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Cernunnos and Aran's game in the sea-cave lasted a little over an hour, by Raguel's reckoning, and to be fair to the two, it did grow pleasant enough over time. It was good to feel those muscles used again. Raguel had not fought, or struggled, or done much with them for a few days, except walk and climb.

Official affairs took Aran away. Cernunnos tore the threads on Raguel's wrists and ankles, freeing the two from each other, and offered to spar with him in earnest. Raguel clasped Cern's arm, and shook his head. Cern pulled him into an embraced, unfortunately soaking them in each other's sweat.

"I am a bit shaken," Raguel said, his smile fading.

"By what, Brother Raguel?" Cern kept his arm around Raguel's shoulders, and led the exhausted knight onto the beach, where the two fell on gentle sand together. The sun was low, and it was just after dawn. It was hot - which, given it was the start of Autumn, was very strange. Raguel didn't have the energy to voice his question. "Speak. I'll hold you still."

"Aran tells me the plague is natural, and that God has abandoned the Order," he said, wearily. "Or stopped providing as much. Magdalene has, then, died for nothing."

"Do deaths normally have purposes, Raguel?" Cern's fingers rubbed small circles in the warrior's shoulders. "Your gift to the Order of Paean's ritual has been helping, at least where the message reached them. Either way, I thought you were questioning your use for that god."

"You'd like to think so, I'm sure," Raguel sighed. Cern's divine nature was no longer in question for him, nor was it at all exciting, at that moment.

"I have hoped so." Cern pulled him a little closer.

Raguel sat up, but not to avoid his friend.

"I am considering you," he said, honestly. "I cannot claim serious loyalty to the Order, now, nor the Lord that left Magdalene to die. Are you... the power, behind these lands? Do the Hierophants worship you, as natural as you are?"

"No." Cernunnos' hand curled around Raguel's hip. "They worship the world itself. They do like me. I am their friend. You could be, as well."

"I don't have the will to make love right now, Cernunnos, my life's laws and lessons are being shattered from birth onwards."

"I don't mean it that way, this time," Cern said. Hubbub, Cern's snake pet, crawled out of Raguel's collar and around his neck. "I only wish to comfort you. I do not need your worship, nor anyone's, or I would not be alive. I know you have a good deal of strength, and you will certainly meet the last Hierophant, and certainly earn what these months of travel should get you. I will be here, after you are done."

"On this beach?"

"No, no. I'll follow you. It's easy."

"I suppose it would be. You can probably be a fish." Raguel had no idea why he said that, but talking came easily with Cern. He closed his eyes. "Will you keep watch, if I sleep?"

"You needn't ask such a thing." Cern's hand slid into Raguel's long hair, and he pulled the man back down onto the sand. "Go to sleep, little one."

Raguel smiled, openly, and fell asleep.

-

Cern was still there when Raguel woke up, and Hubbub had slept on Raguel's belly. It had started to rain, but it seemed close to midday.

Next to Raguel, a Spider had deposited his armour and ankh in a little bag.

"Hello again," said Cern. "Have you thought any further about it, and us?"

"I was asleep," Raguel said, groggily.

"That doesn't mean I know what you were thinking." Cern's hand scuttled in place on Raguel's belly like a friendly crab, and Hubbub crawled up his arm. "I imagine it was about your Magdalene, or that warlock back in the village."

"Neither, actually, I dreamt I was training a new knight, only to find I was naked, and I lost his respect" Raguel said. "It was embarrassing and gained me nothing. Will we be friends, if I refuse to worship you?"

"Yes," Cern said.

"Will you want me to kill for you if I do worship you?" Raguel asked.

"No," Cern said, brows raised.

"Good. I'll not do that anymore. Will you want me to preach for you?"

"I can manage that myself."

"Good. I'm not doing that anymore, either. What would you want?"

"I want you to love me, Raguel."

"For the last time, I'm not taking you to bed."

