Then even that stopped. Captain Davren Kael lay still, a dried husk in soaked uniform, every drop of water extracted and flowing across the wet floor toward the mask.
The shrine was weeping everywhere now. Water poured from the walls, from the ceiling, from the floor itself. But it wasn't water appearing from nowhere—it was the water that had been the walls, the ceiling, the floor. The moisture that had been trapped in the stone for millions of years was being pulled out, extracted, drawn toward the mask.
The carved scenes on the walls began to blur, to lose definition, as the stone dried. The rose-red color faded to pale pink, to gray, as the minerals that gave it color were left behind and only the dried stone matrix remained. Cracks appeared in the carvings—not from breaking, but from shrinking, from losing the water that had filled microscopic spaces in the rock.
The coffered ceiling began to sag. The carved rosettes lost their crisp edges, becoming fuzzy, indistinct, as the stone dried and weakened. Small pieces began to fall—not breaking off, but simply collapsing as the structure lost integrity.
The polished floor lost its shine, became dull, became rough as the water was pulled from its surface layer. The rose-red color faded to ash gray.
The goddess statue was crumbling. Her outstretched hand—the hand that had held the mask for untold centuries—was turning to powder, the dried stone losing all cohesion as its moisture fled. Her arm followed, cracks racing up from hand to elbow to shoulder, the stone falling apart, becoming dust.
Her beautiful face dried and cracked, the serene expression fragmenting, pieces of her cheeks and forehead falling away. Her eyes—those blazing eyes that had wept the first tears—collapsed inward, the sockets becoming hollow, the carved irises falling to dust.
Her robes, carved to look like flowing fabric, lost their fluid lines and became brittle, angular, before crumbling entirely. Her body fragmented—chest, waist, legs—all of it drying, cracking, collapsing into piles of gray powder.
Within seconds, the fifteen-foot statue was gone. Only a mound of dried, colorless powder remained where she had stood, and even that powder was releasing its last moisture—water seeping from the dust particles themselves, flowing across the floor toward the mask.
The pillars dried and cracked, their fluted surfaces splitting, chunks of stone falling away. The ornate capitals crumbled, the carved serpents losing their scales, their forms, becoming dust that trickled downward.
The walls were gray now, all color gone, all moisture extracted. The carved scenes had vanished entirely—not worn away but dried away, the stone too brittle to maintain detail. Huge cracks spread across the walls, the dried stone unable to support its own weight.
The entrance passage collapsed with a roar—dried stone falling, blocking the way out. The ornate facade beyond was crumbling, the massive columns splitting, the pediment breaking apart. The carved figures on the facade dried to powder, the geometric patterns vanished, the decorative urns fell and shattered into dust.
The canyon walls themselves were drying. The rose-red color that had made this place beautiful, that had inspired ancient sculptors to create their masterwork here, was fading to gray as the water was pulled from the stone. The natural striations became cracks, the solid rock became brittle.
All the water—from the bodies, from the shrine, from the canyon walls, from the ground itself—flowed across the wet floor toward Eliot. It moved in streams, in rivers, in a converging flow that spiraled around his kneeling form.
The water touched the mask and vanished—not absorbed, not splashing, simply ceasing to exist in any observable form. The mask was a void, a drain, a portal to somewhere else or nowhere at all, drinking endlessly, consuming everything that touched it.
The four dried corpses lay scattered on the gray floor—Petran, Mardek, the nervous-eyed militiaman, Captain Kael—all of them mummies now, all moisture gone, nothing left but dried flesh stretched over bones, uniforms soaked with the water that had been their bodies.
More water seeped from the corpses—from the bones themselves now, the last moisture in the marrow being extracted. The flesh began to crack, to split, pieces falling away as it became too dry to hold together.
The walls groaned, large sections falling away, exposing the dried layers beneath. The ceiling sagged lower, threatening to collapse entirely. The floor was a network of cracks, dry and weak, barely supporting Eliot's weight.
The last of the water flowed into the mask. The last drops from the corpses. The last moisture from the stone. The last dampness from the air itself—even the humidity was being pulled in, leaving the atmosphere so dry it hurt to exist in it.
Silence.
Absolute, crushing silence.
The corpses stopped seeping. The walls stopped crumbling. The last drop of water vanished into the mask.
Eliot knelt on dry, gray stone in a destroyed canyon. The shrine was gone—not transformed, but destroyed, dried to dust and collapse. The bodies were desiccated husks. The canyon walls were cracked and gray, stripped of color, stripped of water, stripped of everything that had made this place remarkable.
The mask pressed against his face, warm as blood, smooth as silk, fused with his flesh.
And somewhere deep within it, he could feel all that water. Billions of drops. The water from four bodies. The water from the shrine. The water from the canyon walls. All of it contained within the mask, compressed, stored, held in some space that shouldn't exist.
Now you understand, the goddess's voice said. This is what the mask does. This is what you are.
"I'm a murderer," Eliot whispered, his doubled voice cracking. "You made me kill them. You made me drain them dry."
I made you nothing. The mask did what it was made to do. It pulled water—from flesh, from stone, from everything. That is its nature. That is its purpose.
"Why?" The question tore from him. "Why does it need to take water? Why does it need to kill?"
Because the water must be stored. The covenant requires balance—water taken from the earth, held, then released where it is needed. The water-stones weep because I make them weep, because the mask holds reserves that can be distributed across the territories.
The shrine held water trapped in stone for millions of years. The bodies held water that would have evaporated uselessly in the desert. I collect it. Store it. Release it where it sustains life rather than being wasted.
"You're stealing," Eliot said. "Stealing water from the earth, from people, from—"
I am maintaining balance. Without me, without the mask, the water-stones would never have wept at all. The settlements would never have existed. Three thousand people owe their lives to what you now hold in that mask.
She paused.
And you will learn to release it. To make the stones weep. To sustain those lives. That is your service. That is why you were chosen.
Eliot looked at the dried corpses, at the destroyed shrine, at the gray wasteland that had been a rose-red marvel.
"I hate you," he whispered.
I know, She said. But you will serve.
And he knew She was right.
Because the alternative was three thousand deaths.
Because the water in the mask was now his responsibility.
Because he had become the balance between water and desert, between mercy and death.
That was the covenant.
That was the price.
That was what it meant to be chosen.