“You forget that I’ve never seen a miracle performed, General,” she says. “Besides the resurrection of Zhurgut. I’m well out of my league.”
“We’re all out of our league.” Mulaghesh kneels—keeping her left arm raised awkwardly so her own blood continues to pour into the basin—and lights the bundle of sackcloth at the foot of the plinth. She blows on it a little to get it going. “The miracles I’ve seen varied in showiness. Some you didn’t notice, some made sure you couldn’t help but notice. Are we going to see any rays of light, or chorus of singing, or—”
“—or swirling waters?” says Sigrud.
“Right, or that.”
“No,” says Signe. “He means the water’s swirling. Right now.”
Mulaghesh stands up. The reddish seawater in the basin is slowly circling, creating a small funnel in the center, like it’s draining away—but the level never lowers.
“Huh,” says Mulaghesh. “Is this…it?”
The more the sackcloth burns, the faster the water swirls, spinning more and more until it begins to make a low rumble as it rushes along the edge of the basin. Finally the sackcloth is just a heap of ash, but the waters keep accelerating.
“Is it done?” asks Signe. “Finished?”
“I believe it is just beginning,” says Sigrud.
They watch, forgetting their bloodletting, as the water spins faster and faster until it’s a cyclone of bloodstained water, whirling so fast that the very air above it starts to spin with it. Somehow not a drop of it flies out, despite the shallow basin: Mulaghesh and the rest remain as dry as they were when they started.
A cool breeze filters through the yard of statues. Then there’s a familiar sound: a soft, droning om, much like the sound the whole of Voortyashtan heard whenever Saint Zhurgut hurled his massive blade. And somehow, in some intangible way, there is the unmistakable feeling of a door being opened nearby.
They all shiver. “I think…I think that is enough,” says Sigrud.
“Yes,” says Signe. She looks up and peers around the yard as if she’s heard a curious noise. “Something’s changed. Something’s different now, though I can’t quite tell what.”
Mulaghesh stares down into the roaring tunnel of water. “By the seas…I’m going in there?”
“That seems to be the case,” says Sigrud, removing his syringe and applying a bandage. He walks over to assist Signe. “Are we so sure Sumitra Choudhry wasn’t beaten to death by the waters themselves?”
“Thanks for the confidence boost,” says Mulaghesh. She winces as she slides the needle out of her arm and wraps her elbow up with bandages.
Signe asks, “Are you going in?”
“I guess.” Mulaghesh sits on the edge of the basin, like a deep-sea diver about to drop herself in the ocean. She looks up at them. “Are we all ready?”
“Is it possible for any normal human to be ready for this?” asks Signe.
“Fair point.” Mulaghesh grips the edge of the basin, then freezes, suddenly seized with terror. This could be the last moment she has in this world, the last second of genuine waking life. “I didn’t think I’d make it to this age,” says Mulaghesh. “If…If I don’t come back…Tell them…Tell everyone I said I’m sorry. Okay? Just tell them that.”
“We will,” says Signe. “I’ll tell them. I’ll tell them that, and I’ll tell them the truth.”
“You had better,” says Mulaghesh. “Someone needs to.” Then without another thought, she pitches herself backward into the whirlpool.
***
She expects to fall down a tunnel. That’s what it was, after all, when she saw it: a whirlpool of rushing, roaring water, with a narrow tunnel leading straight down into the center of the basin.
But when she falls backward that’s not what she experiences at all. Instead it’s like she’s fallen into the surface of a still lake: the water embraces her all at once, a solid, flat surface rather than a raging whirlpool, and it’s not a narrow column of water but a vast, dark ocean with a single hole of light at the top. She’s not being whipped around by a cyclone of water; she’s just…falling. It’s like she’s fallen through a hole cut in ice, and she can see the rippling faces of her two comrades looking in at her.
Most disconcertingly, though, she’s sinking. Fast.
Her instincts kick in: she needs to swim up, back up, now. She kicks her feet, trying to gain traction, but she’s weighed down by her gear, which itself is strapped to her body very tightly, so she can’t let go.
She plummets down into the darkness, feeling the inexorable pressure of all that water gripping her whole body. It’s like she’s in the hand of a giant, tightening its freezing grip. The hole of light above her is just a pinprick now. She knows she shouldn’t—she’s been trained on drowning—but she starts panicking, kicking wildly, flailing about in the icy depths. One trickle of water penetrates her lips, and suddenly all the air comes flooding out of her, crystalline bubbles bursting from her nose and mouth and spiraling up to the tiny white pinprick above.
She’s drowning. She’s drowning and she knows it. She’s going to die in this damned big bathtub and there’s nothing she can do about it.
But then the world…tips.
The pull of gravity spins about her.
Suddenly she’s not falling, but rising, rising up toward the surface, her legs pointed toward what looks like a pool of stars below her—no, above her.
She awkwardly flips herself over and looks up, lungs screaming for air, as she flies up toward the pool of stars. Then she realizes it’s not quite a pool, exactly, but a hole, just like the one she fell through…except the stars in the sky she’s seeing aren’t right at all.
She punches through the surface of the water and launches herself up, surging for air, gasping hugely.
Her fingers find stone. She grabs onto it and clings tight like a child first learning to swim. Once she catches her breath she looks around herself.
She stares.
“What the…What the fuck,” she breathes.
She’s in what looks to be a gazing pool set in a courtyard between two giant, towering buildings, each of which resembles a flowering anemone. The ground of the courtyard is covered with white gravel, upon which sit broad, white marble tiles, forming a grid. Golden light flows from nearby doorways, creating honey-colored slashes across the gravel, and standing at odd angles on the tiles are statues of…
Wait. Those aren’t statues at all.
Her skin crawls as she realizes six Voortyashtani sentinels are standing in the courtyard with her, their massive, hideous armor flexing ever so slightly as they breathe. Mulaghesh tries to stay perfectly still in the water of the gazing pool. She’s made a lot of noise so far, but none of them stand or react to her—just like when she had her vision before.
She waits. Nothing happens. Then she stirs up her courage and says, “Hey—hey!”