Vaterin, who you might recall, was very patient with me today.  It turned out unfortunately, but she was.  It only struck me later that her being so was what made up my mind.  Of course, if she had been impatient, which is more in her nature, I suppose…


    Vaterin was cleaning her brushes, seemingly unconcerned by what she had just proposed.  Go into the catacombs… to kiss?  She’s sensitive to the social gaze, we know that by now—she knows that by now—but there are dead people in there!  Then again, she has been going there to pray, so clearly it’s not foul.  And this is a monastic retreat turned cloistered college, I don’t think we need to worry about defiled dead rising.  I feel like, “Don’t go into the catacombs… because there are zombies would have been more motivational than just a generic imprecation against it.”  And Vaterin is trustworthy.  At times foolish—sorry, Savior, she’s just sometimes…—okay, at times rash, but trustworthy.  So if all she says she wants to do is hold my hands and give me a kiss, I believe her.  Probably a bit much of a trip for a kiss.  So kisses.  Still, nothing to clutch my pearls about, if I had them.


    As Marble deliberated, Vaterin set down one brush gently, barely making any sound beyond the gentle “tp” of wood on wood, and set about cleaning the next.  Her breathing was slow, deliberate—she’s nervous.  She’s worried she crossed a line.  Or she just really wants to get away from prying eyes—and when she noticed Marble watching her, she flashed a smile.


    Fine.  I get to make my own mind up.  Fine.  Power of Bernard, grant me your Bravery and protect me from fear, that I might steal a few cherished minutes with my sweet.  May my devotion to the teachings of Father Sauer, who is higher in Your eyes, be pleasing, even if I am not applying them in his intended manner.  In the sweet and holy name of the Supreme, Savior, and Spirit, amen.


    “Vaterin.”


    Her head snapped up from the brush she had been so patiently contemplating.  “Yes?”


    “Let’s go.”


    The brush found a place next to her easel with incredible speed, and Vaterin was on her feet and had taken two steps before she turned and appeared to realize Marble was not moving quite so quickly.  “You’re sure?”


    “I’m pretty sure.”


    “That’s not sure.”  She stepped back to her stool and reached for her brush.


    “For the sake of Goodness, Vaterin, I’ve made up my mind and we’re going!  ‘Do not quibble over words, for it only ruins those who listen’!”


    Vaterin laughed, and scratched the back of her head.  “If you say so.”


    This time, Marble was on her feet faster, and she grabbed Vaterin’s hand, pulling her upright and out of the workroom.  They left the adobe building of the College and walked amidst brush towards the Chapel of the Power of Ariel.  A not-cat, all spiky fur and lean tendons, darted across their path and Marble startled.  So I’m nervous.  It’s the catacombs, not Vaterin.  Really, we could be alone in the ruins of the fields except she’s afraid of the switchbacks.  They’re not that bad, but she hasn’t even tried to get used to them.  Instead she hauls water at breakneck speed through… I like her the way she is.  There’s something admirable in being determined enough to avoid the switchbacks that you learn your way through a labyrinth of dead bodies and the remains of a gem mine rather than confront them.  They’re not dead bodies.  They’re just sarcophagi.  The bodies are in the sarcophagi, but those lids are heavy enough to defy anyone laying on their back.  Now there’s a pleasant—where is the entrance to the catacombs?  I’ve spent as long avoiding them, longer, even, than Vaterin has spent learning them.


    “Vaterin?”


    “Yes?”


    “Could you lead?  I was making a point but I’m not sure where amongst the brush the entrance to the catacombs is.”


    Vaterin chuckled, not unkindly, and took the lead, arriving quickly at the entrance.  I wasn’t far off after all.  The carved stone doorway was at a shallow angle relative to the ground, one heavy stone door propped slightly open by a birch tree branch.  Vaterin slipped in her hands and heaved, the door only protesting a little, doubtless limbered by her frequent trips though it—until recently.  Brr.  That storm.  The dragon.  It seems like such a petty thing for a divine guardian to destroy an entire season’s crops over…


