The tin was already in his hand. He popped it open and plucked out a crumb. It was one of the smaller ones. Proud of his restraint, he dropped the ruby red particle into his left eye.

"Oh! Japheth, why now?" came Anusha's voice from nowhere.

Captain Thoster glanced back. "Eh, what's that?" His eyes squinted with vague puzzlement.

Japheth asked, "What was what?"

"Thought I heard someone say your name. Not happy with you, neither."

Japheth shrugged. "You're hearing things, Captain."

Thoster frowned, but turned back to sloshing along the trail after Seren.

Japheth cocked his head slightly to regard Anusha's armored form, which was blurring into his perception. He gave the phantom a half smile and winked. "I'll be all right," he whispered. The armored head gave a small shake, and then faded. Either he hadn't taken enough dust to perfectly resolve her presence, or she'd decided to leave. Because she was disappointed in him? The thought concerned him. But it was a pale sort of concern, attenuated by the euphoria that accompanied the first moments after partaking of traveler's dust.

Japheth melted into the moment.

The mangroves thinned ahead, revealing the first of several greenish gray structures. Like coral in texture and in their seamless solidity, the structures were not rough jumbles of growth, but rather stood in coarse parody of more mundane buildings. Walls, doors, windows, towers, and spires were visible, separated by plazas and courtyards, and many clear pools. Structural lines sometimes seemed to converge too sharply, or diverge where they should have stayed parallel.

Or perhaps the lines were perfectly straight, mused Japheth. Maybe it was just the dust.

The kuo-toa settlement lay in murky dimness under the debris of sentinel wakes. The smoky veil overhead gave the illusion the village lay within a subterranean cavern. Bestial kuo-toa moved purposefully between the structures, but a few played in the pools, cavorting and splashing as if human children. These kuo-toa were not goggle-eyed and sticky-skinned, like Nogah and her kin, though they were just as awkward when moving on land. But the creatures gained something like grace when they darted through the surface pools. Watching them move, an undercurrent of something Japheth couldn't quite name brushed him. Some churning dread, squirming just below the surface, like worms hidden in an apple.

That last feeling was certainly the dust, he thought. Or, then again, perhaps it was a true perception-perhaps his enhanced senses were picking up the traces of Gethshemeth's control over these hapless and partly metamorphosed creatures.

Nogah sidled up to a particularly large building. Glyphs, disturbing in their sinuosity, were carved in a frieze all over the edifice. The ex-whip motioned the rest of them to follow her, and then slipped into a small side entrance.

Not a single kuo-toa noticed their passage. Their guide was proving as good as her word. She'd said her previous ownership of the Dreamheart would empower her, and she hadn't lied.

Nogah waited for them in a low-ceilinged vestibule. Three basins were carved into the walls, each resembling an open-mouthed, upward-facing fish. Clear liquid spilled onto the floor from each gaping mouth. Beyond the basins, two arched corridors provided deeper access into the structure, both lit by a wan yellow radiance.

"What do the scaled ones get up to in here?" asked Thoster.

Nogah merely pointed to the right-hand archway and grunted, "This way leads, past many windings and disputed ways, to Gethshemeth's audience chamber."

"You don't say?" blurted Japheth.

"The Dreamheart. It tells me much. Now do not distract me with prattle, either of you. We are close! I must fully concentrate on hiding my connection to the relic from the great kraken. If he discovers my presence too soon, before I actually stand in his presence, Gethshemeth will slay us all easily, or command his minions to do so."

Japheth looked at her, squinting. He could almost see the merest hint of something, a thread of energy spiraling out from the kuo-toa's forehead. The thread plunged across the chamber and into the passageway she indicated. However, overlaying that, Japheth's dust-enhanced eyes noted a glimmering haze, something superimposed that was less like a thread and more like a long, sucker-covered appendage…

"Are you certain he doesn't already know we're here?" Japheth asked.

"Of course," huffed Nogah. "I spent far longer with the relic than this upstart creature."

Thoster laid a hand on Japheth's shoulder. "She's our only hope, mate. If she's right, we've got a shot. If she's wrong, we're all dead already. We just ain't figured it out yet."

The warlock frowned, but he was having a difficult time working up enough concern to argue. It could be, in truth, the dust was feeding him untrue visions, and he was drawing unwarranted conclusions. That was its downside, he philosophized. Well, one of its downsides.

Nogah advanced, following her thread. The more Japheth looked at the sensory impression, the more it appeared as a wriggling tentacle. He tried to blink the association away.

The hall quickly became a narrow staircase leading downward. Relief-carved kuo-toa heads emerged from each wall at intervals, their eyes gleaming yellow.

"We've just descended below the water level," Nogah commented. "If we were outside, we'd be swimming now." She said this last bit somewhat wistfully.

"And I'd have turned back," replied Seren.

The stairs continued their descent, mercifully clear of water.

Past a switchback, the stairs leveled into another straight passage. The passage was slightly narrower than the stairs, and the lights Were less frequent.

The sound of falling water slowly grew, as did Seren's frown.

The tunnel opened into a wide space lit by a trio of sculpted kuo-toa busts some thirty or forty feet above. The area was dominated by a central pool, around which several shrub-like plants grew. An aroma that mingled honey and blueberry hinted at flowers, though Japheth spied no blooms. A dry platform rose marginally above the water's surface at the pool's center. Bones lay scattered upon the platform, along with bits of cloth, spilled coins, and other objects. On the far side of the pool, Japheth discerned an archway leading into a completely lightless passage.

Ripples dappled the pool. Thoster advanced alone and gazed down. "Albino fish, everywhere," he reported, "and a spiral staircase, drowned beneath the pool. It descends a long way…"

"It is not a pool, it is our path," intoned the ex-whip.

"What!" exclaimed Seren. "I told you I cannot and will not swim!"

"Don't you have a spell to give yourself gills?" asked the first mate, Nyrotha, his voice hoarse from disuse.

The wizard replied, "Not since the Spellplague, damn it all! I'm heading back to the ship. I'm done with this foolish expedition!"

The ex-whip strode to stand next to Thoster, then looked back to regard the rest of them. She said, "Fear not. You may descend these stairs without drowning. The pale fish, see them? They are rune-charged creatures. In their presence, you could walk the depths of the sea floor as if strolling through a green meadow."

"Really?" Seren's interest in magical lore battled with her anger at the thought of drowning. Anger that cloaked healthy fear, Japheth figured.

Seren and the warlock both eased up to the pool's edge, Japheth saw eyeless slivers darting about, each pulsing with pale radiance. Seren extended a hand, her brow furrowed with concentration. Then she smiled. She reported, J "How extraordinary! I'll have to take a few of these with me after-"

A twinkle of greenish light wrenched Japheth's attention up. Concern struggled to pierce his dust daze. He should probably warn the others. When they approached the pool, he had I vaguely noticed several figures on the garden's periphery, hiding in the shadows. Perhaps the figures were not mere statuary as he'd first assumed. Perhaps…