“That may be so, but we don’t have time for that, and your High Priest won’t be pleased if you keep us here long enough to endanger my chances. There’s a challenge beginning, and the entire protectorate is at stake. Your High Priest enjoys cheese, vodka, and fresh bread, none of which you’re very good at making here. If no one buys your chocolate biscuits, how will he be able to purchase his necessary luxuries?”

The acolyte repeated the terrible hissing and stepped aside. The other acolytes followed suit. Jack nodded, pleased.

“I thought that might be your decision. Have a lovely evening.” She flicked the reins, urging the horses toward the terrible maw of the black cathedral.

Sumi cocked her head. “Why is the village of scary fish-people where you get your chocolate biscuits?”

“It has something to do with shipwrecks and the tides, and to be quite honest, I don’t know. Every time I ask Dr. Bleak, he tells me it’s impossible to dissect the sea and orders me to leave it alone.” Jack’s face fell. “I suppose I’ll have to learn, if we can’t resurrect him. I suppose it’ll fall on me to be the one who knows.”

“A little knowledge never hurt anybody,” said Sumi.

“Perhaps not. But a great deal of knowledge can do a great deal of harm, and I’m long past the point of having only a little knowledge.”

Conversation died then, as the black cathedral swallowed them all alive. It didn’t move in any way in the course of accomplishing this feat; it simply lay in wait, the perfect predator, and let them escort themselves through its jaws.

The stone closed in around them, moist and jagged and dripping, drops of seawater falling from the vaulted ceiling to land on their arms and in their hair. Dots of bioluminescence lit the walls and spangled the dangling stalactites, which hung like so many vast, sharpened teeth. Jack drove blithely on.

“Who built this place?” asked Christopher.

“That’s a theological question,” said Jack. “Science says no one built it: erosion and time did the bulk of the work, and then a few faithful stonemasons came in and cleaned up the rough edges to make it suitable for their liturgical needs. Faith says the Drowned Gods are ageless and eternal, and could very easily have shaped the course of erosion while in this area, guaranteeing their faithful a place to worship.”

“What do you think?” asked Sumi.

“I think it’s not my place to comment on someone else’s religion. Science is my god. Lightning is my miracle, and storm clouds are my catechism. I don’t need anything else to give purpose to my days. I find my purpose in the scalpel’s shine, and the knowledge that I’m doing exactly what I was put in this world to do.”