    Then they were in the catacombs themselves.  These, as far as Marble knew, predated the College of the Art of the Divine, their origins lost to the Age of, well, Loss.  Loss of life, loss of culture, loss of knowledge, loss of history.  A gaping void which only the light of the Wholist Church shone through.  The ceilings were perhaps seven feet high, the slightest bit claustrophobic and making Marble thankful for her relative shortness.  In their stone coffins, bodies were presumably stacked three high in little alcoves.  It was surprisingly well-lit within the catacombs, though the air was neither still nor stagnant.  It smelled of the sea—I guess that makes sense, the catacombs go all the way down to the mines, which are right on the ocean itself.  It took a few moments for her to identify the source of the light, as it was hidden in itself.  Small candles, pitch black flames upon them, lit the area.  One more lost art, Marble thought.  They’re like the lights in the Chapel.  The fires don’t consume the candles, they just… shine.  But you can’t actually look at them and see them, you just see that it’s not dark.


    Marble realized she was babbling to herself, in a sense, and that she was incredibly nervous among the dead despite her invocation for bravery.  “Vaterin… could we go down further, into the mines?”


    “We could, yeah.  They’re lit by regular rune lamps though, and they’re closer to the ocean, so its damnably—sorry, uhm… accursedly cold down there.”


    “Weren’t you proposing we stay close for warmth?”


    Vaterin looked at her with furrowed brows for a moment before she took Marble’s meaning, and then her pale skin suffused with a blush that extended all the way to her ears.  “I, uh… had not… I mean…”The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    It was then that the Orth itself shook.  The floor beneath them crumbled, rocks fell from the ceiling, hemming them in and blocking their escape though the door.  Marble was aware of this only a few moments later, however, the collapse of the catacombs themselves such a sudden shock of sound and movement that she couldn’t process it.


    “Marble!  Are you alright?!” Vaterin shouted over the residual rumblings of the ground.


    “I think so!  I fell, but I landed alright.  Somehow.”


    “Is the ground beneath you stable?!  I’m hanging on by one arm to a sarcophagus!”


    Marble tapped the ground tentatively with her foot.  “I think so, yes!”  The next sound she heard was the thud of Vaterin dropping to her level of the tombs.  As the shock passed, Marble reconnected with her other senses.  She could hear the ticking and grinding of settling stone, smell the dust, dirt, and must of broken rocks and fractured, ancient corpse holders—sarcophagi, she sternly corrected herself.  I know the word.  I had a surprise.  I fell.  She became aware of pain in one ankle.  I fell, but not badly.  “Vaterin.  We need to get out of here in case it’s still unstable.”


    “To do that we’re going to need to get some help, I think.”


    They set about shouting in turn, their voices echoing back at them in a manner Marble found not the least bit reassuring.  After Lord-only-knew how many sandglasses, they heard voices.  Someone was calling, “Sand!  Get me sand from the waterfront!  I don’t think the ground is stable, from the look of the chapel, but I can stabilize it if I have a focus for an invocation!”


    “I think that’s Clay,” Vaterin murmured.  She was holding her head high in much the same fashion as she had in the Chapel, doubtless putting on a brave face for Marble.


    It’s only fair.  We wouldn’t have been down here if it weren’t for—but she had no reason to think the catacombs would collapse.  They’re only older than recorded history.  Be fair, Marble.  She let out a shaky laugh.  “It does sound like him.”


    The ground shuddered again, and Marble was forced to agree with Felspar’s assessment of the collapse.  “Father Supreme, please let us get out of this alive,” Marble whispered.


    “Amen,” Vaterin said.


    “Whoever’s down there!  I’ve got the earth I need for an investiture, I’m going to try to fuse the rock so it can’t fall any more, and then we’ll work on getting you out!”  The change, when it came, was subtle.  The ticking of the rock stopped, and the smell of dust gave way to that of only the bodies whose rest had been disturbed by the collapse.  A cheerful thought, pre-Loss zombies.  Skeletons, probably.  Maybe even just dust, after so long.  Whatever can’t rise as undead is fine by me.  “It should be stable now!  Give us some time, we’ll get a path and a rope down to you!”


    “And then,” announced the stern voice of Father Sauer, “you will give account for yourselves as to why you were in the catacombs to begin with!”


    Vaterin turned to Marble and smiled.  “Well, clearly we’re not going to die at this point.  I don’t think the good Father would waste his time and energy hectoring the deceased.”


    Marble groaned.  “Can we not talk about the deceased until we’re away from the cracked sarcophagi?”


