‘Where are they going?’ he whispered.

To the Under Temple.’

‘Is it permitted for a stranger to observe?’

‘Anyone may accompany the dead on their last journey. Here. Take one of these with you.’

She placed a waxen lotos candle in Acir’s hand. The wax felt smooth and cold. It gave off a faint drowsy scent.

‘What should I do with this?’

‘You will see.’

The funeral cortège was winding its way below ground. Acir followed at a respectful distance. He had read of the underground reservoirs and cisterns beneath Sulien… but he had not until now realised the extent of the Undercity.

The tunnel opened out suddenly into a vast, dark hall. By the soft light of the lotos candles borne by the mourners, Acir saw that they stood on the rim of a great, dark reservoir, its waters as smooth and black as a polished mirror. The high-vaulted roof of the hall was supported by painted pillars, each carved with a pattern of lotos leaves and sinuous, twisting snake-creatures.

One by one, the mourners passed by the bier, respectfully touching it and murmuring words Acir could not catch. Then they knelt at the water’s edge and gently placed their candles on the smooth black surface. Soon the cavernous hall gleamed with a myriad floating candle-stars, their white flames pale and insubstantial as will-o’-the-wisps.

Now they will seal the body in some subterranean tomb, Acir thought as the last mourner rose from the water’s edge. One of the presiding Priests moved forward.

One voice began to sing… and the others joined it.

The bier-bearers lifted the bier on its poles and moved forward too. The two foremost bearers dropped to their knees on the edge of the reservoir and the bier tilted towards the waters. As the singing swelled, the shrouded body began to slowly slide into the water.

Acir stared, frozen in the shadowed archway. They buried their dead in the reservoirs? The singing echoed and re-echoed around the vaults as the body disappeared, sinking beneath the black waters. They must have weighted it with lead, he thought numbly.

The black water stirred; the lotos lights shivered and some went out, extinguished by the sudden violent turbulence. It was as if, Acir thought, horrified, some water creature – or creatures – lurked deep beneath… and the singing had brought them to the surface.

The singing had ceased. In the silence, all the mourners watched the writhing of the black waters, watched as one by one the lotus candles went out. And then the waters stilled as suddenly as they had erupted.

The Priestess with the torch stood on the rim of the reservoir, gazing calmly out over the waters.

Shaken, Acir waited until the last of the mourners had left the hall and only the Priestess remained. Only then did he venture to approach her, still holding his unlit lotos candle, the wax now warm and soft in his sweating fingers.