Page 101 of Lore of the Tides

A lilting tune was coming from farther in the cave. It was haunting yet comforting.

“Lore.” Hazen’s voice trembled. “Please tell me the singing is coming from your book and not a being luring us to our deaths?”

Lore cocked her head. Listening. She couldn’t make out the words but... “I think it’s the book. It’s guiding us.”

“Well, I wish it wouldn’t.” Hazen shuddered. “It sounds like a ghost.”

“You are a siren and you don’t like the singing?” Finndryl quipped.

“Our songs don’t sound like this.”

“Nothing natural sounds like this,” Finndryl agreed.

But to Lore, the song was a beacon, a promise of the grimoire’s proximity. And that, in this unsettling labyrinth, was a comfort.

They trekked. The passage of time seemed not to exist here. They could not see the moon as it traversed the sky or feel the sun’s rays as they awakened the earth.

They walked in the dark, the weight of the earth oppressive above them. When they reached a tunnel large enough for them to sit, they rested. When they grew too tired, they dozed off for a bit, taking turns to keep watch. But never for long; always they pressed onward.

It must be day, but her book did not slumber as it usually did. Her magic continued to light their way. Was it because of the proximity of the sister grimoire? Could herDeeping Lunegift its sister’s magic to Lore despite the moon being at rest? Despite her not yet making a bargain?

The tunnel they traveled began to narrow. The air grew humid, the sound of water droplets echoing louder. The rock snagged on Lore’s tunic, and when she turned sideways, it squeezed her chest. Lore was small, and she could hear Finn and Hazen struggling behind her.

Finally, just when they all thought they could go no farther, thetunnel spat them out into a vast chamber. Moonlight, impossible moonlight for they were so far underground, spilled through a fissure in the ceiling, illuminating smooth, obsidian walls that shimmered with an ethereal glow like polished mirrors.

“Enchanting,” Hazen breathed, his wide siren eyes reflecting the silvery light.

Finndryl, ever vigilant, drew his sword as he scanned the cavern. “No immediate threats,” he reported. “Beautiful, but deceptive. I sense magic woven into this place.”

Lore nodded, her gaze tracing the intricate patterns formed by water droplets clinging to the walls. “Moonlight and mirrors,” she murmured. “An alchemist’s playground.”

A faint hum resonated through the chamber—the magic whispering.

Finndryl began to sweep the chamber, looking for a way out. “The corners are seamless,” he remarked, running his hand along the wall in the far corner. “It’s as though they were carved from a single block.”

It was then that Lore’s breath caught in her throat. The slim tunnel they’d just entered through was gone. It was as though it never was. In its place was a wall of unbroken obsidian.

“This must be a puzzle.” Her heart drummed in her chest. “We are meant to find our way out.” With a flick of her wrist she summoned her magic, the moonlight intensifying as it flowed through her. The water droplets quivered, shifting, morphing into tiny, shimmering mirrors.

Hazen swung around to look at Lore. “Whatever you are doing, it feels right. I can feel that the droplets are eager to join—become one.”

The person who designed this chamber—this test—was the same person who made the grimoires. Lore unclasped her satchel and slipped out her grimoire. She turned it this way and that, studying it. What would Syrelle’s grandfather have wanted when he built this chamber? There was a reason that moonlight filledit, not sunlight... though it was the sun book that was hidden somewhere in this cave system. Maybe it was a test only someone who had already procured the grimoire of the moon could solve.

“I wonder...” Lore directed the water droplets, weaving them into a complex arrangement on the far wall—a familiar pattern began to appear. A crescent moon, then below, a waxing moon, with the full moon in the center, only for the pattern to start over again in reverse, ending with a mirrored crescent moon at the bottom. Surrounding the moons was a circle of vines with small flowering buds. Moon moths circled the flowers in perpetual flight.

A perfect replica ofDeeping Lune’s cover.

The moment the last droplet in the room settled into place, the obsidian wall began to shimmer as though it were made of water. All at once, the wall dripped down like liquid tar, revealing a corridor cloaked in shadow.

“Well done, Lore,” Finndryl praised, his voice a warm caress in the cool air.

“Something tells me the book won’t just be waiting for us when we walk through there,” said Hazen as he followed Lore into the passage.

“Something tells me you are right,” said Lore, the hairs rising on her arms as she spied a hulking form waiting for them at the other end of the passage.

A towering figure blocked their path—a sentinel between them and another cavern. Eight or nine feet tall, its skin was tree bark, its limbs branches. Lichen and mushrooms sprouted from its head. Its ears were elongated, pointed at the tips like daggers, twitching slightly as if listening to the silent screams of its victims. A cloying aura of decay clung to its bark, a smell of damp earth and rotting leaves, hinting at the unnatural power lurking beneath its skin.

“Don’t bother turning around; the obsidian wall is back in place.” Finndryl’s voice was quiet beside Lore.

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