    Wow.  We’re in more trouble than I thought, Marble wondered, as not only Father Sauer but also Mother Superior Honora of the Savior Crucified was waiting to lecture them.  Wondering at just how much trouble she was in took a back seat, however, to the devastation before her.  Where the spring had been, all the way to the Chapel of the Power of Ariel, the ground had collapsed, sunken.  Green runes shone on the Chapel itself, and it looked like the stone beneath it had been reshaped into an arch supporting what would have otherwise collapsed with the rest of the ground.  More pre-Loss wonders.  It looks like fire rune magic, but applied to the earth… but that’s impossible.  If you try to score runes into something with earth, it just abrades it.  This looks like a giant sinkhole.  We barely draw on the spring, even less now that the crops are washed out, why would it…


    “Marble Bitumen, are you listening!” Father Sauer snapped.  “You could have been killed!  It’s just after evening services, so I would hope you didn’t have sins to confess, but the loss of any life before its appointed time is a tragedy!”


    “The catacombs are out of bounds for students.  It is, at the very least, impolite to disturb the rest of the dead,” Mother Honora chided them.


    “It was the dead that drew me to it.  It’s a very restful place, very quiet and lending itself to contemplation!” Vaterin said, defensively.


    “While I am loathe to come between anyone and the Spirit of the One God, the catacombs were off limits for good reason.”


    “You knew that it was unstable?  That would have been good information.”


    “Vaterin.  Stop arguing with the Mother Superior,” Marble murmured.


    “Ah.  Right.  Sorry.  I mean, my apologies, Mother Superior.  I had gotten into the habit of cutting through the catacombs because…” Vaterin swallowed.  “Because the switchbacks terrify me and I was not equal to the challenge of overcoming my fear.  I will pray on it, that at least when I leave Tourmaline Isle I will not be guilty of the same fault.  I’m sorry that I put us in danger, I had no idea that—”


    “The relevant Power is Bernard,” Marble murmured, cutting off Vaterin’s nervous babble.  Brave of her to admit her fault.


    “There are a number of Powers she could meditate on,” Mother Honora said, right, she would know better than I the many Powers and Virtues, “and she and you will have plenty of time to meditate upon them as you devote yourselves to additional chore and prayer time.”


    “For what I hope will be the last time, might I prevail upon the two of you to tell us what you were doing in the catacombs?” Father Sauer asked sharply.


    “We were slipping away for a few moments together.  Nothing unseemly.  To hold hands and pray to the One God,” Vaterin replied.  “I had found peace in the catacombs and wanted to share it with Marble.”  Father Sauer raised one eyebrow.  “We were also going to kiss.  That’s all.”  Glad she was the one to say it.  “It genuinely is a place I found conducive to contemplation, and that is in full truth all we were up to.  The… teasing of the other students was becoming burdensome.”


    “Perhaps you should have devoted more time to your art and less time to romance,” Father Sauer said.  That’s going to sting.  I hope she doesn’t spiral because of that remark.  She’s sensitive about practice when it doesn’t benefit her while her angel is invoked.  His voice softened.  “But while you broke the rules of the College, I cannot fault legitimate faith, and there is no sin in your intentions.  I am sincerely glad you were not hurt.  After all, I am quite impressed with the portrait you’ve begun of me, Vaterin.”  Vaterin brightened visibly at the words of praise, but wilted again almost immediately.  “You will be on punishment detail until further notice.  If you were coming out here to pray, the added time for contemplation may not be a burden, but the chores are intended to be so and perhaps depriving you two of each other for the next month—” we’re on punishment detail for a month? Well, actually, I was already on light detail for meddling in Brother Pitch’s bullying of Write, so I guess it won’t be that bad.  I will miss Vaterin though. “—will drive the point home.  Now then, to your dormitory, and I want no less than nine repetitions of your prayer beads.  Nine, for the Virtue of the Student, which you are, and for the Student’s Power of Protection, which you sorely tested.  Go.”  Nine repetitions?  Of the whole of our prayer beads?  That will take… oof.  This is going to be a long month.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to be prayerful, Lord, but I already spend so much time in prayer.  I suppose we are called to be in constant communion with the One God, and I do fall short of that ideal, perhaps this will be necessary correction.  Thank you, Oh Lord, for your rod, which leads me along straight paths.  Thank you too, for your mercy, that your correction was exacted at no more cost than a scraped ankle.