
Terredor had become bolder since the incidents with the squid and the olmian bookie. He no longer hung around Waimbrill like a rejected lapdog. He made a few acquaintances among the other traders. Sir Esterhund, the derrador whom Terredor had met earlier, was traveling with the caravan as well. Terredor sought him out and swam with him.
“My people always said that the monsters were Chamballa’s children,” Terredor told him, “But we found out that’s not true. On the Surface, we consider her a goddess of monsters and destruction. Here-”
“Sacrilege!” Sir Esterhund exclaimed, “Thou shouldst not say that. Chamballa is the All-Mother. She giveth life. Serrfass-dwellers are barbarians indeed.”
“Sir Esterhund, she’s a goddess. If she didn’t want to be perceived that way on the Surface, she wouldn’t be. Besides, how do you know our perception of her is not more accurate than yours?”
“We are the Deepdark, a center for civilization,” said Sir Esterhund, “Thou comest from a little-known and remote region, by thine own admission. She probably hasn’t gotten around to punishing thy people for their lies.”
“Or perhaps she has not fooled us, and has you,” Terredor said, “You don’t know any more than I do.”
“I do know. Thou wouldst not be so flippant in thy dismissal of her virtue if thou visited one of her temples. There will be one in the next town, and I will take thee there. Thou shalt learn much, Surface-dweller.”
Terredor nodded. “Excellent. I will speak with her church about Petromyza. If they are on the side of good, they will tell us what they know.”
As the last few pods and travelers squeezed through the narrow part of the corridor, the vanguard began moving again. Terredor and Sir Esterhund fell silent as they swam through a cave that was still uncomfortably narrow for the large caravan. They jostled and elbowed their way through the crowd, which was too loud and busy for any real conversation to take place.
After a few hours, Terredor’s arms and legs ached, a feeling that had grown since beginning this epic swim back at the Surface. He could sense people breaking off from the caravan, entering caves or stopping at small pods selling goods.
“The town of Vythdrammer,” Sir Esterhund said, “I was here when I witnessed Petromyza’s attack. My wife was among the victims, Terredor, and she was a high priestess in Chamballa’s church. How doth thy theory explain that? Why wouldst she attack her own church?”
“The motives of mass murderers, mortal or divine, is always a mystery, Sir Esterhund.”
He led Terredor through the town to a building intricately carved with rounded edges and deep furrows, encircled by complex symbols of slashing strokes marking it as their destination. Carved out of the cave floor, the Temple of the Fecund Fraulin was an artistic sculpture in itself. Hollow pipage snaked throughout, dotted with little holes sending symmetrical blasts of flowing current and massaging waves of warmed water, rippling across Terredor’s skin in pleasing patterns of concentric circles; it was an orchestra of textures that calmed and soothed him. The Temple was covered in algae and albinoid plants with wide leaves, heavy with fruit and flowers, and thick white branches and stalks, amid small timid fish with fins flapping and gills swaying as they swam among the foliage and spires. Music resounded, booming yet soft, insistent but gentle, its beats burrowing into his brain.
Sir Esterhund had to shake him out of his reverie, so entranced was Terredor by the beauty of the Temple. They swam past statues lining the walls. The sculptures depicted Chamballa in many guises. One, near the front, was obvious to him: it was the Chamballa he knew from Crikland, a fat-bodied pond rainid female, with deep wrinkles, sagging flesh and a cruel smile. The sculpture even had eyes, unlike all of the others, which included female versions of each of the major races of the Deepdark: cave rainid, derrador, vagramine and olmian. Terredor felt mounting calm and comfort, his worries about his relationship with Waimbrill dwindling; he forgot about the myriad dangers of the Deepdark they had already faced, and the myriad more they were likely to face soon. For a moment, that faint music and the pacific currents were all he sensed, and he was perfectly at ease.
A few female monks were in prayer at the front of the temple. They were rainids in simple robes, concealing their bodies. One of them swam to Terredor and Sir Esterhund. Her sallow skin was smooth and unblemished, her face round, her lipless smile wide. “Greetings, Sir Esterhund,” she said, “It is a blessing to see thee in happier times than we did when last thou wast in Vythdrammer. Thou bringest a most curious-looking companion.”
“This is Terredor,” Sir Esterhund said, “He is from the Serrfass.”
“What bringeth thee to the Deepdark?”
“I am on a quest in service to Modroben to find and destroy the monster that has been plaguing both your people and mine,” Terredor said.
“Ye be Mortiss?” she asked.
“No, but I am apprenticed to one, and am here with another, Mortiss Gelvid of Helmarthonn.”
“Well, I am glad to have thee in the Deepdark,” she said.
Sir Esterhund said, “Terredor worrieth that Petromyza be the child of Chamballa herself.”
Her mouth pursed into an offended leer. “How darest thou, Terredor?”
“On the Surface,” Terredor said, “She is a goddess of destruction, and we have always said that Petromyza is her child-”
“Still thy tongue, would-be Mortiss Terredor,” she snapped.
“I apologize, I didn’t mean to cause offense.”
“Then don’t say offensive things,” she said, “Thou art correct that Chamballa is a goddess of destruction on the Surface. We in the church are aware of this.”
Sir Esterhund shouted, “My lady!”
“Chamballa is the lady of life, both its joys and its hurts. She is both the wound and the balm. She bringeth peace and plenty, but we would not sense our contentment without the contrast of struggle and strife. She bringeth devastation that we not suffer it from those who are more cruel.” She turned to Terredor, “Our soothsayers have concluded that Argon, the great god of the depths, is responsible for Petromyza’s rise. He would usurp thy lord, Modroben, as the god of death for the Deepdark. Chamballa is loyal to Modroben, but we can not fight. It is not in our nature. Argon recently discovered how to control Petromyza’s body, and he hath fed her Mortiss kidnapped from around the world.”
“To what end?” Sir Esterhund asked.
“The hero Hapcort bound her with a magical chant which imprisoned her mind and body separately. He isolated and trapped her mind, but her body continueth its instinctive hunt, seeking souls. Her mind will awaken once her body devoureth one thousand and one uncleaved Mortiss. The Church of Argon hath found the Chant of Hapcort, and knoweth how to reverse it, allowing them to control her body, replacing her mind with Argon’s, and if they feed her the required Mortiss, she and her undead horde will be under Argon’s control.”
“Argon would turn my wife into a soldier in his undead army?” Sir Esterhund asked through a tight-beaked, bitter snout, and she nodded sagely.
“Usurp Modroben?” Terredor said, “That’s insane. Modroben wouldn’t stand for it. He’d send someone to stop Argon.”
She paused and said, “I believe, Sir Terredor, he has.”