"You people are so obsessed with sex," the god said, and Cern wrapped his arms under Raguel's shoulders, pulling the groggy man up into his lap. "You constantly think about the topic and accuse us of doing the same just because we have it. No, my religion does not require you to make love to me, Raguel. It requires your love - higher love. You must trust me," but Raguel interrupted -

"If I join you."

"...yes, if you join me, and I would appreciate some prayer every now and then. A kind word. I can explain how to do that, if you decide to accept me."

Raguel leaned back into Cern's odd warmth and pliant muscle.

"I will decide after speaking with the Polypi's priest," he said, eventually. "I see that you want me, and I am grateful for that, Cern."

The god pressed his nose into Raguel's hair.

"There's someone else coming over the hill," Cern said, after a moment. "You'll not want me meeting him. Go."

-

Worl had never explained the Polypi in any detail. They lived in the sea, so would probably be communicated with only on their terms - Worl had lightly recommended Raguel take peaceful routes with them, if possible, as he could not face them on their own terms, in their underwater homes. A boat, he said, with messages in bottles.

They had many arms, he had said, and lived underwater, and there the similarities ended between one Polyp and another. They looked - Worl couldn't describe them, he said, as he'd never seen one. He only knew they were all different.

Polypi possessed an exquisitely complex sorcery, and it was witches and wizards who tended towards becoming one of them. In the deep sea, surrounded by its rich and diverse abundances, they concocted and cast. Scholars at heart, their culture was nonetheless egalitarian. Everyone knew everyone's spells, Worl said, as they shared them once written.

Worl must have known more, Raguel thought. Then again, when Raguel was little, he thought Worl knew everything.

He must have, because there he was, on the sharp grass poking out of the sand.

"Ho," Raguel cried to him, strangely relieved to see his former commander's gaunt face. "I have completed some of my quest," he added, suddenly overcome with the need to justify his internal changes with the success of his previous missions.

"Good morning, Raguel," the iron-haired man replied. "I left a little after you, and we sailed to a village East of here. I don't know if your efforts have worked, little Brother, but I believe they will."

That he could arrive so conveniently was odd - but no odder than the unnaturally warm weather, or talking snakes, or human spiders. Raguel just accepted it. There was no point asking for more news from the Order. Nor, indeed, was there much point in a theological discussion...

...at least, not unless Worl asked for the plague's source. He hadn't, yet.

Worl had left a little after him, so why did he know Raguel had sent anything back?

He must have known Paean's nature, and the serpents' healing magic. He knew - he must have known enough to guess what Raguel would have sent.

Worl watched Raguel reason his way into a comfortable silence.

The knight came back to himself, and embraced his friend, tightly, and for slightly too long than the Order's standards would recommend.

"Raguel?"

"I am only happy to see you," Raguel said. "Every face has been new, so far."

"You were used to new faces, before."

"I was used to killing them, Brother. This is different."

"Has it been? There was little faith back among the higher clerics that we could do anything about the plague but invade and take new lands." Worl's brows knitted, for only a second. The intricately etched crosses on his armour and vestments glinted in the moon. "You have obviously grown, Raguel. I like this new power in you. There is something you need to do, however, before you go into the Polypi's dens."

"What is it?"

"Something I have to do, rather." Worl smiled. He knew how Raguel felt when led with scraps.

"What is it?" Raguel frowned.

"You have to dive. I have to prepare you to dive."

"I have swum before," Raguel said. His elder leaned closer by a fraction.

"I can enable you to remain underwater," Worl whispered. "The magic has been appropriated, like your ankh."

Raguel's hands brushed over the near-forgotten thing. He wondered why Worl was whispering. They were the only ones there. Perhaps it was for effect. Worl could be melodramatic, sometimes.

"How?" he asked.

"Through a mark." Worl produced from his armour a strange needle, and a little ceramic bottle. He gestured for Raguel to lay on the ground. "You haven't been drinking, have you?"

"No, I'm not drinking." Raguel obeyed, easily enough. It was the most natural thing in the world to fall back into this interaction with Worl. The problems he had with the Order were forgotten.

"No, you have been drinking, or no, you're not drinking?"

"No, I'm not drinking," Raguel said. He softened his voice. There was something different about the bearded monk, now, something fearful. At an instructive glance from Worl, Raguel opened his tunic and armour, showing his bare front. "I am still strong, Brother, don't fret over me."

"You've done well," Worl murmured, affectionate. He dipped the needle in the ink, and whispered, "you've done so well."

-

Two hours of strange, slight pain later, black shapes like broad eagle-wings spread over the bottom of Raguel's ribcage. A blackness throbbed from these splayed wings, and Raguel's throat felt odd.

Raguel tested his breath - his nose, his mouth - but it was fine. He looked at Worl, who had been silent since telling Raguel he had done well, and was now looking at the sand.

"When you are in the water, now," Worl said, "you'll be able to breathe, but not normally. Remember the weight of water, compared to air. It will have to be done slowly. This will also only begin after you have slept, little brother, so that's what you'll do, now."

Raguel had been breathing more heavily at just the suggestion of what it was going to be like underwater. He felt along the black marks on him - the skin reddened around them - until Worl smeared something odd and green over them, which seemed to calm his skin down.

"It hasn't been long since I slept," Raguel said. "I should at least..."

Worl placed his palm over Raguel, just as he had many times before, and the warrior fell asleep in a second.

-

Raguel woke alone, as he'd expected to. The sun - blazing before - had begun to set behind the cave and mountains. There was no sign of human action around him in the grass, and there were no footprints on the sand, now.

Raguel stood up. He knew there was no decent excuse to take the armour with him under the sea, now that he knew he would not conduct this journey by boat. He stripped naked, and kept some straps from his undershirt to wrap the ankh to his forearm. It had been some time since he swam in the sea, and he looked forward to it.

The knight buried his armour and bag using the ankh's power to cut into the earth, then faced the water.

Out over the sea, Raguel saw the sky's blue on the water. It was still, and calm. The waters were ideal for fishing, but unoccupied by any boat as far as he could see, probably by some wizard's trick. Raguel felt that all of humanity was behind him, and an endless expanse in front.

He walked forward. Hard, sand-loving grasses gave way to soft sand under his feet. Soft, and a little hot from the sun's blast. The light faded a little.

He walked into the water, up to his ankles, a perfect cool against him. Raguel was not burned from the sun, but the water made him feel as if he had, and was now being relieved of it. With another few steps, he waded up to his knees, then his waist, then his arms disappeared under the water. The water's seeming analgesia overwhelmed him when it wrapped around his face and head, and with a black flash, thin slits opened along the sides of his neck.

Raguel was still breathing with the rhythm of sleep, and water came in and out easily with that effort. He needed it, and it came automatically.

Before him was a shallow slope going down from the sky-blue water to a vivid cobalt, and a 'forest' of long, thick kelps. The knight's toes gripped the silt gently as he made his way further down.

Halfway to the kelp, the sun had retreated further, pulling the darker blue water closer to Raguel. The water did not become cooler as it got darker. He was warm enough on his own, too.

As the slope evened out, the kelp hid even more of the fading light from Raguel, but the indigo colour before him was somehow more than natural.

Knowing he only had to go forward, Raguel continued, to a clearing in the kelp. The light was almost completely gone.

Then it wasn't: long, cream-blue lights flitted like birds from between the seaweed's trunks. Raguel focused, and saw that they were squid.

They circled around him. He looked up.

For the next few moments, Raguel forgot what he was doing. He knelt in the silt, and stared above himself at the circling squids' dance, a series of interlocking then fusing circles.

The silt shook and became slippery beneath his knees.

He knew, somehow, that he was safe.

A soft rope curled around one leg, circling down to the knee.

Another, round the other.

Another pair of slithering ropes wrapped twice around the column of his middle, and crossed over his chest, before they tangled around his arms.

The feeling of safety did not fade as one last arm, with broad clubs at their ends, pressed over his eyes, and he fell asleep again.